Abigail

Kayden Kross is at the top of her game with "Abigail", a stimulating showcase for Abigail Mac. This sets a standard of quality for the current transitional Adult Cinema scene, with potential of narrative/characterization to make a comeback after the Dark Ages of gonzo rule.

I was pleasantly surprised, expecting merely glossy art-porn, but instead we get a suspenseful 4-hour story with interesting characters and a caper-like structure.

Lending itself well to the vignette-style of modern porn, Kayden's screenplay involves an original variation on the traditional crime caper/grifters format: Mac plays Beth, a self-described "relationship fixer", who partnered with handsome Markus Dupree bamboozle couples into in flagrante delicto situations, to achieve a divorce or disentanglement desired by the client.

With other accomplices, notably Lena Paul in a delightfully sexy threesome seducing Mick Blue, they perform a sort of XXX version of TV's "Mission: Impossible", but with venal, cynical aims -these are not the good guys. The inversion of audience sentiments works very well in a porn context, and much suspense is generated by the couple's determination to be "all business", until inevitably hooking up in the final reels.

Anal sex is spoken here, but even as a nearly 4-hour feature KK's stylish direction is ultra-cool, whipping up Couples Romance content with an edge, and reminding me in the Adult Cinema context of the frisson of pleasure I had watching over and over in theaters way back in 1971 Mike Hodges' ground-breaking "Get Carter", which has held its luster right to the present day.