I really wasn’t looking forward to reviewing AdultEmpire’s horror section, until I saw Lexi Belle on the very first results page and thought that maybe there’s some potential here. Look, if I haven’t made it abundantly clear already, horror porn used to be very fucking boring back in the day. It was uninspired. It felt exactly like every other type of smut, except it claimed to be horror themed.
AdultEmpire has videos on backlog from over two decades ago, so as you can imagine, most of the smut on here is extremely disappointing in terms of indulgence in horror values. The whole thing’s a fucking joke. Sure, it’s a nearly endless library of quality smut featuring the likes of Lexi Belle and what have you, but what exactly are they doing to justify the horror tag? Next to fucking nothing. There are casual references here and there, like in the title of the movie, but beyond that, you’re just paying for a regular smut film, plain and simple.
Can’t Sort Old from New
The horror genre waited for a very long time, across many years, to eventually become a type of smut that producers genuinely care about. It’s not that directors were sitting on ass for all those years in the past – the industry just wasn’t ready for proper horror in porn. It was too expensive and no-one took the risk. If they know that the movie’s not going to make the money back, they won’t bother with a special effects team. Luckily, there are tons of new porn movies on AdultEmpire that are featured across this selection and those come with a lot more production quality than what we were used to back in the day.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a reliable way to sort these movies by release date. Oh sure, there’s an entire release date section that seemingly lets you check out the latest movies of the week, month and year, and I tried it. I checked out the latest releases and what did I find? A movie from 2008. These movies aren’t actually listed by their official original release date, but by the date on which they were uploaded to AdultEmpire. This is completely useless information. It’s as if you went to a laptop store to get a new computer and they showed you a notebook from 1998 that just arrived at the store. That doesn’t make it brand new, damn it. That’s not how… anything works. These movies are painfully impossible to sort and I hate that.
As it currently stands, your best bet in browsing through these titles comprehensibly is to just dive in at random and check out the trailers. All of these movies have trailers and they do a somewhat decent job at showing you what you can expect to see. I’m satisfied with the overall quality of the movies, too They’re all coming in at their source resolution. I can’t complain about that. Overall, the site is doing a fine job at peddling smut. It’s the lack of proper horror that gets my goat.
Buffy the Vampire Layer
The original understanding of horror porn seemed to have something to do with a tendency towards movie parodies. Why and how, I do not understand. It would make sense if they only parodied horror movies and if they went at it with attempts to actually scare or at the very least share some dread, but that is just not the case. These movies aren’t scary. Remember that Lexi Belle title I mentioned earlier? She does a fantastic job getting dicked, but the movie itself, well, it’s a parody of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You remember that show, right? The one that youngsters used to enjoy watching? Oh sure, it was aimed at young (18+)teens, but still, the show was vanilla as fuck and it certainly wasn’t scary. It’s a casual show that has to do with witches. Also, Buffy was a vampire slayer, not a vampire. It’s literally written in the title.
Why the fuck does the Lexi Belle title Buffy XXX have the tagline: “She sucks, but in a good way”. Beyond that being an absolutely dogshit and uninspired tagline, it implies that Buffy is the vampire. But, she has a fucking stake in the cover photo, so obviously, she’s not a vampire. I know I’m getting heated about the least relevant part of smut, but when you’re running a themed page on a broader content site, you have to at least consider the fact that some people actually give a shit about the theme. This isn’t decorative, all right? If you expect people to pay good money for this smut, the least you could do is take your job seriously.
Basically a Marketplace
All that being said, AdultEmpire aren’t directly responsible for these productions. They’re only involved in selling them. They’re a platform for purchasing videos, not a porn studio. This makes things a bit complicated. First of all, their lack of direct involvement means that they don’t owe you anything in terms of quality of content. They just have to deliver the video to you as it was given to them. Secondly, there’s the issue of timing. Most new porn productions arrive on AdultEmpire on time, soon after they’ve been officially released by their studios. Those studios seem to have some sort of contract with AdultEmpire. It’s simple enough.
However, AdultEmpire also make efforts to reign in videos from some more random sources that also specialize in professional smut and here’s where the seemingly endless backlog of old videos comes in. There are thousands of somewhat undiscovered videos that were made years ago but never really got to take off. There wasn’t anything wrong with them, they just didn’t receive the same digital marketing that we give videos today. So, you end up seeing them here, years after their release, along with the new movies that just came out yesterday. This is a crappy system.
What You See is What You Get
If the two types of smut were separated across sections in some way, then this would work really well, but they’re not. All videos are slumped together. When it comes to horror porn, well, as long as the original movie claimed to have some or any horror in it, it ends up here. That’s a subpar system if ever I’ve seen one. Something needs to be done about this, but seeing as how AdultEmpire is successful as all hell, I doubt they give a shit.
Considering how wide a spread AdultEmpire offer and how unaffiliated they are with the production of the smut, it’s safe to say that any commentary on the quality of the videos is wasted words. It would be more productive to just shout my opinions out of my window or dump them on a porn forum somewhere. The original porn studios will never hear about it.
Retro Versus Modern
The first type of horror porn on AdultEmpire is the retro shit that came out around 2010. I know I probably shouldn’t call it retro since it’s only a decade old, but what the fuck am I supposed to call pornography that is clearly an entire generation in the past? Last gen? Fine, we’ll go with that. Last gen horror porn features references to popular horror movies and characters with some makeup and general scene setup that sells you on the spooky vibe. This might include references to something ancient like Scooby Doo or something more modern like The Ring. You get the idea. Buffy XXX falls under this category.
On the flip side you’ve got more modern renditions that have a ton of special effects and framing. They even use film cameras instead of the usual porn movie cameras you’re used to seeing. I’m no camera specialist, but I know the difference when I see it. Porn movies are usually shot with a narrow lens that only really shows you the action. Hell, they use said lens to zoom in on the buttholes. It’s not exactly a cinematic experience. It’s more of a genital exhibition. The movie lenses give you a nice wide shot and they make things all the more dramatic when the pornstars are in the shot having scary conversations and what not. These movies sell you a lot better on the spooky elements, especially when the fucking starts.
Scare me Horny
Proper horror fucking, especially when there’s real exposition, should continue the horror that was previously established instead of throwing it out the window and continuing on like a regular smut film. If you forget that you’re watching a horror smut flick half way through the action, then it’s not a real horror production. It’s just a marketing trick.
On the topic of pricing, AdultEmpire stay true to their name and their tradition. These movies are expensive as shit, regardless of when they’ve come out. Every single movie costs more than $10 from what I can tell, with some going all the way up to $30. The prices vary and of course you get a discount if you don’t want to download the movie and instead only wish to watch it online. Check out the pricing yourself. It’s wild and expensive and you’re expected to pay per video.