House of Dreams (1990)
Studio: DaViD Entertainment/Caballero
Directed by: Andrew Blake
Starring: Zara Whites, Danielle Rogers, Jeanna Fine, Saber, Nikki Wilde, Raven, Veronica Dol, Valerie Stone, Ashlyn Gere, Ashley Lauren, Rocco Siffredi, Randy West, Randy Spears, and Sebastian
Running Time: 1:15
Format: Single Sided, Single Layer
DVD Features: None

The First Word: House of Dreams is one of my favorite Andrew Blake films, and one of the early films by that landmark adult director. Unfortunately, like most Blake and Cameron Grant films, the low quality transfer severely detracts from one of the best adult films of its era.

Plot Synopsis: As is Andrew Blake's style, House of Dreams is a series of vignettes, or independent scenes, with very little plot and no dialogue. There's a very loose theme that ties all of the vignettes together, but otherwise, there's no plot. It's more like a hardcore photo fantasy, with beautiful women in beautiful surroundings. Accompanied by a light jazz soundtrack, it just feels like a classy film (and yes, film: it was shot on 35mm film and transferred to video). Notably absent are the screaming women faking orgasms and most of the standard porno peeves.

Zara Whites, a gorgeous Dutch star of the early 1990s, is the main character of the film. She's a house guest in a fabulous villa overlooking the sea. The movie opens with Zara masturbating on her bed, apparently dreaming. She has an out-of-body experience, as part of her "wakes up" and sees her physical self writhing on the bed. Her ghostly form wanders from room to room in the house, encountering different fantasies along the way. The first is set in a darkened room, lit by a purple black light, with Randy Spears and Danielle Rogers having sex while Zara plays with herself. Next, in a lesbian bondage fantasy involving riding crops, ball gags, handcuffs, and a face strap-on dildo, Zara is thhe elegant, high heeled slave to Jeanna Fine. Then, listening to a seashell that magically appears in the house, she's drawn to the rocky beach, where she sees two beautiful women (Saber and Nikki Wilde) caught in a fisherman's net. Cut loose by Sebastian, the girls play with each other before Nikki and Sebastian fuck on the rocks. Zara then has a threeway with Raven and a much younger, thinner, and foot-worshiping Rocco Siffredi. The sixth scene starts out again in a darkened room, but this time, Zara is illuminated by a long, moving fluorescent light bulb. Eventually, the scene becomes a three girl lesbian affair as Veronica Dol and Valerie Stone appear. Next, Zara drops a piece of mirrored glass on the floor, shattering it. In the cracked pieces, she sees a couple (Ashlyn Gere and Randy West) making love. Finally, the film comes to a close with Zara's wandering spirit reuniting with her body. The real Zara wakes up, and goes outside to find her host (Ashley Lauren) on the roof. Inexplicably, they both take turns masturbating and filming each other with a handheld movie camera before the movie ends.

Notable Performances: This film was one of my absolutely favorites for several years as one of the first adult movies I ever bought. It was mindblowing to see such gorgeous women having sex in exotic situations and was a far cry from the shot-on-video crap common at the time. Although it's not as good as some of his other films, such as Night Trips, I still really like House of Dreams. In fact, I like so many of the scenes in this movie, that I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite. Whether it's the nice looking blowjob that Danielle gives her hubby, the lesbian fetish scene with a small-boobed Jeanna Fine, the great standing fuck above the crashing waves between Nikki and Sebastian, the arial reverse cowgirl shot of Rocco's huge cock entering Raven's pussy, the lipstick lesbian threeway in the dark, or the short masturbation scene with Ashley, it's all good. It's just like a dream to me: really gorgeous women, free of implants (with the exception of Ashyln Gere), tattoos, piercings, or any visible flaws, softly captured on film. Whenever I think that porn is going down the tubes, I'll play this film as a reminder of how elegant an X-rated film can be.

Dislikes: None really come to mind; again, this is one of my favorite films. However, I've heard a lot of complaints over the past decade about this film, such as "it's boring," "it has no story or purpose," "it's not hardcore enough," "it's one of Blake's weakest films," and "it has too much girl-girl." To those complaints, I try to explain that Andrew Blake's projects really address a niche group: those folks who are looking for a fantasy, like looking at a magazine pictorial or watching a softcore video. It's probably not going to work for women and couples (no plotline and Blake tends to shoot a lot of lesbian scenes) or for the diehard porno fan who's looking for facials, anal sex, DPs, and the like (Blake's sex is boring and not nearly explicit enough for them). Blake is not an acquired taste--either you like his work or you don't.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with this DVD has nothing to do with the movie itself...read on:

DVD Notes: While I'm not screaming obscenities like I was when I saw the horrible transfer of Cameron Grant's The Dinner Party, I was let down to see the poor video transfer on the House of Dreams DVD. Even though the feature was shot on film, DaViD used a video master (a poor one at that) to do the transfer. Caballero claims that it's own DVD release digitally remastered from the original film elements, which should fix the problems that exist in the DaViD version. The problems with the video image are severe: there are several noticeable distortions in the top half of the picture where the image will bulge out a bit for a second. Next, occasionally the image will be out of frame, as the entire picture shifts down up to an inch, leaving a cooked black bar at the top of the screen. Finally, the colors are inconsistent throughout, sometimes being correct, but most of the time being oversaturated. Even though the image is sharp and free of pixelation, the defects are easily noticeable and distract you from enjoying this otherwise fine work of art. Finally, from a DVD standpoint, this one is about as no-frills as you can get. Not only are the menus quite basic, but there's not even a visual, let alone full-motion video, chapter selection menu; it's a text only list of chapters. Even though this was an early adult disc and even though DaViD didn't have access to the original film elements, this is a disappointing DVD from a quality standpoint.

The Last Word: I would avoid the DaViD release of House of Dreams and go with the Caballero re-released version--it may not be that much better in terms of transfer quality, but I doubt it could be any worse. At the very least, the Caballero version will probably have updated menus, packaging, and extras. As far as House of Dreams in general, I would wholeheartedly recommend it, with the caveats I mentioned above in the "Dislikes" section.