GENRE: Straight Reality Compilation
DIRECTORS: Olliver DePlase
STARS: Billy Tyler, Dick Smothers, Jr. , Brooke, Charisma Cole, Lonnie, Haley Paige, Brianne, Kimberly Kane, Diamond Foxxx, Justine, Sarah Blake, Kelly Kline, Charmane, Mandy Bright
DATES OF PRODUCTION: 2003 - 2004
LENGTH: 120 mins with bonus material

Sometimes, porn producers can go too far. No, we are not talking about in XXX content. Unless it involves the baser bodily functions or underage individuals, the sky's the limit for hardcore histrionics. And it should be. Whatever the market (and the Supreme Court and Legislative Regulations) can bear should be the standard. But where the crafts of the carnal can go coo-coo is in the arena of artistry. Indeed, over the last decade or so, the visual vibe of a fuck film has become almost as important as the talent tasting ass featured in its scenes. There has been a metaphysical explosion in the realm of artsy and the fartsy when it comes to porno, a proclivity of style over suck-stance that can mar many a project. Now, there are some elements of this nookie new wave that can be embraced. Directors like Robby D and Michael Ninn may add all the actual plotting and character development they want to a tit and twat title and we'll line up for a linger. But occasionally, the canoodling can go overboard with flashy feather neon frou-frou getting in the way of all the reverse cowgirl (God forbid). And then there are times where the premise of a skin flick can be so psychotically strange that it fails to even register of the ribaldry meter. Thus is the case with the bizarre and quite boring, Welcome to the Valley. Advertised by production company Nectar Entertainment as their "first reality series" (whatever that means, and it's NEVER explained), we witness a day in the life of Nectar's newest production assistant, the completely devoid of personality ex-pizza boy named Billy Tyler. Through his dull, dead eyes, we get to go behind the scenes in the porn industry and see "how it's done". You can't imagine how lackluster the answer is.

The DVD:
There's going to be a great deal of inferring in this review, so let's get to the suppositions, shall we? Billy Tyler is supposedly a newly hired PA at Nectar. He is shown the ropes by the supposed owner of the company, Sean Logan (played by Dick Smothers, Jr, in a performance guaranteeing that grandmamma will NEVER like him best). As his supposed day progresses, he gets to meet porn stars, fuck porn stars, and make dates to create porn stars out of local lasses he runs into at Target. Interspersed among all the riotous rib tickling (yep, this is a comedy...that is, if comedy is defined as "funny as anal warts") and supposed reality show moments (our bilious William talks directly to the camera in soul-crushing confessionals) we get a chance to see some hopelessly humdrum hardcore action. Apparently, one of Billy's many job descriptions is to get boring blowjobs by the "up and comers" hoping to make a splash in sex films. We also witness a lesbian bath, a straight smut sequence between an actress and a crewmember and a final full on fuck between Bill and some semi-coherent starlet. It's strange to refer to the following five moments as "scenes" since they often play out as off-the-cuff instances of people caught in the act of being unclean. Anyway, specifically broken down into individual installments, we witness:

Scene 1: Divinyls Time on a Dirty Couch
As part of an audition, some skank walks into Mr. Logan's office and both he and Billy give the gal the once over, just once. Sean – again, performed by Dick Smothers Jr. like a doofus on dope – gets the little lady to lounge on his Goodwill reject couch and show off her furry nutkins. Then, he commands her to masturbate "with feeling". She does, almost. Then he wants some digital diving into both the bush and the butt. She complies. She assumes a really uncomfortable looking position on this dirty davenport and flashes her feminine fundamentals at the camera. Dick/Sean, not able to leave well enough alone, wants more finger loving. She complies. The scene ends. With a vacant, raccoon in the refrigerator light look to her face, the actress here seems about as sexed up and seductive as a sonogram. Her autoerotic manipulation resembles kindergarteners playing with thawed biscuit dough and she can barely get her skinny finger in her overly clenched bunghole. As for Billy and Dick/Sean, well, they seem about as exciting as a felon at a pre-trial hearing. The overall level or sheer witlessness makes these first few minutes in The Valley seem like an entire prehistoric era. Score: .5/10

Scene 2: Mr. Micro-dick Gets Lucky
Our first person POV camera catches an actress, who has just finished a lesbian scene in a boat, calling out for a cock. She picks a waif-like lighting assistant and demands he hand over his hog. Well, the minutes he exposes the fetal piglet the good Lord has lamentably left him with, you'd think the professional prick pirate would shout "pass" and head for the toy department. Sadly, she takes this tiny taddrin in her mouth and spends the next 10 minutes trying to inflate it like an inner tube. Seeing an actress who is typically used to a cock the size of cotta salami trying to perk up a pecker resembling a undercooked brown and serve is unbelievably asexual. Somehow, our crewmember's member stands at attention – after a rather routine version of 69 – and the couple starts copulating. Well, the rest of the gang want the lame lovebirds off the set and so the almost engorged pair run off to a maintenance shed to continue the fuck festivities. Our unlucky winner on Let's Pick a Dick does some reverse cowgirl on the suddenly sizable shaft and even executes a sit and spin maneuver to proceed to the regular saddle jockey position. They end up doing doggy and when our actress finally feigns orgasm, she literally runs from the room. Our tiny-tooled technician chases down the fornication fugitive and demands she finish him off. The resulting mediocre money shot caps off one of the crappiest scenes in porn history. Indeed, nothing more really needs to be said about how horrid this little "caught as it happened" excursion into excruciating non-erotica really is. Victims overdosing on Viagra could watch this sequence to cure their hyper-aroused hip shakes. Score: 1/10

Scene 3: Billy's First Blow
In a sequence that comes almost completely out of the blue, Billy pretends to be Sean/Dick and decides to initiate an actress into the world of Nectar entertainment. He forces her onto that same hideous hobo couch and asks for a sampling of her own self-sensating indulgence. She obliges and we are again treated to hands and fingers folding and fondling fleshy bits. But Billy just can't let the solo loving alone and he steps in, dick a flappin', looking for a little penis pandering. Our skeptical actress gratuitously gloms onto his gonads and blows Bill's bulbous baloney. After a few fecund flicks of the tongue, Billy gets to tit fuck the talent. Eventually, he's ready to release and our brave beauty sits back, smashes her breasts together and waits for the semen sendoff. After a couple of minutes, and a whole Hell of a lot of pud pulling, Billy expels his droopy DNA and the scene is over, thankfully. While the actress is interesting in a kind of Austin Powers "that's a man, baby" aspect (while her body cries "girl", her face suggests a 1950s female impersonator), the rest of this lox licking lunacy is just plain dull. Billy has all the sexual presence of a statue and his penis looks like a puppet in a ribald roadshow act (the head is always "bowing" forward whenever it is stroked or sucked). As a result, all we feel here is restlessness, wondering when the actual action will start up. Score 1/10

Scene 4: Lesbian Water Sports
A fetching young lady that Billy met in a mall parking lot decides to bring a friend along to meet this "famous producer" in his hotel suite. Billy, like the buttplug that he is, gave her the key to the luxury accommodation, but never makes it to the room as he's stuck in traffic. With an entire haven to play in, the girls pour some champagne, take a few sultry sips and then head for the bathroom. In a huge Jacuzzi tub, our main Miss strips off her skivvies and gets to know the faucet, and its powerful stream of warm water, a whole lot better. As she freestyles along the Orinoco flow, her gal pal keeps watch, and her hands in her own panties, behind her. Eventually, the liquid loving is not enough and the ladies share a sensual bath together. There is a lot of kissing and fondling and pussy is partaken of in stellar, sloppy slurps. So is the grape-based liquor as one little lady drinks champagne off the other girlie's coot. When a waterproof jackrabbit toy is introduced to the lesbian loofa, it's time to fuck and freshen up. Eventually, when both babes are satisfied, the scene fades out to Billy making some stupid comment. The best scene in the film is also the most sedate. Both of the Sappho sisters here show a great deal of passion, but they are shot in a very flat, unfocused manner. Things are happening below the equator most of the time, but the camera covers upper body horizons, leaving us wondering what's going on. There is better girl-girl action out there, but considering the shitty stuff on this DVD, the babe bathe is the pinnacle of provocative action. Score: 4/10

Scene 5: Billy's First Fuck
Billy somehow manages to get a different gal to choke on his chicken as a blowjob grows into another lamentable scene with our paltry PA. The lucky lady lunching on Billy's boner looks at the camera a lot, giving the impression that she'd rather be having a boil lanced than licking on this particular stick. A loud and disjointed session of 69 commences, with Billy's pussy eating skills matching perfectly his void, vacant personality. Moving to another part of Nectar's studios, it's time for our couple to give that cowgirl a good reverse rodeo roundup. Billy then climbs on top for some straight vaginal. When he's ready to rock and roll, his cock cream casualty takes the limp load on her belly. It cannot be stressed enough that, when the personal dynamic between the performers is awkward or without chemistry, the hardcore becomes rote and uncomfortable. That is clearly the case here. Billy looks like a novice going through the glossary of nookie nuances and his female friend appears to be fighting the urge to fall asleep. A typically apathetic way to end what has been a total waste of wanton time. Score 1.5/10

Why is Welcome to the Valley so horribly bad? Could it be the acting, which reaches new levels of lame ludicrousness at every turn? Is it the fact that the fucking and sucking are secondary to a dumb as dog dirt story about a fresh faced fool getting a dream job at a porn company, only to spend his time taunting the management with acts destined to get his sorry, shiftless ass fired? Maybe it's the complete and utter lack of focus, the film shifting between pseudo-serious sex and stupid sophomoric shit (which is supposed to be funny, remember. Amazing what people in the porn industry think is hilarious). This movie is literally all over the map in a mannered mess of hopelessly amateur antics. Director Oliver DePlase (even for a joke name, it's pretty appropriate) abuses the "point and shoot" method of moviemaking so badly that The Blair Witch Project becomes La Dolce Vita in style and cinematic showmanship compared to the POV puke here. Why Dick Smothers, Jr, a porn star in his own family freaking out right, would resort to playing a pathetic prick spouting lines about Nectar's "philosophy" and not getting a single slice of poon is beyond understandable. And the interchangeable nature of the actresses makes the hardcore that much more minor. No one stands out (except for the average Joe empowering crew member with the micro-member) and, at the end, we wonder what we've been put through. If this was a behind the scenes look at the porn industry, then Welcome to the Valley imparts no important information. If it was just a collection of featurette filler with some sorry sex scenes stuck inside, then the reality of this ersatz entertainment is clear. Welcome to the Valley is a joke, pure and simple. And unfortunately, it is on us.

The Video:
Presented in a fairly decent 1.33:1 full screen image, the transfer of Welcome to the Valley suffers from some of the familiar video variables. There is occasional flaring and some compression pixels. There are moments where flaws in the original stock element cause the screen to digitally "stutter" and we do witness some instances of very bad color correction. The main reason for the varying picture quality is that the material here is taken from almost seven months of Nectar production shoots. Whenever you mix and match cinematography and prints from differing time frames, the results will always be scattershot. And that's a polite word for the video vexing given to us by Welcome to the Valley.

The Audio:
There is one word to describe the aural aspects of Welcome to the Valley: Motherfucking shitty! Well, that's two words, but they more than ably describe the sonic stool we are forced to endure. The voice-over narrative by Billy is too loud. The recording of dialogue and action between the actors is so low as to sound like a whisper. Occasionally, mid-scene, sounds that were soft suddenly shift into decibel overdrive and you have to rush to the remote to modulate the noise. Sometimes, there is massive distortion. Other times, the soundscape is perfect. The Dolby Digital Stereo has its work cut out for it trying to tie in all these divergent elements into a single audio offering. It never succeeds.

The Extras:
Oh JOY! Another scene of Billy getting his wang in a wobble as we witness a sequence specifically labeled as left on the cutting room floor. Now, normally, this would suggest that the edited entity sucked so much monkey root that it should never be allowed to see the light of day. But Nectar allows us the chance to witness another witless exchange of bodily fluids between our zero hero and some unknown honey. The typical oral - reverse cowgirl – doggy – deep penetration sequence of events occurs, with occasional interruptions by a grizzled old grip who keeps admonishing Billy for balling on the job. By the time we get to the tame tool spewing at the end of the "extra", we too want to reprimand our Bill, only in a very recent Tarantino title manner. The slide show is basic and boring and the trailers are the usual show-all and tell little adult movie ads.

Final Thoughts:
One has to wonder what Welcome to the Valley was up to when it decided to show its ill-defined face on DVD. Since it fails to tell us, and doesn't offer many clues to make the deciphering easier, we are left to our own disturbed devices to figure it out. Maybe it's a star showcase for the primitive performing skills of Dick Smothers, Jr. and Mr. Mediocre, Billy Tyler. Perhaps the real president of Nectar lost a bet with a couple of cold, callous friends who demanded they be allowed to create a carnal treat all their own, complete lack of ability or talent totally beside the point. It could be that this was really an attempt at a reality show, a secret look behind the scenes of the day-to-day operations of an adult movie house. But Welcome to the Valley delivers none of the necessary factors that usually make fuck films fun. It's just a dull, desperate pile of pointless pussy. On the Disco Dirge Peter Meter, we're looking at a 1.5/10 folks, and you couldn't skip this title harder or faster across a pond of sulphuric acid in this critic's book. And unless the ladies like men with no personalities and even odder genitalia, they will find nothing naughty or nice here. So a Cohabitation Certification is rightly withheld. Family Business proved that a peek behind the scenes at the porn industry could be clever, funny and very insightful. All of those elements are completely missing here. This is one Welcome you'll be avoiding from now on.