Eye Candy Refocused: Director's Cut

VCA Pictures

Genre: Feature

Director: Jim Holliday

Cast: Shelbee Myne, Pat Myne, Randi Rage, Katie Gold, Sindee Coxx, Herschel Savage, Jill Kelly, Shayla LaVeaux, Felecia, Sydnee Steele, Tina Thomas, Cheyenne Sexton, Tex Sexton, Taylor Moore, Coral Sands, Ian Daniels, Mark Davis, Wendy Knight/Daniels, Solveig
Non-sex roles: William Margold, Jim Holliday, Gemini, Renee LaRue, Fiero, Randi Storm, Tawny, Blondi Anderson, Deja Blew, Judy Moon, McKenna Blair, Shamiqua, Michelle, Cassie, Clay Hyde, others uncredited

Length: 144 minutes

Date of Production: 11/1998

Extra's: This was another case where the extras were pretty cool, especially considering when the DVD was originally released. They included the generic photogallery, cast links, and three trailers, but also three special extras. The first of these was the Jill Kelly full dance scene lasting about 5.5 minutes as she stripped off her pink and black PVC outfit on the stage of the strip club (Déjà vu's). Keeping in mind that before porn, she was an award winning strip act that a lot of guys found appealing, the short but sweet extra was a nice addition to add value. The second was the Shayla LaVeaux and Sydnee Steele full dance scene where the two dressed up as glittery cowgirls and worked together for six minutes. It was another tribute to their skills worth watching repeatedly. The third special extra was a short interview with the director himself, Jim Holliday, describing the movie in his terms. He mentioned his status as a porn historian, the twenty five girl cast ("18 or so doing sex"), and his method of shooting, though this one only lasted 2.5 minutes.

Condoms: Yes

Audio/Video Quality: Eye Candy Refocused: Director's Cut was presented in the originally filmed 1.33:1 ratio full frame color as shot by director Jim Holliday for VCA Pictures back in 1998. The picture was crystal clear and had a wonderfully diverse cast as seen on the front DVD cover. The fleshtones were accurate thanks in large part to the flat and plentiful lighting, eliminating grain and other visual defects in a manner I wish contemporary companies would at least consider. This was another one of the early Holliday flicks that made great strides to cleaning up the picture and camerawork substantially and should be recognized as such. The audio was presented in the usual Dolby Digital stereo English but the vocals appeared to be looped in a few cases, the dialogue slightly wooden at times, and it sounded hollow less frequently than previous volumes in the series. The music was trademark Jim Holliday style as provided by Scott Reno & the Vancouver/Reno & the Rumrunners (featuring Scott Reno, Reno Scott, Ed Monton, and Cal Gary). The music was all original and actually fit in the action, with the lyrics working better than average for the action; the kind of breezy and fun stuff I always liked about Jim's later efforts.

Body of Review: Eye Candy: Camp Fuck A Lot was the recent remake flick that got me thinking about how much I truly enjoyed watching the movies of Jim Holliday by VCA Pictures years back before he met his untimely demise. It included the original flick as a sweet extra (I had never seen it until then as it was unreleased on DVD) and I thought back to a time when porn DVD extras tended to really suck, and in a bad way, with a few exceptions including some of Holliday's lengthy works. In a sense, they spoiled me (carrying over even today) into expecting a lot of fuck for my buck during the late 1990's and early 2000's. Well, as part of my look into Jim's works for the company, I got a chance to revisit Eye Candy Refocused: Director's Cut, part of what the company called their Platinum Plus Collection at the time. No advertising gimmick, this label meant you'd get a lot of material worthy of your hard earned dollars and stroke seed and not cost an arm and a leg in return. This movie was another one dealing with a college setting with a cat burglar bit tacked on too, making the silly formula of the master director even better than ever. The cover put it like this: "When EYE CANDY became a runaway best seller, a sequel was only natural. EYE CANDY REFOCUSED is just that. Refocused on many fronts...Holliday and his repertory Angels were refocused to bring you more girls - 25 - and hotter and dirtier scenes - an even dozen in fact. Refocused to bring you a wackier plot involving the attempts of the girls to get back inside the mysterious Deja Vu Club while dealing with a team of cat burglars stalking the campus. You finally get to meet the elusive Professor Hawkins. For fun and fluff originality, combined with raunchy sex, get set for another taste of EYE CANDY. Warning - most people watch Jim Holliday movies 15 minutes at a time...simply because they become preoccupied with satisfying themselves. If you like EYE CANDY, you`ll love EYE CANDY REFOCUSED...15 minutes at a time will take you over a week." If you're still interested (and you should be), here's a quick look at the scenes by cast and action, noting a lot of condoms were used thanks to the AIDS mini-crisis that claimed numerous performers:

Scene One: Footsie Pop: Shelbee Myne, a curvy bleach blonde making the transition from make up artist to performer (always spelling her words, earning the nickname "spell check"), joined her then-husband Pat Myne on the bed to suck his dick. She might not have been considered the hottest looking gal of the movie but she could suck a mean dick. Pat returned the favor by licking her pussy and ass, going straight into anal sex as he gave her what she asked for. Her dirty talk and enthusiasm were nice, leading to him popping on her feet for her to lick clean in a display of flexibility.

Scene Two: Pixy Chicks: Randi Rage and Katie Gold, two of the lesser known Angels of Jim Holliday's world, were up after the tease filled credits rolled, lounging on a blanket outside as they orally gratified one another, including some extensive foot fetish material. This led to some rimming and the scene faded away for Mr. Margold to harass his students.

Scene Three: Blow Cop: Sindee Coxx, wanting a little cop love, sucked the meat pipe of defective detective Herschel Savage in the classroom as she prepared her statement. She could've sucked a golf ball through a garden hose by the looks of it, leading to a short little vaginal romp and titty pop.

Scene Four: 3 Munchketeers: Jill Kelly, Shayla LaVeaux, and Felecia, playing the three munchketeers, had a lesbian scene in the bed. For a long time, I thought these three were inseparable given the way they always seemed to work together, each giving a lot of oral love to the others in turn. The stated rimming was once again a primary focus, with some toy sucking and toy play to spice things up. Shayla seemed to really enjoy the vibrator up her perfect pucker but it was a sweet little scene all around, regardless of all the toys and tongues used.

Scene Five: Pop Roxx: Sydnee Steele, in one of her first scenes in porn, newcomer Tina Thomas, and Herschel Savage, were up next after he interrupted their little lesbian tryst together. It took place outside in the perfectly lit sky that enhanced their looks so much (well, not his looks but you get the drift) with the oral turning into a hummer and vaginal screw before the pop shot to the big tree trunk.

Scene Six: Poprageous: Cheyenne Sexton, another newcomer to porn with all the curves and freshness needed to make the transition from stripper to performer, was up with her husband, Tex Sexton, on yet another blanket outdoors in the afternoon sun. He licked her ass and she sucked him off in return, before they boned. I have to admit that I hated her implants (they were too large and didn't move when she screwed actively) but it was how fast they were done that bugged me the most, ending in one position and a pop shot to the butt.

Scene Seven: Babelicious: Taylor Moore, Coral Sands, Randi Rage, Tina Thomas, and Felecia, were up next after the spelling bee and short respite by the pool with most of the female cast members. The quintet went right to work sucking, fingering, and otherwise getting frisky with one another, including some anal play after they all seemed to snack on ass crack. There was once again foot fetish stuff for the perverts out there, the ladies making a point of keeping their heads down and asses up to the sky in order to look visually appealing.

Scene Eight: Gum Ball: Shayla LaVeaux, one of the leading Angels of the movie, was up next as she jerked and sucked off Ian Daniels while sitting on his face. He ate her perfect pucker as though it tasted like gumdrops (insider joke for Holliday fans) and she reciprocated with some sweet deepthroating leading to a short vaginal fuck. I almost thought that was the end of it when he plundered her pucker doggy style, hitting it as hard as he could while she was moaning loudly.

Scene Nine: Lay Day: Jill Kelly, the lead of the movie (featured standing up on the left side of the front DVD cover), was up next as she had sex with Mark Davis on the black leather couch. He ate her for a moment but she wanted to suck his cock so he did what any proper gentleman would do; let her! The screwing was vaginal and quite active, moving into anal where he did all of the work as she diddled herself and made with lots of dirty talk. It ended when he popped on her ample chest.

Scene Ten/Eleven: Fun Drip/ Good N' Juicy: Wendy Knight, Shelbee Myne, Coral Sands, and Katie Gold, were up next in what VCA deemed two separate scenes (as listed) at the Déjà Vu strip club on the stage. The action was the same basic dynamic of the other lesbian scenes with lots of oral, lots of fingering, and lots of attention to rimming each other with a switch up midstream to have Shayla, Jill and Sydnee to go at it together (Shayla and Sydnee finished up the dance routine shown in more detail in the extras portion of the scene). In all, it was a great bit of action and the second camera angle came in handy to showcase the ladies from a medium shot angle over the close up featured in most of Holliday's works.

Scene Twelve: Chick Clit: Solveig, an all natural gal with the weirdest name in porn, was up next with "old spotty", Herschel Savage, on the bed. She sucked him off, he ate her out and they screwed in a couple positions, ending with anal. He popped on her face to close out the sex parts of the movie with some closing plot aspects and eye candy finishing it up.

Summary: Eye Candy Refocused: Director's Cut was probably my first look at what kind of great stuff Jim Holliday and VCA Pictures could offer on DVD; making me a firm believer in the medium (not to mention the company and director too) at a time when many people said it would disappear overnight. Years later, I still thought Eye Candy Refocused: Director's Cut was better than the modern tribute flick, Eye Candy: Camp Fuck A Lot, but also worthy of your consideration as a title many fans would call a classic. Granted, there was a lot of truncated scenes and I've since grown to want longer scenes rather than many more scenes so I rated it as Recommended but it really does belong in the collection of every modern porn aficionado, along with at least a dozen other titles by the master director.