The New Behind The Green Door:  The New Behind The Green Door is another major re-envisioning of a classic porn from Vivid. The original Behind The Green Door was a major milestone in adult entertainment and helped further bridge the industry and popular culture. It was one of the darker, more bizarre of the classic porn (can you imagine a porn with seven minutes of psychedelic cum shots?!) and was one of the first adult films to feature an interracial sex scene.

Paul Thomas has had a long and successful career, much of which with Vivid Entertainment and is often tapped to re-image classic adult films like Throat: A Cautionary Tale (a modern remake of Deep Throat). Paul Thomas is best with darker material and is known for interweaving the narrative of a film with the sex, which makes him a great pick for directing The New Behind The Green Door.

For this re-imaging, Vivid has pulled out all the stops with a major production that features a large cast of performers, incidental sex scenes (which has become extremely rare) and on-location shooting in and around San Francisco. It's refreshing to see a company like Vivid launch a big feature at a time when many studios are producing scene driven films.

Sex Scene 1: Brooklyn Lee and James Deen

It's Christmas time and Brooklyn Lee and James Deen exchange gifts. Brooklyn gives James a brand new phone, James gives Brooklyn a new vibrator. The scene starts out with Brooklyn using the new vibe while sucking James' dick. He does some dirty talk and then throws her on the bed to fuck her. The sex scene is intercut with footage from the classic Behind The Green Door film as Brooklyn talks to James about her sex fantasy. It's a nice homage to the original film and it helps make this first sex scene more of a narrative piece than a full blown sex scene.

Deen then talks about his fantasy and them blows his load on Brooklyn's tits, just as she's about to cum.. "What the fuck?!" says Brooklyn, we agree. We would have liked to have seen Brooklyn orgasm!

There's quite a bit of narrative between this first sex scene and the next (over 10 mins) which establishes that our two stars are struggling with money, that Brooklyn is looking for her lost mother One of the really nice things in this narrative interlude is a short segment with Deen giving Brooklyn oral. At a time when every scene seems to be rigidly segmented, it's nice to see some incidental sex mixed in.

Sex Scene 2: Dana DeArmond and Steven St Croix

After a good amount of narrative Dana DeArmond takes Steven St Croix into the shower for some wet fun. The scene starts off well with some nice tease and Steven St. Croix eating DeArmond's ass. She returns the favor with some foot action and oral which is followed by Steven St. Croix fingering her. The couple does ultimately end up fucking on the bed where Dana DeArmond gets fucked in the ass, but the hottest part of the scene is actually when St Croix is fingering Dana DeArmond. The chemistry is right, the action is great and it's a hot scene.

Another interesting thing about this scene is how it's intercut between the party narrative and the following sex scene. This really helps re-enforce that this film isn't just a collection of scenes but a real MOVIE.

Sex Scene 3: James Deen, Ash Hollywood and Penny Pax 

This is the scene we see in flashes during the first scene when James Deen is talking about his fantasies to Brooklyn (although it doesn't get as in depth as he describes). It's shorter than we would have liked and focuses on Ash Hollywood and Penny Pax both giving Deen oral. The scene ends with Deen shooting his load on Hollywood and Pax. Not sure why this didn't go the full distance, the pairing is a great one and we would have LOVED to see more.

After the third sex scene there's a good amount of narrative, it's here where we see some key San Francisco landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and Ghirardelli Square. We also get some more non-scene incidental sex with Brooklyn giving a little oral during a dialogue scene.

It's just about at the hour mark that the film transitions and we go into the erotic world of the "Caligula Club" (the "new" green door). As Brooklyn makes her way through the club we are treated to a whole bunch of short sexual vignettes.

Sex Scene 4:  Brooklyn Lee, Nat Turner, Jon Jon and  Prince Yahshua

The Original Behind The Green Door was known for having one of the first major interracial scenes in porn, it was a BIG deal back then and thankfully it has become something that's a normal part of adult entertainment. Here Brooklyn Lee takes on three guys in a very solid sex scene. Brooklyn is superb and the chemistry between her and the rest of the guys are great. Sometimes in a group scene it seems like it's more two people fucking with others waiting, not so in the scene which is a real well integrated scene.

Like some of the other sex scenes, this one is intercut with other action, two smaller side sex scenes (including one with Chanel Preston) which compliment the main scene. There's also the original Behind The Green Door playing in the background which this sex scene then mirrors. Brooklyn's scene work is so solid here, it's a strong case for her to snag a performer of the year award.

Sex Scene 5:  Brandy Aniston and Richie Calhoun 

In a film with such a strong dedication to the narrative and interweaving the elements together this last sex scene feels like a complete tack on. Yes Richie Calhoun plays a key role in the main narrative, but it really doesn't make all that much sense for the film to revisit him having sex with Brandy Aniston. Once we are figuratively "Behind The Green Door" it's a left turn to come back out and see other people have sex.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this scene with Brandy and Richie, but there's also not much to distinguish it from the other random sex scenes out there. Vivid made such a strong bet on this film, this scene felt a little like they were hedging that bet.

While the Brandy Aniston and Richie Calhoun scene is the last formal sex scene in the film, there is an odd scene with Herschel Savage and Brooklyn Lee that could only be chalked up to Paul Thomas weirdness.

The film does wrap up and then swings back around to show what happened to James Deen's character, which by this point feels a little extemporaneous.

Audio & Video: The picture quality on The New Behind The Green Door is top notch, shot on HD Cam it often has a film like quality to it. Sound is also solid.

Extras: Our review is of a pre-release screener that didn't have the special features, we will update this and the ratings when it is formally released.

Final Thoughts: The New Behind The Green Door is really two movies in one. The first half of the film features some nicely connected sex scenes which lead up to the actual Caligula club, but it's the second half of the film that was what we really were looking for (and enjoyed most): a sexual playground with a cornucopia of sex.

Brooklyn Lee is simply phenomenal both in the sex and non-sex scenes of the movie, often upstaging James Deen who also delivers a competent performance. Brooklyn's work here is reason enough to pick up The New Behind The Green Door and will surely lead to some major accolades during awards time.

The other real star here is Paul Thomas. One might say that the kind of filmmaking that he does has quietly faded into the sunset with a predominance of scene based films. The New Behind The Green Door is a powerful statement that great adult entertainment, with compelling performances in and out of bed are still possible. It's also so refreshing to have sex in a porn that isn't a nicely sectioned off scene.  The porn industry often gets too pre-programmed and so fixated about how a film will get diced up online that it forgets that what we want to see in a great adult feature is sex and a LOT of it. We applaud Vivid Entertainment for making a film like The New Behind The Green Door, it's a risk and one we feel really paid off.

Our only real gripes about the film (other than the fact that there is NO FUCKING GREEN DOOR!) really has to do with the amount of time spent outside of the sex club and how the two parts of the film don't always fit together well. The the last scene between Brandy Aniston and Richie Calhoun is an unnecessary tack on and we would have really liked to seen more from the world of the Caligula Club instead of that last scene. But in the sceme of things, these are relatively small gripes (that is except the green door, damn it!!)

While it's impossible to compare the NEW Behind The Green Door from the original, this film is an enjoyable two hours of adult entertainment and a great reminder than adult entertainment features can still work in an age of web cips and segmented scenes. We Highly Recommend it.