Hotel O (2002) Online

If you haven't gagged on the punning title, then like me you are fated to sit through the god-awful HOTEL O, a misguided attempt to bring Shakespeare to the porno audience. Before you blurt out "Why didn't I think of that?" get a grip - this one is worse than it sounds on paper. Since I'm well-known as a movie masochist, I bought all 3, yes HOTEL O and its two sequels (?!) so I have more enjoyment ahead, though in fact I am looking forward to watching a personal fave Havana Ginger join the cast.

I enjoyed a more recent Roy Karch film ANGEL FACE, which I suspect most people disliked but which I appreciated since it gave her first starring role to the talented Marie McCray. Here Karch rather foolishly had a light bulb go off over his head: old Bill's moor Othello has mixed-combo action written all over it. Why not go XXX with the Elizabethan era concept?

For the hard of hearing, the script keeps reminding us that this is about Othello, even explaining the pun early on (thanks, guys) and having lead Lexington Steele as OT wax eloquently from time to time. However, hiring Steele was a big mistake, not rectified until HOTEL O 3, in which Mr. Marcus has transitioned to center stage.

Steele's mannered performance, with a lot of tics and tells (like grasping his chin Thinker-like in thought) that constitute "personality" in his thousands of gonzo videos where he likes to do hosting and introductions in addition to just humping, is awful and it's a positive relief when he shuts up, dons a condom and gets down to the business at hand.

Nearly catching up with Sharon Kane as the most prolific actress in porn history, Nina Hartley certainly cemented her latter-day career arc of mixed-combo action with this role as Mona, short for Desdemona, a hooker with a heart of something or other. She's the main squeeze of Lex, latter sort of portraying an undercover cop working alongside Mike Horner as fake pimps in the title lodging whose front desk is manned by an actor with the strange stage name of Spermhead, and who is also credited with writing the video's rap music theme song.

Perhaps most irritating thing here, though it is admittedly a plot device, is having both black and white players effect a pseudo-hip Ebonic argot. It struck me early on that far from the realms of porn there must be a rap-Othello version of the play which jettisons Shakespeare's poetry in favor of a similar nauseating form of gibberish, but without the sex scenes I can safely say I won't be exposed to any such desecration.

Yes, the sex is the only saving grace to this farrago, and why the sequels will ultimately have some value in soon wasting my time to find out what happens in the saga. Karch ends Part 1 arbitrarily and pointlessly with hardly anything of note resolved. We get to see bad cop Horner (way too hammy for my taste this time out, probably thinking he was the only serious actor on the set and needed to pull an Al Pacino spitter type turn to impress us Shakespeare fans) get his comeuppance in the Iago role after rather stupidly trying to trick OT with various lame ruses and accusations concerning Hartley and big dicked Lee Stone who plays a real pimp.

Making strong sexual statements, besides the Nina/Lex marquee coupling, are Diana DeVoe, India and Monique all Black beauties in hot action, and sexy blonde Zana, who has amassed a very long list of credits but whom I had only previously seen in Lex's excellent HEAVY METAL II (in which as the saying goes, he lays pipe).