Hard-core shoe and foot fetishists will, I think, love it.
People who aren't hard-core shoe and foot fetishists, but who have a moderate interest in the subject, might like it pretty well.
People with no interest whatsoever in shoes and feet will probably find most of it mind-numbingly tedious.
When I'm reviewing erotica that's made for a very specific fetish -- such as High on Heels, the new Dita von Teese foot-and-shoe fetish DVD from Marquis -- I always ask two questions. "Will it appeal to people who are heavily into this fetish? And will it appeal to people who aren't heavily into this fetish? Will it appeal to people who have nothing against this fetish, who even have a soft spot for it, but for whom it's not the pulsating core of their erotic life?"
Or to put it another way:
If you were using this erotica to introduce your partner to your fetish -- a partner who doesn't share your fetish but is open to trying it -- would it help them see the appeal?
If fetish erotica simply puts the fetish on display, in a skillful way that's hot for folks who are already fans, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But what truly excites me is fetish erotica that gets inside the skin of the fetish; erotica that shows me what makes this fetish special; erotica that makes me feel, down to my clit and my bones, how it feels to be excited by this stuff.
High on Heels mostly falls in the first category: a well-done effort at giving hard-core foot and shoe fetishists what they want. But it also has shadows and tendrils reaching into the second category, gestures towards the heart of this fetish's fascination.
There's not much plot. A foot and shoe fetishist, Sascha, owns a high-end, high-glamour, high-heeled shoe store. Dita von Teese and Stacia come into the store, clad in latex and corsets and very high-heeled fetish shoes, and they demand (non-verbally -- there's no dialog) that Dita try on virtually every pair of shoes in the store. The scenes of Dita having extravagantly high-heeled shoes put on her feet, and taken off her feet, and of her posing and showing off each pair of shoes, are punctuated with Sascha's more blatantly sexual fantasies. Sascha on his back, with a half dozen pairs of feet and shoes stepping on him. Stacia dominating Dita, putting her into a pair of hobblingly tall shoes, and allowing/ forcing her to worship Stacia's boots. Dita and Stacia allowing/ forcing Sascha to dress in women's fetish gear, including a latex dress, make-up... and, of course, stockings and high heels. You get the idea.
The execution isn't brilliant, but it's perfectly fine, with a slick, glossy finish that accentuates the shiny subject at hand. The camerawork is professional, if somewhat pedestrian; the lighting can be a bit harsh, but it gives a good, clear look at what's going on. The music is pretty good: a nice break from the usual "thumpa thumpa" of porn, with a meditative quality that makes the scenarios feel less like a hard-driven rush and more like a lingering, drawn -out moment. The sets aren't lavish, but they're acceptable, and they're certainly lined wall to wall with hot, sexy shoes. There is an intermittent technical problem: a slight jerky blurring when there's quick camera movement. (It wouldn't bug me in an indie or gonzo production... but in a production that's all about glossy slickness, it's a little jarring.) The movie is pretty well made on the whole, but there's nothing about the artistry that makes it interesting to anyone but the most ardent foot and shoe fetishist.
Except the costumes. The costumes are exquisite. They're not just sexy and fetishy: they are inspired and inspiring, above and beyond the call of duty.
Now, here's the thing. The movie has long stretches -- long, long stretches, a lot of them -- where nothing much happens, except Dita von Teese putting on and taking off a seemingly endless series of beautiful fetishy shoes, or the camera panning slowly over shelves and shelves of beautiful fetishy shoes. During which fetishists will no doubt be in hog heaven. And non-fetishists will be drumming their fingers and wondering where on Earth they got the idea that this might be a good time.
I mean, I like shoes and feet. They're not my go-to kink -- if I'm surfing the web for a quick wank, foot fetish porn isn't what I'm going for -- but I get it. I can definitely get off on worshiping a nice pair of shoes or feet, or having my own worshiped. It's not alien to me.
And even I found these sequences tedious.
Mostly, "High on Heels" is an effective bit of porn catering to the fetish. And again, there's not a thing wrong with that. But it definitely has some elements that make it transcend the genre.
And the most important of these elements is Dita von Teese.
Part of it, of course, is that Dita is luminously beautiful. She has the composed, put- together look of a 1940s movie goddess, and an old-fashioned elegance that lends class even to the most crassly pornographic scenarios. Even when she's pulling up her skirt and her top in the back of a car to show her tits and cunt, even when she's masturbating in that car with one of her high-heeled shoes, she looks classy.
But a lot of it is her manner. Dita clearly loves shoes and feet, and her lust is infectious. She has this blissed-out, lost-in-the-moment quality, in both her face and body language. It's not a passionate impatience to get to the next moment; it's more of a passionate yearning to linger in this moment as long as possible. And she has an unerring model's instinct for how to position her body in a way that displays it -- and displays her lovely legs and feet and shoes -- to maximum advantage. She continually shifts her body from pose to pose... and every pose is a gem, a vision of temptation and seduction.
It's not my usual style. I tend to go for raw and fierce in my porn. But I definitely see the appeal. It's sort of what Andrew Blake kept trying to get at in the '90s, and never quite achieved.
And here's what it boils down to.
When Dita's face was on the screen, I was watching. I wasn't necessarily riveted, but I was interested. And when she was doing something other than putting on her twentieth pair of shoes; when she was meekly groveling at Stacia's feet, or teasing Sascha with her luscious feet and then cruelly withdrawing them, I totally got it about this fetish. I wanted nothing more than to worship at Dita's feet, or to put on a pair of wicked shoes and make her do unspeakable things while I flaunted them.
If I had no interest at all in shoes and feet, I don't think this movie would make me a believer. But for the parts that worked, for the parts that didn't have me screaming with boredom, it definitely cranked up my interest from a 4 to a 7.
(Conflict of interest alert: I work for a company, Last Gasp, that sells this DVD. That's how I found out about it.)
