Sanatorium nearly caused me to wonder if I needed to talk to a psychiatrist for actually sitting and watching the whole movie! This is an attempt at a high budget movie with a plot and some sizzling sex. It fails miserably.

The plot is excruciating to follow and I THINK it's about a woman who was driven crazy because she liked to make porn. I am unsure who drove her crazy or why some creepy guy was threatening the lead character (Tabitha Stevens) or even what he was threatening her with. It involved some woman in a torture chamber, I guess. Confused yet? So was I!

The movie starts out with some pseudo claptrap politician going on and on about morals and values, the usual politician crap. He then returns to a hotel room and of course he has two women waiting in the bedroom. Our leading lady gives a dull diatribe about how evil he is and how it's guys like him that are the problem not porn stars and sex workers. Dull and forgettable though she tries to make it more interesting with penetrating stares into the camera and dramatic pauses that quickly lose their punch. What follows is a creepy woman/woman make out session that was anything but erotic.
That was just the first vignette and both Sigel and I were hopelessly lost. He ended up wandering out of the room and I didn't see him the rest of the evening!

I gather from the synopsis that Tabitha Stevens was supposed to undergo some crusade/journey that was supposed to turn her into a sexual warrior. This involved some pseudo shamanic rituals broken up by weird hallucinations that featured uninspired sex of all descriptions. None of the sex scenes were memorable and all had a creepy edge to them that left me wondering why the actors and actresses even bothered showing up for work! There was a whole lot of penetrating stares at the camera, done at odd intervals that left me wondering if I was watching a high school theater production with naked people. Whatever message they were desperate to convey was lost on me.

So after all these oddly non-erotic scenes of m/f sex, f/f sex, masturbation and some pseudo sun-ritual/ghost dance scenes our leading lady becomes a sex warrior poised to 'take down the bad guys' and show them that there's nothing wrong with a woman who loves sex. Huh? I'm sorry but I guess I don't see how having tons of sex and being hung by your skin proves anything to an uptight self hating system that abhors porn.

Is there a genre or category for creepy non-erotic porn? This would fit right in. It might appeal to viewers who can suspend reality and like to have their porn mixed with some message. Problem is the message gets lost in abysmal acting and lack luster performances. According to the DVD case this should be displayed in the couples section.

Our three leading characters are Tabitha Stevens, Sara Sloane and Kagney Linn Karter. Tabitha Stevens manages to look goofy or completely unattractive through most of the movie. Her penetrative stares are so frequent that they lose effectiveness and are boring. Her sex scenes are uninspired and she looks like she would rather be anywhere than where she is. Given that this movie's attempt at a plot revolves around her being a woman who LOVES sex she failed miserably.

Sara Sloane and Kagney Linn Karter were two bright spots in this movie. They actually seemed to want to be there and their scenes weren't hard to watch. I really have no idea WHY they were there as by the time they showed up I had thoroughly given up on following the plot but I did enjoy their scenes.

Not even Ron Jeremy could pull this movie up and make it work, I give him credit for trying.

The DVD features the full movie on disc 1 and on disc 2 there are bonus scenes, pop shots, director commentary, Tabitha Stevens interview, some behind the scenes footage, and photo gallery.

I couldn't even get interested in the behind the scenes with Tabitha Stevens though I did struggle through it. It was interesting to learn that the movie contained Ms. Stevens first interracial sex scene.

I like porn, I especially like porn with plot. I love erotica and even soft core porn can get me off. This movie was the worst movie I have ever struggled through. I don;t know if it was that I don't particularly like Tabitha Stevens or if the movie was just so bad that it wouldn't have mattered WHO was the lead in it. I'm leaning more toward the latter since I have seen movies where I enjoyed watching Ms. Stevens. Usually within the first few scenes of a blue movie I am wet and at least interested, I sewed through most of the movie and stared glassy eyed at the rest. None of the scenes were enough to get me going though a few were ok.