Movie Review, Gone Viral: An Hour of Solid, Sci-Fi-Tinged Sexy Fun
by Calico Rudasill
I’m not really a movie reviewer, so bear with me today while I fake it – because I’ve just watched one of those rare porn movies that makes it irresistible for me to watch (and to review, evidently), by drawing on a mainstream entertainment genre that’s near and dear to my heart.
I’m speaking, of course, of science fiction – a literary genre which was not only my obsession, but arguably my only friend as an awkward 80s teenager.
The movie I’ve just watched is ”Gone Viral, an Apocalyptic Pandemic Sex Film” from Wasteland.com and Urgent Haircut Productions. (I could write a whole separate post, btw, about how much I love the studio name “Urgent Haircut Productions.”)
Watch the Trailer:
Read On…
In the film, actor June Ann reprises her role as viral immunology scientist Dr. Sarah Connors, whose name is the first indication that you’re about to embark on a journey filled with nods to some of the sci-fi genre’s most popular works.
Immediately establishing the movie’s “new normal” vibe, the first thing we see as she arrives home is Sarah wiping down her keys and door handle with Clorox sanitary wipes. Over the phone, we hear Sarah’s mother speaking in the ‘sad trombone’ vernacular of the teacher from the old Peanuts cartoons, an early harbinger of irreverence and cultural references to come.
After shedding her clothes and letting down her hair, Sarah puts into practice the axiom invoked by many a health department here in the age of COVID-19: “YOU are your safest sex partner.”
Firing up a video on Sssh.com (Shameless Cross-Plug Alert!), Sarah reclines on the couch and parts the folds of her robe. A picture-in-picture scene ensues, as we watch both Sarah masturbating and the online footage of Lance Hart and Sadie Holmes inspiring her to do so, in unison. Among other things, the scene represents a clever means of working in some “couples” action while sticking to the socially distanced reality faced by the movie’s central characters.
Sarah endeavors to time her climax to match that of the woman in the scene she’s watching (I mean, ideally, who doesn’t do that when watching porn?), clicking her vibrator down to its slower speed in the aftermath of her orgasm with a look of pure, blissful satisfaction on her face. In other words, it sure looks to me that her research isn’t the only thing Sarah has down to a science, if you catch my drift.
Indulge me in another of my occasional side notes here: As I look at her sitting there in her post-orgasmic splendor, I’m happy for Sarah, no question – but watching this as a reviewer who doesn’t have the luxury of joining in with some solidarity self-fingering of my own, I must admit I’m more than a little jealous, too. But, I digress…
The Sex Starved Viral Quarantine Begins
From Sarah’s deeply satisfying solo scene, we’re thrust into the next section of the film, “Michael’s Quarantine Begins.” Sarah learns that Michael, one of her IRL lovers, has tested positive for the Coronavirus – and learns that Michael’s primary concern is “not being able to get my dick wet the next couple weeks.”
Reminiscing on the kinky fun they’ve had together recently, Michael asks about taking things into a purely digital space for the next couple weeks. Sarah is more than prepared, playfully responding with a crotch shot she has handy and the text “Like this?” “EXACTLY like THAT!” Michael responds. (Men are so easy.)
In the next scene, “A Private Sex Chat With Michael,” Sarah pulls out all the stops on her cyber charm offensive, decked out in a white lab coat that doesn’t stay in place long. Discarding the robe, Sarah strategically positions her laptop’s webcam and asks Michael if he’s ready to see her “spread wide.”
As it turns out, it’s not just her legs Sarah has in mind when asking that question. Playfully displaying a speculum and working its handle briefly before insertion, Sarah moans the device is “so cold” as she inserts it. (Oh, and that orgasmic look, the one that makes me jealous? Yeah, it soon makes another appearance.)
I don’t want to give any spoilers here, but if you assumed that the combination of Sarah’s question about “spreading wide” and the presence of a speculum was the least subtle foreshadowing in the history of film… Well, let’s just say you’re not entirely wrong about that.
Later, after making herself cum good and hard, Sarah tells Michael to let her know when he’s ready for another cybersex session, hinting that she already has something up her sleeve for the encounter that he’s just going to love.
The Live Cam Show Viral Invitation
We next see a brief segment titled “The Live Cam Show Invitation,” which immediately makes me picture the sort of arguments a couple could get in over the décor of their live cam show invitations, were those the sort of thing people had printed up and mailed off to friends and family like wedding invitations. Would the mother-in-law-to-be get deeply involved in such questions, I wonder? Ideally not, right?
At any rate, Sarah’s live cam show invitation is a little different than what I had pictured: It’s an invitation going out via blind carbon copy to “everyone I’ve fucked in the last year,” as Sarah puts it.
With the invitation duly blasted out via BCC, we’re ready for “And On With The Show!” as the next scene is aptly titled.
In a sequence delivered via a screen mimicking the display of a live cam platform, Sarah opens with a sultry pole dance. Nearby on the screen, a banner purports to offer the option to “Go Private With Covert Covid Now” as Sarah’s striptease continues.
Unfortunately for Sarah, her show is a little too well received, as she discovers when she logs in the next morning to find 23,000 emails in her inbox. Confused by the flood of requests for her Instagram address Amazon wish list and the like, it slowly dawns on Sarah: She has gone viral.
Before she can fully process that thought, her phone rings and she spots a Washington, D.C. area code on the display. It’s none other than Dr. Jack Moriarty (Colin Rowntree), the Program Coordinator for the Surgeon General in Washington “working on Coronavirus mitigation and treatment,” as Jack explains. And, as we learn from a quick flash to the conversation from Jack’s perspective, Jack is also one of Sarah’s new fans.
A Viral Pink Mask
The brief exchange between Sarah and Jack takes us into Chapter Two of the story, titled “Pink Mask.” (a nod, perhaps to Black Mirror?) Again, we watch Sarah arrive home, this time removing latex gloves and a mask before examining the contents of an Amazon package that has arrived. It’s from Jack, who has sent her a Malexa A.I. unit, unsolicited.
As we soon find out, this particular Malexa unit is a bit sassier than most, observing that Sarah has a “very familiar” name, prompting Sarah to roll her eyes and ask if it’s truly possible that Malexa doesn’t recognize it as an obvious Terminator reference.
We then follow Sarah through what you might call a “Groundhog’s Day” of human-to-digital-assistant interaction, with Sarah waking up every morning to ask Malexa what’s on her schedule, only to have the all too familiar schedule of a person living through a pandemic repeated to her: “Nothing.”
“I want to go play,” Sarah sighs, wistfully looking out her window.
Breaking the pattern, the beginning of a lazy, rainy day prompts an odd question from Malexa: “Want to make the day even more wet?”
Visibly creeped out, yet also clearly intrigued, Sarah somewhat reluctantly proceeds to take sexual direction from her digital assistant. “Open your dresser drawer and take out a toy,” Malexa helpfully suggests.
What unfolds is a great, hot scene and a wonderful spin on the interaction between man and machine in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey – or my personal favorite among films that have used this plot element, John Carpenter’s Dark Star.
(Another side note: I’ve been staunchly resisting getting Alexa, or Google Home, or any of the other digital assistants on the market, but after watching this scene, I’m starting to reconsider…)
A Viral Rise Of the Machines
I won’t spoil the thrill of this scene by giving you a full play-by-play of the Gone Viral finale here, but suffice to say it involves lots of Malexa’s weird computer voice, a dollop of hot wax, a butt plug and a whole lot more of that marvelous ‘Oh Face’ June Ann makes when she’s really letting go.
After Sarah finishes pleasuring herself to her new machine-master’s satisfaction – something that requires Malexa to get more directly involved in the action – we discover that she’s undergone something of a transformation. Again, no spoilers here, but if you’ve seen as many sci-fi flicks as I have, you might have an inkling as to what’s coming next.
In fact, to tell you much about the entire last 15 minutes or so of Gone Viral would be to risk all manner of spoilers, so instead I’ll limit myself to the sort of details that matter most to my husband, who has a tendency to fast forward to the sex, even when we watch porn together. That is to say, I will tell you the final sequences feature a motor-driven dildo, more delightful masturbating by June Ann and at least one totally unauthorized-by-Malexa orgasm.
Gone Viral is many things, including a hoot of a parody that ropes in a litany of classic sci-fi tropes, a handful of tour de force solo scenes from June Ann and one of the more original takes on pandemic porn filmmaking I’ve seen. What it most definitively is not, though, is a run of the mill porn flick – or even a run of the mill pandemic porn flick.
Where a lot of other pandemic-themed porn has been, more or less, the same old gonzo porn, just wearing face masks and gloves, Gone Viral embraces, absorbs and retransmits the strange, disconnected world in which we’re currently living in a much more visceral and fundamental way.
Importantly, though, the film echoes our world without being depressing or deflating and without sacrificing an ounce of eroticism or hotness. Hell, take out all the references to the pandemic, all the nods to classic sci-fi and you’d still have a handful of scenes any connoisseur of female masturbation would watch happily (and repeatedly).
So, if you love to see sci-fi mixed in with your porn, like a good laugh or just fancy the idea of seeing precisely what it is about June Ann’s ”Oh Face” that inspires such jealousy in me, add Gone Viral to your autumn 2020 watch list.
Oh – and maybe disconnect any digital assistants you might have lying around the house before you watch it, just in case.
Runtime: 61 Minutes
Director: Colin Rowntree
CAST:
June Ann – https://twitter.com/jadextraextra OnlyFans: https://onlyfans.com/jadextraextra
Lance Hart – https://twitter.com/lancehartfetish
Ashley Fires – https://twitter.com/AshleyFires
Vicky Vette – https://twitter.com/vickyvette
Colin Rowntree – https://twitter.com/wastelandmovies
Written and Produced By June Ann and Colin Rowntree
Studio: Wasteland Studios and Urgent Haircut Productions
Dates of Production: March 15 2020 through Sept 12, 2020
Date of Release: Sept 20, 2020
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