While the opening minute of Neon Nights looks like a mainstream urban tale that begins with a passionate love scene from two very competent actors, what finally reveals the porn nature of the movie to unknowing eyes is the quick transition from tender love-making to fisting scene, which is quite a rare progression, either in porn or mainstream.

Neon Nights was directed by Cecil Howard, previously known as a producer working primarily with adult film auteur Henri Pachard. Just like with Babylon Pink and some other Pachard classics, New York City plays a bigger role than you’d expect from a smut movie, both in the storyline and the visual setting. Long, well shot and edited montages of the city can be seen a couple of times, and they do more than just establish a shot; they inform and give a lot more context to an odd story that definitely benefited from that familiarity.

The movie follows Sandy, a naïve yet curious teenage girl, played with reasonably nuanced innocence by Lysa Thatcher. After being caught about to have sex with her mother’s boyfriend, Sandy decided to run away from home and go to New York City, trying to find her identical twin sister who had escaped her mother’s house a while back.

As you would expect with a hot teenage girl hitchhiking her way to the city, the road to New York is not without its creepy encounters. Thankfully, in this genre this is a lot less cringe-inducing than in mainstream movies. The presence of a dodgy-looking magician – along with his horny and equally dodgy assistant – volunteering to drive her to her destination brings some offbeat mystical details to an otherwise believable story, but it also makes it all the more surreal, and truly awakens the budding sexual desire in Sandy, which you quickly realize is the point.

The legendary Veronica Hart and Eric Edwards, her sister’s employers are waiting back in Manhattan and receive Sandy, but just when you think this story might be leading towards a sisterhood sexual blooming or sorts, things start getting a little bizarre. All of a sudden this is not just about Sandy, or her sister, or New York City. This thing goes deeper, and it becomes an ensemble piece without any one thing being the focus of the story.

Porn has never shied away from addressing “daddy issues” before. This is certainly no exception, as some very twisted shit goes down later on. It’s not often that I get surprised by a porn ending, but I’m not ashamed to say Neon Nights did the trick. And even after I tell you that, I’m confident this is no spoiler, just an honest acknowledgment of an unexpected plot.

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