Influence: Vanna Bardot is a 2023 film written by Kayden Kross and directed by Derek Dozer that is a crossover of three of Vixen Media Group's best known brands: Tushy, Blacked and Slayed.
It tells the honestly thrilling story of Vanna Bardot (Vanna Bardot), whose family is in organised crime, but she wants to open a high-end sex club. Needing to raise the capital, she finds herself mixing with an assortment of characters from the criminal underworld, from organisers of underground gambling to crypto scammers.
With the help of her assistant V (Vicki Chase) and crypto guru O (April Olsen), she finds an opportunity to get her hands on millions of dollars – but can she pull it off?
I won't give away any more of the story than that, because you should really watch this for yourself. It disproves the notion that porn can't have good plots. It honestly rivals a lot of mainstream films in that regard.
Although there seems to be a trend in porn nowadays to provide a clip-show of the film at the start (something I really despise), this film takes a slightly different approach. Although the story is mostly told in chronological order, it does jump around in time a bit. It doesn't reveal any spoilers, but rather whets your appetite and provides a bit of foreshadowing (just a bit). It's an entertaining way to tell the story, and I appreciate the light-hearted narration that gives the film some added, slightly whimsical, flavour.
As you might expect from a Vixen Media Group production, this film is visually stunning; it has some great looking sets and the lighting is always on point. There's a lot of focus on vaping, which at first I thought was just a stylistic choice, but it actually has a lot of relevance to the plot.
The film is also musically impressive. There are some great choices of stock vocal tracks used in this film, but not only that, there is a catchy Bond style musical theme specially written and performed by Queenie Sateen, who makes an on-screen appearance.. I've created a Spotify playlist of all the vocal tracks featured in this film.
My only point of criticism is that some of the dialogue is difficult to hear, whether that's due to the actors' accents (Maximo Garcia who plays the character Precious in particular requires subtitles, which actually makes a dig at how unintelligible his English is) or a brief scene where the dialogue gets drowned out for some reason.
These are, however, minor blemishes on what is a fantastic film with a riveting story, brilliantly told, with stunning visuals and a memorable soundtrack. You owe it to yourself to check this one out!
★★★★★ 5/5