User reviews

Where and how does this movie fit in any more?

A budget softcore movie, of which there are several from the same studio currently available, in a world where hardcore is available everywhere.

Any who watches it is clearly not doing so for the acting talent, quality of direction, production values or dare I say it the calibre of the women on frequent display. No, they are watching it for the boobs and butts.

So why watch? Why indeed.

An obvious cash-in on the 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' market, this is not recommended to anyone and is best avoided. I couldn't give it a one though. At least they had a go. And, like on sports day at a Progressive school, I gave an extra star for participation.

No pun intended - seems like there are many copycats out there. 50 shades made a lot of money so producers I reckon think: hey we can do that. Just put something out there, that sounds similar enough and the people will just throw their money at us. It is not as simple as that, but at least they have some nudity going for them ... if that floats your boat.

That said, the movie is quite simple ... and the cover (girl) may be promising a lot more than you'll be getting in the end. Just know that this may not be the movie for you if you think this has one hot (bed) scene after the other. There are other movies and venues to get that ... itch scratched if you want that.

A real time waster .. not in a good sense ... and the twist at the end does not really make it better ... though it is a nice touch ... "cleaning" things up ...

I watched this in under five minutes. The acting was atrocious. I know it's just a softcore porn, and the cast had to be full of muscular handsome men and beautiful women with great figures and ample bosoms etc. But seriously even in the cheapest hardcore porn videos they actually can sometimes act.

This would have been better if there was a) no dialogue, and b) a hardcore porn movie instead.

It was patently obvious that all the cast totally lacked acting skills and thanks to some quick IMDb research, I shall not watch the new Winnie the Pooh horror flick because some of the cast members in this are also in that one.

I said what was needed to say so there is no need to go over the synopsis of this codswallop!

Direct to Plex in the UK, this is the latest in the unlikely British sex film revival that has so far given us Dirty Work (also currently up on Plex), Darker Shades of Elise, Graphic Desires and Dirty Games. Summer (Danielle Scott) and her husband Dylan (Stephen Staley) are experiencing marital difficulties, due to his stressful job at a law firm. Being ridden too hard by his bosses during the day, means that he is often too tired to be ridden by Summer at night. When accidentally catching her friend Steph (May Kelly) having sex, and managing to talk Dylan into masturbating to porn, fails to spice up her sex life, Summer decides the only way to save her marriage is to book her and Dylan into a swingers retreat. Despite the Fifty Shades of Grey imitation title, Darker Shades of Summer is the kind of sex drama that the likes of Stanley Long and Derek Ford were making back in the 1970s, with only the use of mobile phones and tattooed cast members breaking that illusion. True to the Ford/Long model Darker Shades of Summer decides to have its cake and eat it when it comes to the swinging theme. Titilating the audience as Dylan and Summer enjoy various sexual encounters at the retreat, but then going down the sensationalist route of having their decision to swing boomerang back on them in the form of blackmail, infidelity and violence. It's nice to see Danielle Scott, who has been a standout performer in low budget British horror recently (most notably the two 'Doctor Carver' movies) get a lead role, and unlike in her horror movie roles she is seen naked allot here. Unfortunately she is badly let down by her male co-stars in Darker Shades of Summer, whose acting renders unintentionally hilarious what were obviously intended to be powerful, dramatic scenes. Although the actor playing her husband does at least have an amusingly wooden Joe Dallesandro type quality to him. However scenes between Summer and Simon (Jack Ilco) the enigmatic MC of the retreat who she falls for, suffer in comparison to Darker Shades of Elise, which had a similar toxic relationship theme but a much more compelling actor in the bad guy role.

Darker Shades of Summer is something of a companion piece to the same people's Dirty Games, which shared the same locations, same leads and supporting cast including the irrepressible Chrissie Wunna and Aquaman lookalike Mark Haldor. It's a slight improvement on Dirty Games -which had a memorable scene of Chrissie Wunna being knocked unconscious by a big black dildo- but was otherwise a dud. Yet while Dirty Games was afforded an Amazon prime and physical media release, poor Summer costs nothing to date, having been ditched straight to Plex. According to the IMDb the film isn't actually meant to have been released until March the 1st, so possibly Plex have prematurely ejaculated by putting this out at the end of January?

The heavily tattooed cast members means that if you do get bored by watching them having sex, you can at least pass the time by trying to read what has been written on them.