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Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath
Rating: 2 Stars
Produced by Dan Cross. Directed by Wim Hof and Doug Jeffries. Videography by Charles Stevens. Edited by Fay Dubois. Starring Marcus Allen, Alex Le Monde, Kyle Lewis, Chad Thomas, Damon Stavros, and others.
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This seventh installment of All Worlds Video's Seven Deadly Sins has been a long time coming; the previous chapter surfaced in 2002.

The delay stemmed from strained relations between temperamental expatriate William Higgins, now working in Prague as Wim Hof, and the All Worlds powers-that-be. It's interesting that All Worlds releases have previously spelled Higgins's pseudonym correctly, with one f, but here-- in press material, on the box, and on screen-- the name is Wim Hoff, as if "Wim Hof" was not a credit option. And while Rex Ryder, who provides an introduction, calls the seven models in Hof's footage "the most beautiful men in Eastern Europe," none receives screen credit.

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Whatever backstage melodrama shaped its final form, Wrath was completed by writer/director Doug Jeffries. The three scenes shot by Hof, in which military officers use subordinates for sex, have little to do with vindictive rage-- the sin of wrath-- but they're reasonably watchable. An uncredited Vilem Cage brings energy and humor to an otherwise flat three-way in the second episode. This Czech material is wrapped in a tenuously connected framing story devised by Jeffries. In an upscale bar, the manager and bartenders taunt the bar-backs, make them work overtime, and order them to join in after-hours orgies. The finale is a five-way spree in which the purportedly coerced bar flunkeys (Chad Thomas and Damon Stavros) appear to be compliant, eager participants. But Wrath closes with these angry bottom-boys displaying the only evidence of wrath we're shown, and preparing to exact revenge.

It's anybody's guess what Jeffries was thinking when he cooked up this plot, but some rationale may emerge with the release of Redemption, the closing volume. Each of the Seven Deadly Sins videos ends one scene short of a denouement. Redemption, in which all seven stories reach their resolutions, may bring out this muddled salvage job's redeeming features. The series peaked with Wash West's award-winning Gluttony; other contributions are Dirk Yates's Pride, Michael Zen's Lust, Thor Stephans's Sloth, Dan Cross's Envy, and Chi Chi LaRue's Greed.