“Golden Age” movies from the 1970s and ‘80s have seen a spike in demand recently, making vintage erotica a popular niche on VOD sites such as Hotmovies.com, AEBN.com and XonDemand.com, as well as DVD rental sites such as WantedList.com and AdultDVDEmpire.com.
Video-X-Pix co-owner Steven Morowitz said that consumer demand, coupled with the convenience of ready-made, 2257-exempt material is driving growth in the segment.
“We just started re-releasing these movies on DVD and encoding them for the VOD format a few years ago, but we’ve definitely seen a spike in interest in the past few months, especially after all the news about 2257,” Morowitz told XBiz. “With our stuff, compliance is a given. It’s definitely a benefit to webmasters.”
Morowitz added that older adult movies also have a level of star power that’s missing from many of today’s gonzo offerings. Because fewer titles were released in past decades, he said, big-name performers gathered large fan followings, many of whom are eager to own their movies on modern formats.
The company’s most recent releases include “Slippery When Wet” (1976), “The Lucky Stiff” (1980) and “Cheap Thrills” (1985).
Eric Andersson’s “Slippery When Wet” features Annie Sprinkle, one of the biggest stars of her day who went on to become a successful performance artist. Sprinkle is joined by C.J. Laing, Crystal Sync, Hope Stockton, Ursula Austin, Roger Caine, Jeffrey Hurst and Sonny Landham, who later became a successful character actor in mainstream Hollywood, playing the tough guy in movies including “48 Hours.”
Shot in Europe by director Chuck Vincent, “The Lucky Stiff” stars Ron Jeremy, Samantha Fox, Kelly Nichols, Kandy Barbour, Erica Richardson, Merle Michaels, New York TV personality Robin Byrd, Femme Productions President Candida Royalle and Randy West, who now directs his own popular “Up and Cummers” series.
“Cheap Thrills,” directed by Stuart Allen, stars Rhonda Jo Petty, Susan Hart, Heather Thomas, Marita Ekberg, George Payne, Jeff Scott and current-day Evil Angel director and performer Joey Silvera.
Video-X-Pix digitally remasters the original film versions of movies in its library and converts them to DVD and VOD-compatible formats. In the case of DVDs, the company then adds bonus features such as interviews, vignettes and behind the scenes footage.
