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Head Strong
Rating: 3 Stars
Produced by Scott Masters. Directed by Derek Kent. Written by Tyler Adams. Videography by Ross Cannon. Edited by Kevin Glover. Music by Rock Hard. Starring Tommy Lord, Spike, Dylan Reece, Christopher Scott, Steve O'Donnell, Jackson Price, Pierce Vendetta, and Kurt Young.
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Workaholic mystery writer Tommy Lord churns out popular gay-themed crime novels built around sexually insatiable private eye Rod Darringer (Spike). When Lord's work hits a snag, his creation, who is getting rebellious, appears and needles him. "You couldn't even get a lover," taunts Darringer, "until I came along and made you attractive."

Meanwhile, said lover (Dylan Reece), sick of "playing second fiddle to a two-bit gay gumshoe with sloppy sex habits," packs up and leaves. Blocked and distressed, Lord signs over the rights to the Darringer series to a couple (Christopher Scott and Steve O'Donnell) who write as a team, and sets out to rearrange his personal cosmos.

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This might have been more fun if Tyler Adams's scenario wasn't so sudsily earnest, or if scripted sequences were wittier, shorter, and better acted. But the four sex scenes work. Spike, who ejaculates like Pittsburgh's New Point Fountain, has effective moments with fictional trick Jackson Pierce, and later with new proprietors Scott and O'Donnell. Tommy Lord gets to romp with satyrish literary groupie Pierce Vendetta, and then to make passionate love to Dylan Reece in a hot, convincing reconciliation scene. (It helps that in addition to being first-rate sexual performers, Lord and Reece are the best actors in the cast.)

It's disappointing that Lord and Spike don't have sex together, and that the delectable Kurt Young is relegated to a sappily written non-sexual role, but compensations are abundant.