Palm Drive Video Reviews

From the mid-1980s through the 1990s, Palm Drive Video’s homomasculine fetish films didn’t only reach readers through display advertising — they were reviewed. Alongside its photo ads and photo spreads, and covers, the studio’s releases drew notice in the review columns of gay leather and fetish magazines like Thrust, Drummer, Bear, and StudFlix, where writers weighed in on production values, performers, and authenticity for an audience that took its underground cinema seriously. Sampled here are surviving magazine reviews of Palm Drive Video releases, offering a rare contemporary critical record of how the studio’s work was received in real time by the press covering gay adult film.