Out of the Box: Dana Vespoli Talks About TerrorXXX.com

A version of this article ran in the October issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the digital edition. Above, Dana Vespoli; photo courtesy TerrorXXX.com. “I’m not cut out for normal work. All my friends went off and became attorneys and doctors,” says Dana Vespoli. But this Mills College graduate took a different course. After living in the San Francisco Bay Area for about a decade, Vespoli headed to Los Angeles. “It’s a place of reinvention,” she says. “There’s that feeling that you can do anything. … It’s so possible.” In 2003, Vespoli made the leap into adult entertainment as a performer. But she always had her eye on a career behind the camera, which led her to direct for various companies, most notably Evil Angel and Mile High Media. And now she’s moved into indie horror erotica, co-founding the site TerrorXXX.com with cinematographer Sal Genoa. Fans of Vespoli’s work are familiar with her penchant for bizarre, mysterious and even shocking imagery in such movies as Forsaken and Hollywood Babylon (both Evil Angel). In Lesbian Stepmom 3, Vespoli showed she could turn a formulaic fauxcest series into a very dark fairytale. She directed that movie for Sweetheart Video—and she says it was Jon Blitt, vice president of Sweetheart’s parent company, Mile High Media, who showed her a horror porn site that eventually led to the creation of TerrorXXX. “This is my thing. I love horror. I know horror. I’m obsessed with it.” Vespoli muses, “I have to do something that I want to do. … I’m not a paint-by-numbers person. If things get formulaic, I get bored and that’s not good. So I talked to Sal and I said, ‘Hey, I want to do a horror site. And I think we should do this together.’” Genoa already had worked with Vespoli on Lesbian Stepmother 3 and other projects. “We can really communicate on things,” Vespoli says. “I can say, ‘I want it to look like Atom Egoyan’s Felicia’s Journey and he’ll understand.” A veteran director who got his start with Anabolic Video, Genoa has known Vespoli for years. “We were just good friends,” Vespoli says, but eventually “it sort of evolved into a full-on relationship.” They share many interests in common. “He was a total cinephile. We would both connect on movies. Movies and music. That was part of what brought us together. … And martial arts. I box and he does jiu jitsu.” Vespoli always had a passion for filmmaking. “I was a theater kid. I went to a performing arts school. I did some commercials and stuff when I moved to L.A. and had done some scene study and stuff like that.” And she was also a fan of “classic adult entertainment such as Bradley Metzger, Catherine Breillat. And then when I discovered gonzo I really liked what John Leslie was doing, Joey Silvera, John Stagliano, Seymore Butts.” Once in Los Angeles, she was “doing second second AD in softcore movies” and her co-workers began asking, “Why aren’t you in the movies?” She started performing in 2003 with the idea of getting behind the camera. And Scott Taylor of New Sensations gave her that first chance. “Then from there I’ve sort of moved around.” She also continues to perform—especially for TerrorXXX. “I’m the unofficial contract performer,” she jokes, acknowledging it makes financial sense to play some of the roles herself. She cites HorrorPorn.com as an inspiration. “That site does incredibly well. But with TerrorXXX I wanted to focus more on narratives, more on feeling, and more on dread and less on porn. And also having some stronger female characters.” One of the narrative devices she uses is called “Little Shop of Terrors,” which she describes as an adult emporium that’s sort of like Fantasy Island. Clients can buy novelties or request certain experiences—“things that they’ve seen on the dark web”—and the shop owners who run the shop will, “for a certain price, provide that experience.” Vespoli plays an attorney who wants to meet up with a serial killer from the Victorian era. But she tells the proprietors, “I have a deposition next week, so I have to survive the experience.” As Vespoli moves further away from the formulaic constraints of mainstream porn, she continues to push boundaries. “I got into adult in part because I felt there was a real sense of freedom. … Sure, the sex was fun to watch, but everybody got to do what they wanted. The world they lived in, people were having fun and everything was a party. … Things were happening and that seemed so liberating.” With TerrorXXX, she is bucking the notion that a commercial adult movie must contain a minimum of four sex scenes. Sometimes, in fact, she doesn’t even shoot any hardcore footage: “It takes away from the story; it takes away from the energy.” She continues, “I love sex in movies. … But in real life when I’m watching porn, I don’t even need fifteen minutes. I mean, ten is even pushing it for me. Ten is fine. It’s like the sweet spot. I’m done.” As her focus shifts to horror, Vespoli is now finding inspiration by engaging with fans of the genre. “The thing about horror that is so great is that it kind of functions like a community. … We have a Reddit page for TerrorXXX. I’ll post things on there but I’ll also post general horror things and also about things that we are shooting. … I’m always open to different things.” She adds, “We’re trying to reach out to blogs and festivals and the Reddit community—it’s persistence. It’s something I care very much about and I believe in it. … Once it gets traction, it will be consistent.” Vespoli and Genoa’s work can be seen on both TerrorXXX.com and on Pornhub Premium.