Page 59 - AVN JULY 2024

“I had written features before, but this one was on a whole different level, and the stakes were very high.”
“And the new owner didn’t want to waste time digging in his warehouse to look for the footage of some old movie that wouldn’t have made him any money,” Axel explains. “Luckily, EA has now become property of the good folks at Adult Empire (the largest adult film distributor in the country) and they are awesome.
“So the stars finally aligned and here we are.”
He admits some of the film footage was lost, so he had to up-convert certain parts and use AI tools to de-noise it. However most of the 16mm reels were still preserved and he was able to telecine them in 4K.
“I re-edited everything, changed most of the music, cleaned up the sound, added some SFX, did some ADR, and color-graded the entire thing,” Axel adds. “It was a painstaking process that took me several months, but I am super happy with the result and very, very proud of it.”
He continues, “I have to say it holds up incredibly well. The acting is formidable, and the sex is probably more intense than today’s standards (especially the final scene). It also feels very real, and while Compulsion had more dialogue than most adult movies at the time, every bit of it helps the viewer understand the characters’ motivations and desires in the sex scenes.”
The riveting narrative of Compulsion centers around gangster Big Charlie (Patrick Collins), his young bride Maya (Ashley Long) and his son, Nick (Kurt Lockwood).
Braun recalls how the Hall of Fame studio mogul Collins took a leap of faith when he green-lighted the film.
“I had known Pat for years, through the work I did with my father,” Axel says. “In 2002, he bought the U.S. rights for a movie I had shot in Europe and he liked it so much that he offered me an exclusive directing deal.
“During that time we became very close, he became a mentor, a dear friend and almost a father figure to me. I had a film school background and we shared a love for movies and storytelling, so at some point I showed him some of my student films, which were all shot in Super 16mm, and he became fascinated by the filmmaking process.”
In January 2003, when Axel was 36, Collins made him the general manager of Elegant Angel.
“Which means he trusted me enough, and when I pitched him the idea of having Elegant Angel, a gonzo-only studio, shoot a big-budget feature on film and compete against powerhouses like Vivid and Wicked, he stared at me and said, ‘Man, this is the craziest, most fucked-up idea I’ve ever heard ... I LOVE IT!’” Axel tells AVN.
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