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"What I'm gonna show you, you gotta promise me you won't tell mom or dad."
"I promise."
I love it when a movie is created for
the sole purpose of beating its audience
over the head with an overbearing moral
message, only to then turn out to be so
incompetent and ridiculous that what
you're left with can only be described
as so bad it's brilliant. This is nothing
new, of course. From 'Boys Beware', which
portrayed homosexuals as child molesting
predators. "What Jimmy didn't know was
that Ralph was sick. A sickness that
was not visible like smallpox but no
less dangerous and contagious: a sickness
of the mind. You see, Ralph was a
homosexual: a person who demands an
intimate relationship with members of
their own sex." 'Reefer Madness', which
demonized marijuana use. "MARIJUANA! The burning weed with it's roots in hell!"
To those comics and films in the 80s that made
Dungeons & Dragons out to be either a
corrupting influence or a satanic
recruitment tool. "Robbie!"
"Perdue! What are you doing?"
"Going to join the Great Hall." "You can't,
it's a trap!"
"I have spells." And more recently, 'Swiped'.
"Girls, you have the power. Don't give that
up." "It's like 5th wave feminism." "I like it."
I recently discovered another one of these,
and it's just as bad. I'd like to thank
Internet Historian for pointing this one
out to me. If you don't know who that is,
what are you doing with your life?! I even
did a cameo in one of his recent videos
so if nothing else, go give that a watch.
Anyway this one's called 'Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life.'
it isn't, as the name implies, an OC about
a man who gets seduced by an internet
router. What it IS is a moral panic
inducing propaganda film courtesy of
American whingeathon channel, Lifetime.
And it's about a teenage boy who gets
addicted to... how do I say this in an ad
friendly way? How about... "doing it like
they do on the Discovery Channel"? in this
"In this shocking footage taken by researchers, a
seal forces itself on a helpless King Penguin."
Hmm, "the visual representation of
the exchange of bodily fluids"? I can't
"I can't say 'ookie mouth' and have Kenny spit
down my throat at the same time, it's impossible!"
"Practice makes perfect, bubie."
Ummm... "media which is designed to entertain using copious amounts of nudity and some questionable writing"?
"Oh f-k it!" He gets addicted to
p-nography, so much so that it
completely ruins his life validating, the
fears of the hand-wringing middle-aged
housewives who eat this s-t up while
assuming their little angels are doing
smack because they got an a-minus on a
test.
Combine this melodramatic attitude with
a laughable script and awful acting and
you'd better believe it's as poorly made,
out of touch and unintentionally
hilarious as it sounds. So grab your
popcorn and your dildos, and let's
penetrate this hot sticky mess. It opens
with our protagonist Justin stumbling
into his school, looking rather worse for
wear and trying to drown himself in th
swimming pool. Like a Sim controlled by a
sadistic player. In true Sim fashion, just
three months earlier his life is
seemingly perfect. As he wins a swimming
competition, cheered on by his friends
and family, makes out with his hot
girlfriend Amy and finds out he made the
all-state swimming team. Because of this,
some cool senior kids take a liking to
him, while he takes a liking to this
guy's girlfriend Monica. And she to him,
apparently. Doesn't he have a girlfriend?
Amy? You know the one he was just making
out with?"
"Yeah, oughta be a law against MONICA!"
A law against a... person? When he gets home,
his friend sends him a link to Monica's
page - that's literally what it's called
(the writers must have really strained
themselves for that one) - where she
uploads low-res pictures and videos of
herself doing vaguely sexual things like...
just...sitting there. Totally hot. Maybe if
he's lucky, she'll show her ankles. And
given the context the fact that his
friend keeps referring to him as stroke
man is really disconcerting. It's either
an instruction, or the name of the
useless superhero. He almost gets caught
by his dad, having left the door open.
You'd think he'd learn his lesson, but
later on, he almost gets caught by his
mom, because he left the door wide f-king open
while looking at barely legal teens.
There's having a danger wank, and then
there's being an idiot. He gets invited
to a party that Monica will be at so he
brings his girlfriend along, which is
probably the worst thing to do if he's
trying to ride the school bike. In the
basement, the cool kids are sat around
watching porn together" Yeah, who does
that?...
Monica's into it though. Obviously. 
"I don't get the whole porn thing. I mean the
way they do it, it's so mechanical. Animal Channel
shows better relationships." "But this
husband has come home to find his wife
with another penguin."
"He flips out. His strategy is simple:
batter the homewrecker
until he flees." "Ah, didn't know you're
into watching animals do it!"
You see, she's a good sensible Christian girl who
according to this movie should be a
model for all women, so she wants to take
things slow and wait for the right time
to have sex so that when they do, it will
be magical. Bitch, we all know that the
only magic that will be happening is
when he reaches 30 without getting his
weenie wet, which he will at this rate. He
pretends to be into it but when his
friend sends him a link to more seedy
stuff, he goes on a p-n watching binge, and
his mom catches him properly this time,
because he left the door open, AGAIN!
That's not just stupid. That's plot
convenient levels of stupid! From the way
she reacts, you'd think he'd been looking
at snuff p-n or Belle Delphine, not a pair
of censored boobies. Because she rushes
upstairs to tell his dad, but he's like
"eh, it's fine." He fulfills a trope
common to these Lifetime movies:
the naive bumbling father with a laissez-faire attitude who serves as a
counterpoint to the highly strong
paranoid and invasive mother who
preaches the central message of the film.
He's going to be proven wrong, you see.
After getting caught, Justin goes right
back to it, continuing his downward spiral.
Thing is, the film doesn't make
much effort to explain why p-n is bad
in-and-of-itself, and when it does it
misses the point entirely. It's just
assumed that p-n is a bad thing, and
the effects we witness are because it's
bad. Like when he starts sexualizing
every girl around him. I mean. come on!
Like he wouldn't have done that without
the porn!
Most teenage boys would f-k a
banister if its curves were proportional!
And when his swimming performance starts
to suffer, the p-n is implicated, and
it's only incidentally linked to his
staying up all night drinking energy
drinks to watch it, which could be said
about any addiction. And to be honest I'd
be much more worried about that
impending diabetes. What's he even doing
while he's watching it? Despite his
voracious consumption, there isn't a
single reference to masturbation
anywhere in the film, which is the entire
point of it, surely? Maybe they thought
that would be a bit much for their
prudish audience. Or the law, in fairness.
And I know that all the stuff on display
is really tame, but you're telling me
that he doesn't get his rocks off to all
this fine totty even once? I'm calling
bulls-t! In other news,
his mum learns how to check someone's
internet history and that it's possible
to delete it. Hardly the best way to
cover your tracks. Fortunately we now
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Speaking of perverts, back to the film!
Under pressure from Justin's mom, his dad
goes to talk to him about his p-n
watching. The conversation is incredibly
awkward, but he tries to emphasize that
relationships are about more than
getting physical. They are aware that he
has a girlfriend, right? Who's very much
into the non-physical side of things?
They haven't mentioned it so maybe they
don't know about her. But why would he be
hiding it from them? He has no reason to.
None of this makes sense.
But they both agree that there's nothing
to worry about. Except that he then goes
back to it, having finally learned how to
shut the door. Still a better character arc than
anything in The Last Jedi...
His obsession deepens to the point where
he's even looking at softcore stuff
during swimming practice and then
emailing it to himself using his
girlfriend's PDA. Remember those? Of
course you don't. He even takes a quick
p-n break while writing an essay. Makes sense.
I took one about a page ago. His brother
bursts in because locking the door is
still beyond him. The brother threatens
to tell their mom, so Justin agrees to
show him what he was looking at, which
apparently traumatizes him! "Alex, what's
going on?" "He's all pumped up, he just
defeated the drug dealer Grand Theft Auto."
"Nice." Wait, so the mom is not okay with
her older son looking at some barely
titillating tatas, but is basically fine
with her youngest son playing a mature
rated game where you can have virtual
sex with prostitutes and then murder
them? I don't, I don't- I... WHAT?! This film
was released during the Jack Thompson
era when controversy surrounding the GTA
series was at its peak. How could they
not have picked up on this? "Hey have you and Monica done anything?" "No no be a little too
weird with Thuli but you..." What did he say?
His friend is again encouraging him to
pursue Monica and neither of them
mentions Amy at all. I'm starting to
think the writers forgot she existed as
well. Then Justin shows his friend a
really tame bondage website, but his
friend is like:"Nah, what the f-k bro, that's too much!"
What is he saying?! "I don't care, bro.
That stuff's way too twisted!" But
encouraging him to cheat on his
girlfriend was... fine? As if the film
wasn't weird enough already, he sees his
mom swimming and starts fantasizing
about swimming with her. "This is a nice surprise. Wanna join me?"
"No I just... umm...gotta finish homework in study hall, so just came down to see if you were still working out."
I think I know where this is going...
During a swimming contest, he's once
again emailing sexy pictures to himself
using Amy's PDA. It says he's just
sending them from the desktop, so surely
she'd easily be able to find out just by
looking. But she doesn't! Distracted by
the p-n, he finishes third in the race
and his mom is so disappointed in him
that she acts like he took a literal
s-t in the pool. It turns out that his
mom is pushing him so hard to be a great
swimmer because they can't afford to pay
for college and she has no faith in his
chances of getting in without swimming
scholarship. Although judging by his
spelling throughout the movie, I can't
say I blame her that much.
Later that evening, he goes for a sneaky
dip, and imagines a bunch of sexy ladies
swimming with him. Quite literally a wet
dream. Meanwhile his brother is looking
at p-n on his PC, emailing some to
himself, and then he steals one of the
CDs Justin has burned full of images. Why
does he steal it? If he has his own
computer to play it on, why not just use
that computer to go booby cruising?
Very quickly, his mum finds the CD on
which he's written Virgin Vaginas! What a
complete dumbass!
Everyone knows you name it something
like "Homework". And I'm sorry, but no kid,
no matter how young or stupid, would
attempt to hide p-n in his top drawer!
That CD should have had 'plot contrivance'
written on it. They confront Justin when
he gets home and he blames the guys at
school saying they sent him the p-n as
a joke. But then why wouldn't he just
delete it?
Why would he burn it onto a CD? And he
claims not to know which guys sent it to
him, but his parents believed him because
they're idiots. With the little brother's
help, his mum sets up parental controls
on his computer. But then he tells her
that they know how to get around the
software. Why would he tell her that?! And
why would he wait until she's
finished installing it to tell her that?!
So not only is he a snitch, he's a
f-king terrible one. And hold up a second!
They're saying that Justin is tech savvy
enough to get around parental controls,
but not enough to set a password to keep
his little brother off his computer.
Have these writers ever used anything more
powerful than a calculator! To get around
this problem,
mum decides to take the power cable with
her when she leaves the house. So Justin
has to use an internet cafe to chat with
Monica, asking when they can get "togather".
Well, thank f-k he's not trying to get
an English scholarship. Genius here gets
a call from Amy who he's been ignoring.
He blows her off again to watch Monica
on webcam. I've seen more explicit
material at Bible Camp.
Oh come on! At
least pretend to be an actor! He lies to
his parents so he can go and meet Monica
at a bar, and they have this awkward date
where she's very forward about
sexualizing him. "I bet you look incredibly
hot in one of those tiny bathing suits!"
And then mere minutes after meeting him,
she moves to sit next to him and puts
his hand on her boob! And then invites
him back to her place because "her
parents aren't home." Can you imagine if
the genders were reversed? She's a senior
and he's a sophomore. This is not okay!
"Hey Justin, what's up?"
What was the point of that?! In the boys
locker room, his friends call him a freak
because of his blood watching habits and
say they're still getting spam from his
website visits. This is kind of their
fault though for getting him in to p-n
in the first place and for watching
play together at a party that was weird as f-k.
And for encouraging him to cheat
on his girlfriend with this guy's
girlfriend who has a sexy website. But no:
he's the freak! At the same time, for
validation in her anti-erotica crusade,
the mum listens to her friend's story
about how her husband's prediction
destroyed their marriage. And even though
she says "this isn't meant to scare you",
that's exactly what this scene is meant
to do: terrify the paranoid busybodies
who watch this s-t. Amy's getting
annoyed that Justin's ignoring her so he
goes around to her place. They start
making out then he tries to take her
clothes off but because she's a good
wholesome Christian girl she says no. He
gets frustrated, they have an argument
and he storms off. And he tried to get
hot and heavy with her with the door
open?! What an absolute Chad!
"WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE SAYING?!" 
She checks her PDA - finally - and sees all the sick
stuff Justin's been looking up. Like...
whatever that's supposed to be.
Apparently THIS is the final straw, not
the bit where he tried to pressure her
into putting out and then threatened to
leave her. Nope! A blurry JPEG is what
does it! At least it wasn't a gif. While they're out shopping for weed,
Justin's mom finds out that his brother
has been emailing p-n to his friend so
she confronts Justin about him, insisting
that he's addicted to p-nography, despite
having no evidence that he's looked at
it since she removed his computer and
then decided to shut off all internet
access at their house, because clearly
none of them could have any other use
for the Internet apart from going on a
vagina safari. Forced to rely on the
library computers, he inserts a USB which
somehow allows him to look at p-n. So
we're supposed to believe that he's an
uber l33t hacker who can get around the
library's firewall but he doesn't think
to delete his internet history?
F-k off, movie! Monica takes a break
from her thottery to do some studying,
so he switches to looking at her website.
That's not creepy. At all.
But he gets caught, his parents get told
what he was looking at, and he gets
suspended from the swimming team.
Right, but if the school could see what he was
looking at,
they would clearly see that Monica has a lewd
website. But that's never addressed!
"You gonna tell us what you were
looking at online?" "You know, stuff.
"Websites, pictures." "What?" "P-n." "I can't here you." "I said p-nography! Jeez! I was looking at p-nography, is that what you guys want to hear?!"
Do you not think this is a conversation you
should be having with him at home? Or at
least, in the car? Not in the middle of
his school! After they grill him at home,
he insists that he can go cold turkey.
But that same night, he steals his mum's
credit card to buy Internet access and
then pay for the good stuff. How was he
able to go online to buy more internet
if the internet had already been cut off?
And I know these parents are window- licking Luddites, 
but surely they've
heard of passwords? F-king change them! The
resulting booby binge gets him a bit
excited, so he goes around Monica's house
after school. "Wow, this is nice!" "Don't
sound so surprised. I might get the
wrong impression."
"What do you mean?" "That you think I'm a
cheap slut from a low-rent family."
Less than a minute after she says that, she
takes him upstairs to have sex. In her
parents room. With her grandparents
pictures watching. Kinky.
"You know, I'm not like little sweet what's her name." In case you hadn't noticed by now, Cyber Seduction
has a serious case of Madonna whore
syndrome, in that the women featured are
either one of the two with no middle
ground, which is exactly how these scared
moms think. "Hey, I'm sorry, this isn't how
I pictured it would be." But then how did
he picture it? If he was so into p-n
and her being a slut, surely he should
be enjoying this? And he wanted to go all
the way with the prudish Amy but not
with the slutty Monica who's clearly up
for it? Again this doesn't make any sense.
She gets so angry that he rejects her
that she chases him out of her house and
then bangs her head into the bathroom
sink! This girl has more issues than the
film does. Back at the Sims house, mummy
finds out that he's been buying p-n.
"Justin, you're addicted! You can't stop!" They
confront Justin, again which results in a
pathetic fight with his dad then a very
awkward family dinner. He wants to
apologize to Amy so his mom drives him
to her house.
On the way, he finally admits that he has
a problem. Amy says she doesn't feel
ready to spend time with him yet
but as soon as he says he wants to go to
church with her she changes her tune
very quickly. "Oh, that's pretty radical!"
"I need to get radical."
"Here we go, come on! Ready?
"VIRGINITY IS COOL!"
Monica - whose head injury has moved now -
tells her boyfriend and his friends that
Justin attacked her, so as he's walking
home they ambush and beat the s-t out
of him. He stumbles into the swimming
pool where the movie started and then he
tries to drown himself by lying face
down in it, which is a really stupid way
to off yourself. But he has visions of
his prior swimming success and how proud
everyone was of him and he snaps out of
it. Ironically enough, the baptism
born-again metaphor here is as subtle as
the writing in your average porno.
And the movie just ends there, with a whole
lot of burning questions unresolved.
Do all his friends now hate him for the
rest of his time at school? Does he ever
get back together with Amy? Does he ever
go to church? Does Monica's site ever get
found by the parents or teachers? Does
she ever get punished for what she did?
Does Justin become a wizard? You can't
leave us like this! This script is like a
ruined orgasm! And then we get a PSA
about p-n addiction and keeping track of
what your kids are doing online. Which is
all they really needed to say, because
the entire hour and a half preceding it
is the cinematic and moral equivalent of
a belly flop. As well as sabotaging its
own credibility through its melodramatic
and incompetent presentation, Cyber
Seduction doesn't bother to justify its
thinking that p-noography is a social
disease, instead choosing to demonize it
and its consumers, blaming all of
Justin's ills on that one factor alone.
Never mind that he's a normal hormonal
teenager whose girlfriend endorses the
whole 'our first time must be magical'
bollocks, whose dickhead friends peer
pressure him into looking up the p-n in
the first place, who's older crush
manipulates and by some definitions even
molest him, whose family doesn't respect
his privacy, whose father is useless at
educating him, and whose mother is
overbearing, invasive, and unreasonable,
pressuring him to succeed but giving him
the cold shoulder when he struggles. F-k all
that, it's the low-res boobies that will
ruin your academic life, lose you your friends and
girlfriend, and drive you to suicide. And
God help you if you discover hentai!
Cyber Seduction serves as a textbook
example of how not to make your point,
and has earned its place among the
pantheon of films that deserve to be
remembered for all the wrong reasons.
So get some mates round, put it on, and
have yourselves a good laugh. Then go
watch some p-n together. Just because you can.
"YOU'RE A DICK!"
Lot's of shoutouts this time, so bear with me. Thanks to internet Historian for recommending this film,
Voxis Productions for his help with the script and
research, Sketchadoodle for these great
new character stills and to GamePlayMetal for his help with the audio.
Go check all these guys out. Links are down
below. I'd also like to say thanks to
NordVPN for sponsoring this video. Do
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yourself. And finally, to all of you, my
dear viewers. Thank you for watching.
Make sure to follow me on social media for
updates, and I'll see you next time.
