Bryan Kocis (also known as Bryan Phillips) was the founder of Cobra Video, a gay porn production company specializing in twink videos featuring guys in the 18 to 23 year age bracket. Initially the Cobra Video releases starred twinks in solo performances, but later the studio moved towards the bareback video market and became the pioneer of American bareback twink porn. Cobra Video established itself in February 2001 and produced some amazing bareback porn, which unfortunately came to an end when Bryan Kocis was brutally murdered in his home on January 24, 2007 by Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes. This post has been published on the fourth anniversary of Bryan’s death and is a tribute to his work and his studio Cobra Video.
While there were a number of awesome bareback videos released by Cobra Video, both Bryan Kocis and Cobra Video were surrounded by controversy at times, which unfortunately tarnished both the producer and his studio. According to information sourced through Wikipedia, in 2002 police found a videotape of then 39 year-old Bryan Kocis and a 15 year-old boy in his home. Bryan Kocis plead guilty to one count of sexual abuse of a child, after he allegedly met the boy on the internet and transported him to his hometown. Bryan Kocis was initially charged with child pornography and transportation of a minor for sexual purposes, but Bryan Kocis claimed as a defense that the teenage boy lied about his age and the charge was later downgraded.
In another incident involving an underage boy, it came to light that Brent Corrigan, one of Cobra Video’s models was underage at the time he appeared in a number of videos released by the studio. One of these videos was Bareboned Twinks, a bareback video featuring a scene with Brent Corrigan and Brent Everett. In 2005, Cobra Video’s distributor Pacific Sun Entertainment pulled four videos from sale. The three non-bareback videos were Every Poolboy’s Dream, Schoolboy Crush and Casting Couch 4. Bareboned Twinks is still available for viewing via Video On Demand, but the scene featuring Brent Corrigan and Brent Everett has been removed to enable the video to be watched legally.
It is believed that Brent Corrigan may have been one of the reasons why Bryan Kocis was murdered, although he was not involved in any way with the murder. Cobra Video signed Brent Corrigan as an exclusive model, so when Norfolk Companions Inc., owners and operators of a website called Boy Batter wanted Brent Corrigan to work for them, an issue erupted because they were unable to have Brent Corrigan appear in their films whilst he was contracted to Cobra Video. Norfolk Companions Inc. was an escort business owned and operated by Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes, who are now both serving life in prison without parole for the murder of Bryan Kocis. There were also legal issues involving the use of the Brent Corrigan name, when Cobra Video claimed the studio owned the trademark and prevented Brent Corrigan from using his name elsewhere. Bryan Kocis was found dead in his Pennsylvania home in the Dallas Township on January 24, 2007 where the Luzerne County coroner found that he was stabbed 28 times, had his throat cut and then his body was left in his house before it was set on fire.
Bryan Kocis was passionate about male youth and pursued this passion by photographing twinks and he managed to find some amazing talent to appear in his videos. Bryan’s motto was “Capturing the Erotic Essence of Youth”. Bryan certainly did that, but unfortunately his passion for youth sometimes landed him in trouble, particularly the issues surrounding Brent Corrigan not being the legal age of eighteen years when he started working with Cobra Video. It is understood that false identification may have been used by Brent Corrigan to break into the adult industry and it only became known that Brent Corrigan was underage when Brent Corrigan (Sean Lockhart) and Bryan Kocis were involved in a legal battle over the use of the Brent Corrigan name. This article is about celebrating the work of Bryan Kocis, but it’s important to provide this background because it forms part of the world of Bryan Kocis and his company Cobra Video.
In an article by Brady Jansen from >Adult Video News Magazine in April 2003 titled Cobra Video: Charming the Snake we are introduced to Bryan Phillips (Bryan Kocis) and how he found his way into the porn industry. The article explains that Bryan pretty much handled every aspect of Cobra Video, from customer service to video production and clearly he enjoyed his work. Bryan had a background in health care and pursued an education in photography and business. It was Bryan befriending a porn scout which introduced him to the porn business, where he worked as a second cameraman and was offered a referral fee if he found any models. After his friend disappeared, Bryan decided to create his own gay porn company and Cobra Video was born. Cobra’s key ingredients for success included a keen eye for good sex, free of fancy productions and stories and hot young guys. Bryan added that he will continue with Cobra Video “until it’s not fun anymore”.
Cobra Video was well-known and is still known for it’s range of bareback twink videos and I will always hold the opinion that Cobra Video was the founder of American bareback twink porn. Other studios still pursue the bareback twink theme, including Bare Twinks and Helix Studios, but Cobra Video will always remain the first American bareback twink video production company in my eyes. Bryan was also passionate about his bareback models swapping bodily fluids, so in most of his later videos the bareback scenes included breeding scenes where the top either came inside the bottom or he pulled out to ejaculate before thrusting his dick back inside for some post-ejaculate fucking.
The bareback videos released by Cobra Video include Austin’s Beach Buddies (2001) featuring 3 bareback scenes, A Boy’s Raw Urges (2004) featuring 4 bareback scenes, Bareback Beach Boyz (2002) featuring 4 bareback scenes, Bareback Twink Orgy (2003) featuring 4 bareback scenes, Bareboned Twinks (2005) featuring 4 bareback scenes (excluding the deleted scene), Campus Boyz 3 (2004) featuring 3 bareback scenes, Cream BBoys (2006) featuring 5 bareback scenes, Fuck Me Raw (2006) featuring 5 bareback scenes, Naughty Boy’s Toys (2006) featuring 1 bareback scene and Take It Like A Bad Boy (2007) featuring 5 bareback scenes.
Take It Like A Bad Boy was the 22nd and final video production released by Cobra Video under the direction of Bryan Kocis. An interesting point is that Take It Like A Bad Boy was originally titled Take It Like A Bitch Boy. I believe that the name was changed after Bryan Kocis’ death. Bryan died four years ago today, so it would have been interesting to see the bareback videos Bryan would have released had he remained alive. Even though Bryan passed away in 2007, the Cobra Video website remains active and you get an unusual sensation when you visit, because it’s like it has been suspended in time. You can almost feel that Bryan’s spirit is present and the website is just waiting for the next Cobra Video to be released. Unfortunately, this will never happen again under Bryan’s direction, which is why we must appreciate his good work and acknowledge some of the aspects which may not have been so good, but made up the man who introduced American bareback twink porn to the world.
Cobra Video managed to create some amazing videos and this was through basic technology and inexpensive sets, but it was the creative talent of Bryan Kocis which managed to turn what could have been bad video productions into great ones. In addition to this, the performers were enthusiastic about their work, perhaps because Bryan Kocis actively sought new talent for his studio and the models had not worked in the industry before. This energetic element worked in the favor of Cobra Video, because the guys were excited about having sex with other hot guys and being paid for the pleasure. Cobra Video also captured the essence of reality through the use of hotel rooms for filming, live sound, natural lighting, unique camera angles and guys working in front of the camera for the first time. These factors combined together gave an edge of realness which moved away from the tacky studio sets, cheesy role-plays and annoying music.
What seemed like the end of Cobra Video may not be with the announcement towards the end of 2010 via the Adult Video News website that EuroMedia Distribution signed a deal to become the exclusive worldwide distributor of Cobra Video. The media release states that not only will they be working with the still-popular back catalog, they will also be overseeing a re-branding of the line and introducing some new releases and never-before-seen product to the market. The media release goes on to say that EuroMedia will also be exclusively handling broadcast, web licensing and mobile rights for the line. This is certainly an interesting development and I cannot wait to see if barebacking will form part of the new line expected to be released under the EuroMedia banner.
R.I.P. Bryan Kocis
May 28, 1962 – January 24, 2007
Further Reading:
18 U.S.C. Section 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement
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cka2nd Jun 2 2011 - 10:03 pm
I honestly can’t say whether or not Bryan Kocis was a decent human being or not; the opinions of people who knew and/or worked with him seem very much split on the matter. What I appreciate about this remembrance is that it puts the focus back on Kocis’ work as a porn producer and director. I’ve seen a fair amount of twink porn over the last 10 or so years and Kocis is still the standard against whom all other gay porn, especially gay twink porn, producer and directors should be measured.
The sex in a Cobra Video film was usually hotter and more real than in other pornos, the performers more enthusiastic and engaged. They were also less likely to be pigeonholed as exclusively tops or bottoms, or have bodies that all seemed cut from the same mold. Kocis varied his shots and never fell into a rut like some other directors of relying too much on close-ups and one-man shots. He understood that the reactions of the performers being fucked or sucked could be sexy as hell, and that the interplay between their whole bodies heightened our experience as viewers. Even the dialogue was better in a Kocis-helmed film, as the storylines were neither overblown like so much mainstream gay porn nor so threadbare that you wished they hadn’t even bothered, as in most twink porn.
The roster of Cobra Video performers was very deep the last few years, with versatile “second male leads” like Corey Savage (a personal favorite) and Shaun Ferrera who could be plugged into any scene with virtually any performer and make it a winner, curly-haired Lance Evans, the big-dicked and funny Southerner, Trevor Peterson, the beautiful Cameron Lane and a young man called Cody Lockheart who improved as a performer maybe 500% between his first and second films. That’s not even counting the stars of the early (Austin, Ethan) and later (Brents C. and E.) years. And if the featured models of the middle years – Brandon and Armon – weren’t quite as charismatic as their peers, they still led casts that were talented, hot and deep.
I miss the films that Bryan Kocis should have made the last four years, the performances he could have gotten out of his casts, and the enjoyment I would have received from watching them. R.I.P.