Amateur Porn Star Killer 2
AMATEUR PORN STAR KILLER 2 (2008)
Starring Kai Lanette and Shane Ryan.
Screenplay by Kai Lanette and Shane Ryan.
Directed by Shane Ryan.
Distributed by Alter Ego Cinema. 80 minutes. Not Rated.
When I received the press release about this film – bragging about how the original Amateur Porn Star Killer movie had been made for a whopping $45.00 and this one was only $20.00, it seemed somewhat intriguing. Of course that budget was bullshit (the camera and the videotape alone would cost well more than $20.00) but it seemed to have a renegade indie film spunk long missing from big-time Hollywood entertainment. Even most indies now seem like they are pumped out of the system. This would be a little down-and-dirty DIY filmmaking.
Besides, you had to love a filmmaker who was ironic and shameless enough to use an over-the-top title like Amateur Porn Star Killer.
Perhaps I should have looked deeper – and found that the truth was all just a bit more sordid.
After I’d agreed to check out the movie for review (but before I’d actually received it) I clicked on the link for the first film’s website. It turned out that the movie seemed to be a tribute to the urban-legendary idea of the snuff film.
Uh oh. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe irony had nothing to do with these films.
A snuff film is a movie in which someone (almost always a woman) is actually violently murdered on film. Usually after sex. Usually in some deep, secluded place where no one can hear the actress scream.
Of course, that is all in theory, because snuff films are urban legends. No matter how many people claim to know someone who has seen one, no one seems to have actually seen a legitimate snuff film themselves. Certainly there has never been one which was given any kind of theatrical release. A 70s exploitation film – appropriately called Snuff – did become a minor hit by floating the possibility that it contained a real murder, but that turned out to be a scam. Undoubtedly some crazed murderers have probably filmed their crimes, but those have certainly never seen the light of day, thankfully.
I have been hearing stories of snuff films since I was a kid (which is much longer ago than I’d like to admit), and while it was a disturbing idea, I had absolutely no interest in actually seeing one – even if they really did exist. Even during the 80s video boom I actively avoided seeing the infamous Faces of Death series – the closest thing to an actual snuff movie available – which was just a series of gruesome deaths which were caught on film.
That’s not entertaining to me. That’s just sick.
So why would I want to see a movie that was pretending to be a snuff film?
While I do like horror films (and I’m rather fond of voyeurism, too), people who have read some of my reviews know that I have no interest in the new wave of torture porn – in which suspense, storyline and chills have been replaced fetishistically graphic portrayals of slow-paced, ultra-sadistic violence. I’ve only seen one of the Sawmovies, and neither of the Hostel movies – and one sick British import called Broken was so sadistic that it is the only film I have ever had to review which I’ve ever turned off after just 10 minutes just because I couldn’t stand being in its vile company for one moment longer.
I’m sure there are some people who find that entertaining. I’m just not sure I want to know those people.
Still, I held out hope that Amateur Porn Star Killer 2 would bring something more to the table.
It only partially did.
The storyline and dialogue seems made up on the fly. There are only two characters in the whole film – a killer named Brandon (Shane Ryan) and a woman he meets on the street (Kai Lanette). (Ryan and Linette also “wrote” the movie and he directs.) Brandon picks her up and talks into going home with him for a little kinky sex. Later – when she starts to have second thoughts – he kills her. All of this is dragged out over about 75 minutes, though their actual sex and violence doesn’t start until almost an hour in.
Periodically throughout the film, Ryan cuts away to flashback scenes of Brandon having sex with earlier victims. These are filmed so darkly and muddily and at such odd angles that they are nearly impossible to make out – and unless I totally misunderstood the end credits, it appears that these are actually just scenes from earlier exploitation films from the same distributor which got recycled here.
Interestingly, though, Amateur Porn Star Killer 2 is not nearly as graphic as the earlier torture porn movies I mentioned. This is mostly because of the extremely bare-bones approach they took to filming it. In fact, the hand held video often looks like a porn film (the music also reeks of porn scoring). What little violence is shown is mostly neutered by the fact that the filmmakers try to overcome their lack of funds and effects by nearly constantly using simple disorienting video tricks – double and triple exposing the picture, turning everything grainy black and white, filming entire scenes in inverted colors, covering up entire scenes with out-of-focus bright color swaths. This quickly gets way too precious and as a viewer you are positively thankful in the short and rare occasions in which the video is left alone and you can actually see what the hell is going on.
The actual murder is so quick and filmed at such an odd angle that you can’t even tell for sure it happened at first. Honestly, the fact that the violence was not as graphic as I had feared was actually a plus for me. I do have to admit that the DVD comes in both the “Movie Version” and the “Snuff Version” and I chose to only watch the movie version, which I would assume was tamer.
However, the sex – which had mostly been relatively tame in the hour leading up to the last half hour, does occasionally get very graphic. In short bursts there are some rather explicit shots of oral sex and penetration – none of it long enough to be considered porn, but definitely more than you will see in most films.
I can’t say I liked Amateur Porn Star Killer 2. The ad-libbed dialogue was mostly superficial, the characters somewhat unbelievable and the whole situation of him talking to her as he filmed her was way too reminiscent of internet porn. However, strangely, this very amateurishness in filming did make the movie feel oddly immediate and kind of intriguing. It’s not as scary or sexy as it wants to be and I would never watch it again, but strangely I don’t regret seeing this quirky little film.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2008 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: June 6, 2008.
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