Amateur Porn Star Killer

Amateur Porn Star Killer (2007)

*** (out of 4)

Each and every year horror fans start hyping up a film saying it's one of the best of the genre and so on. The skies usually falls down as these hyped movies turn out to be bad but that's not the case here. I had never even heard of this movie until I got bored and kept walking around the video store and noticed the naked woman on the DVD cover. I read the mini-reviews scattered across the front and back cover so I decided to give the film a shot and it was certainly worth it. The film is more psychological drama than horror but no matter which genre the film works.

A man (Shane Ryan) lures a 13-year-old girl (Michiko Jimenez) to a hotel room for what she thinks is to make an amateur porn movie but soon, as she begins to feel uncomfortable, she knows something else is going on. The set up is simple but the style is what really pushes this film over the edge. This is another film that tries to be a snuff movie and it actually works here but I'm sure a lot will blow their brains out. The whole style of the film is that the movie looks like a real, low budget movie with splices on the print, the darkness goes up and down, tape rolls and other things. This will annoy most but it does work in making the film look and feel like a real snuff movie. It's ugly to look at and sometimes the audio is hard to hear but this just captures what a real snuff film would probably look like. The film is meant to be a warning to women about going places with men that they don't know and this simple idea works very well. The film runs 71-minutes and 68-minutes of that time is shot in "real time" as we see the two enter the room, start talking, slowly taking their clothes off and so on. There's a real oral sex scene and the film isn't shy about the nudity but all of it is done in a grungy way, just like what we'd expect the snuff film to be.

The film runs very short but with the lack of any real editing it just adds to the movie. Apparently this was shot in a couple hours for $45 and it looks it. That's not a bad thing either. The film opens with a small scene in the car and then we hit the hotel room where we get a forty-minute scene done without any edits and then another thirty-minute scene without edits. The film plays very smoothly and you really get the feeling that you're watching a real video that's uncut. Star and director Ryan does a very good job in both departments and his acting was pretty damn good. He does a great job at playing this creep who starts off like a girl's dream but slowly turns to the psychopath that he is. Jimenez gives a terrific performance as the young virgin who gets in over her head. I was rather shocked at how great she was and considering there aren't any edits or double takes, the fact that she was able to stay in character and go with the story ranks this performance as one of the best I've seen in 2007. Shane, the director, does a terrific job with the visual style, although again, the bad quality will probably bug some. If we're going to call this a horror movie then it's one of the best I've seen in a very long time and like the films of the 70s, its point is to shock you and that it does very well.

I guess with a title like Amateur Pornstar Killer they put that title out there to sell videos of it. Let's start with why it's no good. The actress playing the victim should have demanded that the guy at least lick her yssup. It's only fair. You have to turn the brightness all the way up to see her give the director oral stimulation. Guess if you direct the movie it's only expected that you are on the receiving end. The guy isn't even believable as a serial killer. The actress here really could been the victim of a serial killer. She did actually allow herself to be filmed giving oral. The movie has no redeeming qualities. It's about a guy who coerces a young female to have sex and kill her.

Skip it and watch a true porno like Deep Throat. The Devil in Miss Jones or Behind the green door. They don't have porno in the title but I guarantee you they are the real deal.

This is one of the only "movies" I have ever seen in which I don't think I can classify it as "a movie". The fact that the director managed to get ANY sort of distribution for this is mind-boggling. The fact that he or anyone else felt driven to make TWO sequels after creating this is also mind-boggling. It truly feels like a guy who really loves porn wishes he could make porn but can't (for some reason), so he made this instead, which literally follows the exact same formula as an amateur porn scene would, except the awkward dialogue which would normally lead up to the sex lasts for OVER AN HOUR, then you get like five minutes of poorly simulated sex, and a minute of poorly simulated murder - and THAT'S THE WHOLE "MOVIE". Yes, it's truly over an hour of awkward "So, where you from? Maybe we could get you out of those pants at some point" type dialogue for the entire length. But, hey, he put a couple quotes about snuff films at the beginning and added a really cheap looking "old film" filter over the entire movie, so, maybe, some people...will think...it's art?

I only watched because a friend borrowed it to me and asked me to watch it, because they wanted to know what I thought. Well, this is it.

I'm a bit confused about the title for this zero budget piece of sleazy shot-on-video trash: is it the porn star who is the amateur or the killer? One thing that I am sure about, Shane Ryan, the director of this worthless cack, is definitely an amateur, his film having zero artistic or technical merit. The only reason that I can see for this film to exist is for Ryan to have a visual record of his deviant sexual activity to whack off to at a later date, although his inability to frame an image in focus means even that is a futile exercise.

Over the course of 71 excruciatingly dull minutes, Ryan's character, Brandon, cajoles an underage girl, Stacy (Michiko Jimenez), into stripping off and having sex, before smothering her with a pillow and repeatedly punching her. The end credits explain that Brandon proceeded to hide his snuff films in video boxes returned to rental stores, and that the killer has never been caught. It's totally inept nonsense, not in the least bit shocking, and has no redeeming quality whatsoever. One has to wonder what was in it for Jimenez. Did she owe Ryan money?

Boy, I could not wait to come on the internet and complain about this rubbish, I simply can't believe anyone who watched more than five minutes of this poorly executed rubbish would distribute it on DVD.

This is basically a five minute (and that's being generous) short film needlessly stretched into a 70 odd minute feature, its excruciatingly boring (I couldn't help but skip through it) with no humour, violence/gore or even decent pornography to make it worth watching.

It looks like it was edited in Windows Moviemaker or imovie judging by the extremely poor use of sepia tinting and old movie look, which I suppose is to add realism but simply detracts and annoys. To make this film realistic, cold hard ungraded digital video should have been used.

The soundtrack of lame emo & cheap sound effects also serve to annoy and betrays the film makers lack of confidence in his material.

I normally try to be supportive of films of this type as I myself am a no budget film maker, but there is simply nothing here that I can be positive about, especially as it will be taking up space in a DVD shop where my and other honest film makers work could be sitting.