Amateur Porn Star Killer (2007)
Review by The Fiend of Grue
The supposed “snuff film” is a film in which documents the actual death of a real person. The term first surfaced in the 1970’s as a “real” underground phenomena. Also know to be called “white heat” and terms as simple as “the real thing“, the snuff film became the talk of legend with the FBI eventually investigating it. Even though several thousand people across the US claim to have seen an actual snuff film, to this day it remains an urban legend. Amateur Porn Star Killer is director Shane Ryan’s attempt to make a “real” snuff film.
Brandon slowly drives by an innocent looking girl standing on a street corner of some unnamed city. Upon pulling up next to her she confides in him that she is waiting on a ride to which he goes on to offer to take her where she wants, himself. Being 18 and with nothing to loose, Stacy decides to go with him. As they travel, what they are discussing becomes trivial very fast as a much more interesting amateur porn movie plays in the lower left corner of the screen, even reaching into soft core porn territory.
As the two youngsters reach Brandon’s place, which is obviously a hotel room, Brandon films a very shy and unassuming Stacy as she tells a little about herself over a mellow acoustic guitar soundtrack. As she continues to talk, Brandon tries to pry more information from her, eventually getting her to admit that she would like to be in movies to which he presses over and over what type of movie would she like to be in. As Brandon continues to pressure Stacey, he eventually gets her to stand up and model for him all the while, the soundtrack slowly changes to a more sinister sounding texture before descending into a harrowing and throbbing drone.
As Brandon continues to pressure a nervous Stacey, she soon begins to reluctantly strip out of her clothes for him. At this point the film begins to take a transition from innocent home movie making shenanigans to an unsettling nightmare as Stacey visibly becomes uncomfortable with Brandon’s advances. Actress Michiko Jimenez, who plays the part of Stacey, seems very lost on what to do and where to turn with the acting being very convincing at this point. At this part of the movie you almost feel shameful for watching and you’ll find yourself wanting to turn away from what you are seeing. On top of that, right around this point in the movie Stacey admits to being only 13 years old ( Michiko Jimenez is obviously not, seeing that she has complete nude scenes in this film). Still though, she looks very young.
As the movie slowly, and I mean SLOWLY progresses onward, Brandon eventually sets his camera down and he and Stacey get it on hot and heavy. While all of their action is going on, we are subjected to Brandon’s previously filmed amateur porn ventures that play over top of what he and Stacey are doing. During this sequence the film even manages to go into X rated territory.
After an extended (and lame) scene of watching Stacey’s chest and Brandon’s arm while they get it on in an intentionally poorly shot sequence, Brandon precedes to beat the holy hell out of Stacey in slow motion while once again we get another overlapping shot of one of Brandon’s previous filmed debaucheries playing over the action and from there he continues to beat and kick Stacey. The movie ends telling an overview of what became of our little sick and demented Brandon.
At nearly one hour of set up time which involves nothing more that Brandon filming a shy, young girl over a tiresome acoustic soundtrack, the movie quickly loses any grasp that it may have had over its audience. It would be one thing if this movie actually felt like a “real” snuff film, but when you continuously have the overlapping porn scenes in your film and an acoustic soundtrack just to try and make it more worth your audience’s time of feeling like and actual movie, you haven’t accomplished what you set out to do in the first place, which was to make an “authentic“ snuff film. Trying to make a “snuff film” and a “real film” come together in a perfect marriage just doesn’t work, but if director Shane Ryan would have left out these two annoying aspects of his film, it would have served it’s purpose at a much more effective rate.
Amateur Porn Star Killer had its moments and plenty of ambitious potential and truthfully wasn’t a terrible film, but compared next to a film like the far superior August Underground it falls terribly flat and seems pointless. August Underground is easily the most realistic “snuff film” to ever be shot without it actually being real and in the end Amateur Porn Star Killer is nothing more than a want-a-be knockoff.
Popularity: 26% [?]
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