DVD REVIEW: AMATEUR PORN STAR KILLER 2

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STUDIO: Cinema Epoch
MSRP: $19.98
RATED: NR
RUNNING TIME: 80 min
SPECIAL FEATURES: 

• “Snuff” Version

The Pitch

Imagine if the Bang Bus guys killed the girls when they finished with them…

The Humans

Director: Shane Ryan

Writer: Shane Ryan and Kai Lanette

Cast: Shane Ryan and Kai Lanette

The Nutshell

It’s a fake snuff film about an amateur porn star killer.

This girl was offered a chance to watch a new Shawn Ryan movie

The Lowdown

I guess the first thing I should do is answer the burning question of message board posters all over CHUD.

Is it about a person that kills amateur porn stars? Or a person in amateur porn that is a killer? Or a porn star that’s an amateur killer? – Martianman

From watching the film, I would say it is the self-made amateur porn star who is the killer. He is not killing porn stars in this movie, although there are flashbacks that show that he has offered money for sex before killing the girls. The killer is a voyeur who likes to film himself having sex, so that would, I assume, make him an amateur porn star.

Well, with that out of the way, let me describe this experience to you. I assume most guys have ventured upon video from either Bang Bus or Milf Hunter. Those guys would stalk random chicks and then choose one to pick up, offer them cash in some cases and then we the viewer get porn!!! OK, take that premise and end the porn with the murder of the girl they just banged. That is what you call a snuff film.

Snuff Film (n): a pornographic film that shows an actual murder of one of the performers, as at the end of a sadistic act.

I assume this is a film made by a man who loved Faces of Death as a child. What matters most to director Shane Ryan is to disturb the viewer as much as possible by making his own (fake) snuff film, and making it look as real as possible.

There were two people involved in the making of this film. Shane Ryan was the writer, director, cinematographer, editor and star of the film. Kai Lanette was a co-writer and the victim in the film. It is shot mostly handheld, uses many art house techniques including playing with the contrast and color, using various camera and editing tricks to throw the viewer off. There are also a number of flashbacks to prior crimes, mostly shot in black and white, showing how the killer got to this point in his life.

The plot centers around the killer stalking the victim and convincing her to skip school and come back to his place. There is nudity, both male and female, full penetration and of course it ends in her death (spoiler). The differences between this and the actual snuff film are (1) color, (2) a music soundtrack and (3) the woman actually puts up a fight. The music actually adds a level of tension to the proceedings, and the up close pornographic video is enough to titillate but only for a short time.

However, I truly believe the amateur porn star described in the title is not the fictional character of Brandon, but the actor/director Shane Ryan. The fact that we get the up close penetration shots tells me Ryan may claim to have made this movie to disturb the viewer, but at heart he made it to star in his own porn, while living out the secret fetishes of those mythical snuff films. Hell, he got a blow job on camera. But Shane Ryan is not Vincent Gallo. This is a vanity project that doesn’t hold up well at the end of the day.

If you like your sex with a lot of violence, this movie might be for you. I wanted to hate this movie. Based solely on the constant shilling, I wanted to come in and rip this movie to shreds. But at the end of the day, I am a professional and I can’t say this is the worst movie I have ever seen. It actually works on a base level. I believe it is vanity porn made by a self promoter, but there are things in the movie that work, and it plays as an almost cautionary tale. I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but it works for what it’s advertised as.

On a final note, the final murder is one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever seen. That would be considered a success for this film I guess.

The Package

This is called a Special 2-Disc Collector’s Edition, but that just means is there are two versions of the film in the box. The first DVD is the movie and the second is simply the snuff film, with the special visual effects and music removed to make it seem more like a real snuff movie “the way the killer intended it.”

If this man offers to show you his new movies, run far, far away…