Amateur Porn Star Killer is a faux-snuff film come experimental mumblecore drama. The early 2000s production is largely captured in grainy & jumpy black ‘n’ white stock- with darts/overlaying of colour super 8-like footage. It’s a film that shifts between being awkward & unsettling with moments of both general shock & messy film-craft. All making it a decidedly difficult film to review- as for every effective moment of unease, there are as many moments  of ham-fisted-ness/ general bad filmmaking. Here from Wild Eye’s Raw & Extreme series is a region-free DVD of the film- taking in two commentary tracks, and a trailer.

Amateur Porn Star Killer is from 2006. It was directed by, co-written and stars Canoga Park, California-born Shane Ryan-Reid.  Between the mid-90s and the present day, he has an impressive sixty-two directorial credits- taking in five features, with the remainder being made up of shorts & anthologies. The full lengths move between thriller Big Boobs, Blonde Babes, Bad Blood (2006), street-based teen drama The Girl Who Wasn’t Lost (2011), and two Amateur Porn Star Killer sequels.

The film runs at the seventy-one-minute mark, and it largely shows in real-time how Brandon (Ryan-Reid), a sleazy predator/ killer picks up a young girl from the city's nighttime streets, takes her back to a motel room, and  has his depraved ways with her.

The girl Stacy (Michiko Jimenez) claims she is eighteen when she is picked up- but as things move on, we find out she is a lot younger- this of course adds another unpleasant edge to proceedings. Brandon picks her up on the pretence of making a movie with her, but when he gets her back to his motel room, it becomes clear his real motives.

Over the main of the film, he slowly but surely pushes the girl into undressing to her underwear, then caressing/ just off-camera sexual activity. Both parties talk in a low-key/ mumbled manner- this is made worse/ impacted by the use of overload music- be it acoustic guitar bound fare, building folk rock, or grey & oppressive drone matter. Also to confuse/ruin some scenes he overlays smaller Super 8 footage of a blond-haired woman having a casting call that turns into sex.

Acting wise Ryan-Reid shifts from being chatty with a nervous laugh, to creepily persuasive/ pushes, to downright predatory & nasty. Jimenez is very convincing as the girl is way out of her depth. There isn’t really any gore/ violence, aside from what's seen just off-screen, and there are fleeting glances of nudity.

So, as I mentioned in my introduction this is a difficult film to review/ fairly rate- due to its decidedly mixed quality. On the effective side, we have a drifting feeling of both unpleasant sleazy and on-edginess. The performances are very naturalistic/ largely believable. From time to time the musical elements enhance/ intensifier what's on screen. And by the end of it all, you do really feel like you want to take a shower.

On the less effective side, we have the ham-fisted/ bad editing/ cutting- which breaks some moments of tension. The overlaying Super 8 sex footage often confuses/ takes away from the central focus. 30% of the dialogue is difficult to make out. And actually death/ snuff elements appear briefly at the end of the film. So Amateur Porn Star Killer is a mixed bag.

On the extras side we get two commentary tracks one with Dr. James Aston who wrote Hardcore Horror Cinema in the 21st Century: Production, Marketing, and Consumption & Doug Brunell of Film Threat. I played the first of these tracks- Aston begins by contextualising the film within the faux-snuff genre, will films like the August Underground trilogy, Scrapbook, The Vomit Gore trilogy, etc. He talks about the film's effectively unpleasant charge which builds & builds.  The use of amateur camera work, location and acting to sell itself as real. He talks about the objectification of the victim, and the surprising moment the camera switches to our predator.  Later on, he talks about how the film repackages ‘real’ snuff as entertainment & ideology- seemingly more for the audience, than the killer. He discusses in detail more examples of the faux-snuff film genre. It’s a largely interesting track, and thankfully stays away from being too scholarly/ dry.  

There is no doubt Amateur Porn Star Killer is a distinctive, at points lopsidedly experimental take on the faux-snuff film form. And I’d say even if you’re a fan of the genre- tread carefully/ don’t expect an easy ride. It’s certainly good to see Wild Eye reissuing this, so more folk get to make their mind one way or the other.