Porno review: A closed movie theatre is the setting for first time feature director Keola Racela, a film that is not quite as sexy as the title may suggest.
Porno
The year is 1992 and Chaz (Jillian Mueller), Todd (Larry Saperstein), Abe (Evan Daves), Ricky (Glenn Scott) and Heavy Metal Jeff (Robbie Tann), spend their days working at a local cinema in a heavily Christian town. Left alone to close the theatre after watching a movie of their choosing, the group stumbles across a hidden room. The room is full to bursting with items that point to a past life as an adult movie theatre for the cinema. After discovering a reel of film, and not being able to decide between a staff viewing of either A League of Their Own or Encino Man, they decide to give the mystery film a whirl. It’s much more than a movie though; by playing it they accidentally unleash a trapped sex demon, Lilith (Katelyn Pearce). As the night progresses, each member of the group finds themselves tempted by their ultimate desires, if they give in and succumb they risk losing their lives.
As an ex-cinema employee myself, there’s a lot of nostalgia when viewing a film set entirely in a movie theatre. The cast of characters isn’t exactly the same as the people that I once worked with, but they exhibit many similar traits. There’s a lot of love here for the medium of film, especially from Heavy Metal Jeff, and it’s fun to look back at the heyday of film projection before digital content came along and stole that movie magic. Our core group offer plenty of mystery as each harbours their own secret: one is in love with another, one is struggling with their sexuality, and another is letting their friend take the fall for their indiscretions.
Porno
Despite there being only a skeleton crew of characters and victims for Lilith, Porno manages to draw out the suspense. Who will be the first of the group to succumb? And when they do, what will the results be? Well, the results are pretty icky, Lilith inflicts pain on her victims by literally getting them to climax themselves to death. Be warned, this film contains graphic imagery of penis mutilation. Katelyn Pearce gives a suitable hypnotic performance as Lilth and despite spending much of the film naked, manages to convey the malice of her character. Her nakedness in no way dilutes her viciousness, if anything, it reinforces it. A couple of the other characters suffer from being slightly underwritten when compared to their colleagues, but this also doesn’t affect the overall enjoyment of the film.
Given the drawn out approach to making the characters last as long as possible at times Porno does drag a little at times. It’s never for too long though as Racela stuffs a lot into the trim run time. When watching Porno there’s an odd Last Action Hero feel in certain moments; it also parallels Clive Barker’s Book of Blood story ‘Son of Celluloid’. With a title as titillating as Porno you could be forgiven for thinking the film would be full of scantily clad men and women getting it on, in an old school Channel Five late night movie kind of way. You’d be wrong though as, much like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon, Porno instead analyses society’s fascination with sex and offers a rather cautionary tale on giving into our desires.
Porno was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest 2019.
