Amateur Porn Star Killer Making Midnight L.A. Debut

Faux snuff film made for $45

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Scheduled for midnight screenings this Friday and Saturday at the Laemmle Sunset 5 theater (8000 Sunset Blvd.) is shock picture Amateur Porn Star Killer, a simulated snuff film shot on miniDV by Shane Ryan for the unprecedented shoestring budget of $45.

Starring only Ryan and Michiko Jimenez, Killer, as its website explains, "follows a Ted Bundy-like serial killer, Brandon, and his next victim, Stacy, who is about to become an unwilling participant in Brandon's movie."

In an interview with PollyStaffle.com, Ryan said, "I've always liked exploring sex in ways that Hollywood rarely does anymore. We did back in the '70s and are starting to again, thank god. But American Pie and all these films aimed towards teenagers paint sex as a pretty picture, and tell us we're losers if we don't take advantage of some young hot girl. But I think that's the dark side. Yes, sex can be a very beautiful thing. But it usually ends up leading to a really fucked up situation, and in Amateur Porn Star Killer, I wanted to explore that in the most realistic way I could.

"Sure, it's not entertaining like American Pie," Ryan continued, "but that's the point; you shouldn't be entertained by it. You should be disgusted. If you're not, then you're disgusting. Or I just failed as a filmmaker."

Also noting to PollyStaffle that, "I wanted the film inside the film of 8mm to be a real, full length film," Ryan surmised, "Maybe it wasn't meant to be, but I made it happen, and here it is."

Describing Killer as "a more sinister Hard Candy mixed with 8mm and Mute Witness, crossed with Girls Gone Wild and The Blair Witch Project," PollyStaffle also likened it to cult horror/survival classics The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave, and granted it a Polished Apple award in the site's Second Annual Pollies for best use of sex/nudity.

For more information about Amateur Porn Star Killer and its midnight showings this weekend, go to www.alteregocinema.com, www.myspace.com/amateurpornstarkiller or laemmle.com.