Porno

Why was this movie made in 2019? It's a movie from '88, and even then it would have been a b-production dime a dozen movie. Has someone found this on a VHS and transported it to a digital age? It's a comedy / horror / young adult character development movie and it's not very good at any of these things. It's also a horror movie that is called 'Porno' and it features a demon of lust, but even that's pretty lame compared to what you would have gotten, had this been made in '88.

Keola Racela's Porno is a return entry to the comedic horror genre follow other predecessors like 80s director, Fred Drekker (Monster Squad, etc.). This film is set in the early 90s and makes reference to 60s satanic films. Using that mix of satanic popular films and early 90s pop cultural references (Encino Man, etc.), one can see that horror cinema people have the theme of humor from the past 80s films like Fright Night, Return of the Living Dead, etc.. Interestingly enough, Racela pulls it off considering his prior filmwork slanted toward a possible an art-house audience. The plot is nothing new, that using a movie theater as a site of terror. Lamerto Bava's Demons, that place characters in a locked demonic cinema, but even then reviewers have forgotten other films involving horror and cinema theater. Film's like Bigas Luna's Anguish, Willard Huyck's Messiah of Evil and even Craven's Scream 2 have good fine-horror in cinema scenes. But what's works for this entry is that interconnection to popular culture, of course with the psychedelic effects toward the progress of Porno's premise: a Demonic theater. Those effects similar to Franco's Succubus (Necrominon) some creative liberties of Succubus creature.

Is this movie worth a watch? Yes, if you enjoy trashy, exploitative horror movies. Acting is good and the characters are great, but the movie itself is fairly flimsy, cliche and doesn't hold together too well. Overall I found it fine - not a bad movie, but not a good one. Though the actors were great, just wish there was more substance to the main plot.

Is it supposed to be funny? Is it a teen coming age movie? It has some bits of horror and gore but what's the point. There's something to do with Christians and the hypocrisy of small town religious observance but it's a bit too stretched out to make the story relevant. The idea that there's an entire cursed movie theatre hidden from view and a magical reel of celluloid is ridiculously outdated. The movie is called * so I was kind of expecting some * to turn up. It didn't. Which would have made this dull little film marginally more interesting. A kind of nothing movie that doesn't really do anything.