Shane Ryan's Amateur Porn Star Killer 2 is almost identical to his first film in the series: psycho Brandon (played by Ryan) meets an unsuspecting girl, chats her up, and coerces her into sex before killing her, all of which is filmed by Brandon on his handycam, the footage fuzzy, unsteady and unfocused throughout. Presented as pseudo snuff, the film succeeds in being disturbing largely thanks to the director's uncomfortably convincing turn as a sick, misogynistic monster.
Hoever, what really bothers me about this film is not the controversial subject matter nor Ryan's unsettling 'performance', but rather the headache inducing execution that makes it such a stupefyingly dull experience.
Striving for authenticity, Ryan depicts the events leading up to the sex and violence, as recorded by someone with a total inability to hold a camera steady and blissfully unaware of a handy feature called 'auto-focus'. It's boring and torture for the eyes. I guess the intention was to juxtapose the casual interaction between characters with the later, more extreme content, but the dialogue is so lifeless, the action so banal (a visit to a gas station for a coffee), and the picture and sound so lo-fi that it's hard to remain focused (a bit like the camera). After 45 minutes of absolute tedium, Ryan finally gets around to the film's raison d'être, the debasement and killing of the girl, but this is filmed with the same lack of technical prowess: poor lighting, crappy sound, horrible editing effects, and that migraine-inducing wobbly camerawork.
In short: congratulations are in order, Ryan, for making me hate your despicable character so intensely, but not so much for making me hate your film just as much.
