Together with his cameraman Robbie (Ray Rosales) and his soundgirl (and
ex) Mya (Aja Pollock), documentary filmmaker Matt (Justin Henry) wants to
make a movie about the porn industry ... which seems to be a doomed idea
right from the start, basically because when talking to the porn stars,
Matt seems to be nothing but drooling all over them, and he gets nothing
out of them that hasn't been done a gazillion tomes before - even on the
"behind the scenes"-sections on porn videos. Furthermore, it
really pisses Mya off, especially since she and Matt just seemed to get
together again. Then though, Matt meets Alyssa (Marissa Joy Davis), your
typical next-door-all-American girl from some small town in the middle of
nowhere who just wants to audition for porn (she hasn't shot anything
yet), and Matt is simply blown away by her perceived innocence, and
against the wishes of his co-conspirators, he decides to make the movie
exclusively about her and her descent (at least in his eyes), and he even
uses up all of his film's budget to pay her (not only for the movie but
also for a night together. A week or so later, Alyssa has disappeared,
Robbie and Mya have turned up dead, and Matt has been arrested for killing
them. But as two policemen (Dominic Ross, Jose Rosete) question Matt and
he tells them a tall tale about a snuff movie producer Alyssa has
apparently fallen for, they piece together a truth much darker than
anything Matt tries to sell them ... Part mock documentary,
part police interrogation, this film is above everything a pretty clever
whodunnit, inasmuch as it manages to always give the viewer just as much
information as he implicitly needs and to leave him in the dark and
guessing without actually lieing to him. A great deal of this also works
so well due to the fact that all the characters (including the
"victim" Alyssa and the two cops) are left ambivalent
throughout, meaning next to nothing concerning the outcome is given away
during the film's running time. And finally, the film exploits neither the
sleaziness nor the violence of its basic subjects (porn and snuff) to
their full extent, rather keeps its focus on the story and the characters
- to great effect. Recommended, actually!
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