It’s 1992 and four repressed religious teens and a straight-edge projectionist working at a small-town cinema discover a secret screening room filled with vintage exploitation films. Playing one of the old film reels unleashes a demon named Lilith, who attempts to seduce each of them in order to steal their souls.
In a film about religious repression, the one thing that can’t be repressed is the protagonists’ rampant teenage hormones. “I saw her! Her hooters, man. And everything else!” says Todd (Larry Saperstein), after a first encounter with Lilith, the naked succubus who wants to kill them.
Initially Lilith (Katelyn Pearce) seems quite restrained – when she first started sucking Todd’s finger I assumed she was going to bite it off, like the vampire in A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night – but no. Though soon she is turning them into demons, shapeshifting from female to male, and literally exploding someone’s testicles (requiring his friend to gingerly put them back inside and secure everything with some good knots).
And while the film’s demonic antiheroine is the literal embodiment of that old phrase “all fur coat and no knickers”, the film, and its teen protagonists, have a lot going on underneath (in every sense).
Porno plays into our fascination with three things: sex, God, and those photos of long-closed cinemas where some urban photographer has broken in, risking their lives under collapsing plaster, to take photos of fading ’60s film posters and moth-eaten velvet curtains.
The first feature from director Keola Racela, it’s funny, frantic, and often frightening, but also sweetly sincere – as five young people stuck in a homophobic town steeped in religion find a way to break free and find out who they are (and have some fun).
It’s set in 1992 – the only two films their cinema is showing are Encino Man and A League Of Their Own – and while the coming-of-age themes will resonate more with some than others, there’s really something here for everyone: nudity, sex, horrible deaths, and for old school cinéastes proper film cans and a projector.
Also I learnt a new initialism, CBTL, or Christ Bears The Load, though as I still have to google MVP whenever it’s used on Twitter I doubt I’ll remember that for long.
There are five teens; well, four and the 20-something Heavy Metal Jeff (Robbie Tann), who has left the temptations of college to move back in with his mum, while berating others for their lack of religiosity. Sporty heartthrob Ricky is gay, but is desperately trying to suppress his sexuality (Glenn Stott, who plays him, is every inch the cute-yet-reticent 80s high school movie poster boy); Chastity, or Chaz (Jillian Mueller), his friend for years, is also in love with him. Todd and Abe (Evan Daves) are gawky best friends who do everything together, including hiding in a tree to spy on a naked woman.
Their boss Mr Pike (Bill Phillips) leaves them in the cinema to watch a film of their choice as their Friday night treat, but while they’re cleaning up they come across a raving old man in one of the auditoriums. He escapes them by crashing through a hidden, boarded-up doorway; following him down the steps (surely a metaphor for the mystery of what’s happening “down there!”), they discover another cinema entirely, as well as a store room stacked with old films and a strange book.
The film Abe brings back up, once they’ve got it into Heavy Metal Jeff’s projector, turns out to be a weird little movie that looks like a 1960s art experiment, with a naked woman, a strange wild-haired man, demonic symbols, swirling colours and lots of blood. Soon Lilith – for it is she – is out of the film and stalking them through the building; during their battle with her they find out a lot that’s good about themselves, and a lot that isn’t about their boss and religious mentor Mr Pike.
Lilith is the embodiment of the kids’ teenage repression and confusion, with everyone both enthralled by her and terrified as she offers both their best life, and it seems their best death too, underneath an impressive array of sexploitation movie posters including Orgy of the Dead (“In Shocking SexiColor!“)
Porno is sometimes terrifying (there are some real shocks), sometimes transfixingly gross, and sometimes hilarious, these heavy and humorous moments linked by lots of running around and some talking as they try to save each other and work out how to get Lilith back in her tin.
The kids’ earnestness is very sweet as they come out with the most blatant double entendres: “the bush was burning with me, but it was not consumed” intones the determined Chastity, as she tries to set fire to what Jeff characterises as a “European titty movie”.
In true comedy-horror style there’s lots of telling each other to be quiet: “Shut up Todd!” “Shut up Heavy Metal Jeff!” and my favourite, “Watch your mouth, Demon Todd!”, as their friend metamorphoses into a glowing-eyed, blue cheese-veined, levitating evil entity.
This is not a glossy film. Direction, cinematography and production design combine to give it a deliberate, old-style indie feel that’s less about its budget and more about its sensibility. Porno harks back to coming-of-age movies of the 80s and 90s, when teens weren’t expected to look polished and perfect, but basic decency would eventually win them the day. The camera focuses on their wide-eyed expressions of out-of-their-depth shock as much as on naked Lilith or the blood and gore (though if that’s what you’re here for you won’t be disappointed either).
Their small world is being shaken but they step up admirably. You feel if it was real, by now these kids would be in their 40s and the world would be in safe, if sticky, hands.
The four younger characters are diffident but devoted, as they try to navigate friendships and sexuality; hard enough without the added pressures of the extreme religiosity and anti-gay sentiment that has saturated their lives.
It’s very funny, because of their absolute sincerity, facing death for their friends. And you really, really want them to survive. Even Heavy Metal Jeff, slightly older and always reflecting his own metaphorical demons outwards as he struggles with them, is just trying to do what he can to stop himself falling prey to his addictions.
The cast is terrific, their characters a winning mix of guilelessness and bravery. Jillian Mueller is the standout in terms of acting, though Chaz – taking the lead in stepping up – also has the most interesting emotional journey. Or maybe I just identified with her, having been 21 in 1992 myself, after some very religious teenage years – that and a shared obsession with black eyeliner.
Watch the trailer now (and scroll down for a spoiler):
↓
↓
↓
SO… the kids all live! Even Heavy Metal Jeff’s nuts are saved. They get Lilith back in her tin, but decide to look after it to stop it being opened again…