PORNOGRAPHY: A THRILLER
Written & Directed by David Kittredge
Produced by Sean Abley
Released by Triple Fire Productions
USA. 113 min. Not Rated
With Matthew Montgomery, Pete Scherer, Jared Grey & Walter Delmar
 

Like real gay porn, this is a campy film that sadly lacks any sense of humor. But it’s also an ambitious debut for writer/director David Kittredge, and that should be noted. He juggles complex storylines, but they’re weighed down by too much social commentary about desire, porn, and an over-stimulated relationship with media.

Porn star Mark Anton (Jared Grey) disappeared in 1995, seeding rumors of his final moments caught on a rare snuff tape circulating the New York porn circuit. Matthew Montgomery—the best actor present—plays Michael, a writer working on a history of gay porn. When he starts delving into Mark’s mystery, his boyfriend begins intoning Mark’s long-dead voice. Horror movie clichés ensue. (Michael even gets a phone call from a friend, who is killed while talking on the phone, mid-sentence.)

Then that storyline abruptly ends with no resolution, and we meet Matt Stevens (Pete Scherer), who happens to be writing a porn film about Mark. His only knowledge of Anton comes from dreams—realities start to blur for both Matt and the audience when the porn actors in Matt’s film switch bodies with the actors in Anton’s segment. While you could compare that kind of casting game to David Lynch’s Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive for the disregard of a continuous narrative reality, the comparison ends there.

Unlike Lynch, there’s nothing dark lurking beneath the surface here. What could be subtle about a film titled Pornography: A Thriller? The few good ideas the movie shares about modern society’s connection to media (porn in particular) are damaged with heavy-handedness, like when the killer tells Mark, “I just want you to be real,” to which the porn star replies, “You can have my body, but you can never have my pain.” The movie ends with a man stripping on film, screaming, “Isn’t this want you wanted?” (No. Well, kind of. But tone it down a little, please.)

Had Kittredge reconciled his film with the ridiculousness of gay porn, he could have made a really fun movie. Instead, we’re left with a softcore remake of a horror movie, and when given the choice, I’d rather watch the silly gay porn than the serious gay-porn social critique with silly dialogue. Zachary Jones
April 20 2010