Film Review: Horno (2009)

SYNOPSIS:

Life imitates art when several sex crazed, flesh eating zombies, crash a film shoot about a zombie outbreak spread by sodomy.

REVIEW:

Written & Directed by: Terrance Williams
Starring: Carlos Javier Castillo, Oceana Christopher, Jesselyn Desmond

QUICK FIX:
Ron is a director of p*rn movies (hey, got my attention already) who has grown tired of the same old story, the same old sodomy and dance, of directing regular p*rn. I guess even people driven and dedicated to their craft can eventually grow tired of setting up shot after shot after shot after shot of gorgeous women getting stuffed like a Christmas turducken while he’s stuck behind the camera barking orders and watching other dudes getting to have all the sweaty fun. I can relate to that, I suppose, although it can be even tougher in the trenches for us regular folks sometimes – obviously this director has never been in the middle of an awesomely heated and passionately sticky time with his beautiful partner only to lean a little to the left and accidentally full-contact-UFC-style crack his head on a cold, hard, metal tanning bed while trying to please her. What? Really?? I can’t be the only one that’s happened to…

Anyway, he convinces his producer that he has a great idea for a new flick where a zombie outbreak is spread by anal sex. But when his male lead tries out a new designer drug on his fluffer and it turns her into a zombie for real, which of course he gets bit (off, if you will) which turns him into a zombie. Then he starts doing the same to his castmates, turning them into zombies, and so it goes as sh*t once again runs downhill and we’ve got a full-blown outbreak on our hands yet again. Fuck this noise; I’m going to the Winchester…

RAMBLINGS:
Most days, and you can ask anyone who knows me, I’m never really at a loss for words when it comes to pretty much anything…there’s always a movie quote spewing forth from my mouth, some smartassed comment giving a friend sh*t, some Monster energy drink-fueled rant about something, or something. Even with my reviews, even after all these years of doing them, there’s usually some story from my past or present that I can bring into the fold to relate to the film at hand. Hell, even short films (which this one is to me, as it clocks in at just around fifty minutes), I can ramble on and on for what seems like forever, whether I like the flick or not. But for some reason, I’ve got nothing this time that I feel is really worth saying. And that, my friends, is a reflection on this movie and this movie alone…not me.

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating – I’m an indie horror filmmaker’s best friend…most times. I forgive the bad lighting, shoddy editing, nervous amateur actors, and even sh*tty dialogue, and focus on the story itself. HORNO though, is one of the exceptions to my rule. This film has all of the pitfalls mentioned above and more, but it’s also what I call a “habitual line-stepper”. It goes above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to any and all of the above, but even the story itself can’t save it. It’s like it wants to be so much over the top and stand out from the rest of the crowd that it winds up tripping up badly over its own fairly cool idea. In other words – good idea for a feature film or even in this case a short – just horribly, terribly executed from start to finish. But this is no ZOMBIE STRIPPERS, folks. There are no well-known p*rn stars in this one, and the dialogue makes real p*rn dialogue sound like a David Mamet play in comparison.

LAST WORDS:
I’m not going to sh*t all over this flick like I have others in the past that I’ve hated, simply because while I didn’t enjoy this movie at all it didn’t really piss me off for having wasted my time with it since I really only wasted 45 or so minutes on it instead of the usual hour and a half or more. Instead it just left me feeling cold and empty inside. I wasn’t entertained, I wasn’t laughing, I wasn’t turned on, I wasn’t anything. Just avoid, walk away, and don’t waste your time.