My Name is A by Anonymous (Review)

My Name is A By Anonymous

My Name is A By Anonymous (2011)

Directed by Boneshin (aka Shane Ryan)

Anonymous aka Boneshin is clearly not that anonymous. My Name is A is directed by Shane Ryan, who clearly is a fringe filmmaker who's helmed the infamous Amateur Pornstar Killer series as well as Warning!!!! Pedophile Released. Having not seen the latter which I hear is actually pretty good, I'm left to judge his merit on APK and this film.

My Name is A (formerly a short called The Columbine Effect) is clearly in that genre of fictional recreations where a real life tragedy is turned into a film but shaded with arthouse flair. The film is a recreation of the life and times of alleged murderer Alyssa Bustamante who at the age of 15 killed Elizabeth Olten, who was only 9 years old. I had not heard of this crime and it's clearly something TruTV would focus on. Oh wait they did.

The film plays out the real as real life. You can read the entire notorious murder by heading here. We meet Alyssa, a gothy teen, who paints her face Joker style and has a taste of the killing. She's accompanied by "the sidekick" who follows her orders to a tee. In parallel we also meet "the performer" who is trying to find her direction in voice and art. Finally, we meet "the angst" who's abuse from her stepfather has her vomiting into jars.

Told in a shaky cam 3rd person blended with Flip/phone cams, it's got a docu-teen feel to it. Everything is overlayed with a music video quality and the dialogue is pure vulgar spewage. But whatever Ryan was trying to do here is lost on me. Movies like The Zero Effect and Van Sant's Elephant that recreated Columbine did so by not judging the killers, only following them on that day's events. After such a tragedy, nobody ever has a clear understanding why.

In My Name is A, Ryan clearly wants us to see Alyssa's madness manifest themselves in visual characters of performer, angst, sidekick, etc. Why did she kill this little girl? Was it the culmination of sexual abuse with teenage angst, being a rebel and trying to be "famous"? Clearly, we are led to believe this is the case. Why is never important when creating a fictional version of a real life tragedy. One has to judge on it with uncertainty...it's the only thing that's certain when it comes to motive.

The film itself is a miragy mix of Harmony Korine's early stuff and it's just plain boring. Add in the visual nausea and the meanderings of dialogue (and bad acting) it's a milkshake of nonsense. Every scene seems picked from the true story such as the Joker makeup, the kid brother, the electric fence playground and the actual way the victim dies. Even her look (see the link above) is mimicked in unison. However, I didn't see a what felt like 10 minute music video dream sequence coming. No idea what that was about.

There have been movies like this before. The Sylvia Likens case comes to mind and I watched 2 films based on that. An American Crime (starring Ellen Page) and The Girl Next Door. Both handled the real life horrific murder solidly and elegantly. Even Elephant was oddly mesmerizing.

Unfortunately My Name is A by Anonymous clearly wants to give us innocence lost (a killer and a victim) theme, but none of that really stood out. Instead, Shane Ryan tricked me with a cool title and made me watch a film with untapped potential that had me asking him....why??

Nude-ipedia

Umm I try to not think of what I saw as nudity... ::shivers::

Gore-ipedia

A bit of blood

WTF moment

Where did this Russian music video come from?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

My Name is A by Anonymous comes from Mad Sin Cinema. Here's some info on the vitals. My Name is A by anonymous (formerly known as The Columbine Effect) stars Russian pop star Teona Dolnikova, Demi Baumann – the younger sister of actor Ken Baumann from The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Sean Cain. With newcomers Katie Marsh, Kaliya Skye, Joseph Marsh and Alex Damiano. Produced by Alisha Rayne, Cinematography by Arturo Guerrero.

Rating:


Check out the trailer.

Exploitation Awesomeness or Sleazy Horror Porn?

If you walk into any mom and pop video store, you'll see the same layout in each one. The action flicks are next to the sci-fi movies, which are next to the horror movies. And what's next to the horror movies? Yup, saloon style doors with bells on them signaling the entrance to the porn section.

Porn and horror are like a fat man is with a Big Mac. They go hand in hand.

So what happens when you mix horror with porn? You get Shane Ryan's Amateur Porn Star Killer movies. These trilogy of films aren't like Zombie Strippers where porn actors and actresses show some skin and die a gruesome death. It's not even having Sasha Grey in your flick. Nope the APK movies are serial killer, shot on video diaries where he lures girls, has sex with them (with full frontal penetration, BJ's and the rest) then kills them for his own delusional happiness.

Now that's blending the genres together. I unfortunately have seen the 2 other flicks in this trilogy. After reviewing Part 2, I went back and saw Part 1 (well you know for research purposes only) and they both sucked (...literally). I don't think I'll see Part 3 but that's why I'm posting this trailer.

The two camps of Shane Ryan's work are split. Some say he's a mad genius having perfected this subgenre.

Here's some PRO APK quotes:

"...AMATEUR PORN STAR KILLER 3 makes films like SAW and HOSTEL look like Disney films."

-Basement Screams

All other sites and blogs basically say these flicks are unwatchable pieces of garbage. But the fact that I am TALKING about this and I've warranted a post about his flicks says something. Like porn itself, there are different fetishes and types of pornography (and all of them are a Google search away to view for your perverted enjoyment).

So if we can have midget transsexual porn or 2 girls 1 cup porn, there is enough room for amateur porn star killer porn. It's highly amazing that he's made 3 of these flicks. Who actually watches these flicks when porn is plentiful and free on the interweb?

Hmm could it be because there is a horror aspect to it? That's why gratuitous sex scenes are in horror movies. Because somehow we want to see death when we are our most vulnerable. You can read into that all you want, find the subtext or some shit, but its true. It's like the fear of dying when we're asleep...we can't see it coming.

Horror and porn are very distinct in their goals. Horror poses to scare the shit out of you and make you see something cruel and disturbing. Porn is designed to make you aroused. These are two emotions that somehow are not designed to coexist at the same time. I'm just saying.

But more to the point, is horror porn a fad or will it become a mainstay in the various subgenres of horror.

Such with the August Underground films, new sub genres of horror are peeking into the horror consciousness. Some I've noticed are:

• Serial Killer porn horror
  
• Vomit horror
• Animal cruelty horror
• The "lets kidnap a girl and threaten to kill her" pseudo snuff film
• Religious iconography parody horror movies (eg. Jesus Christ: Serial Killer)
• Slavery horror
• Incest horror (I've actually seen c/o of Corey Udler's Incest Death Squad which incidentally has a quote from this site on the cover)
  

In any case, you decide if these are fringes of horror or will we be seeing more of this stuff. I've posted the trailer to the 3rd APK movie below.

Part 3 Trailer