Torture porn has reared its ugly head in mainstream horror movie in recent years, so it is inevitable that actual porn (hardcore) would imitate the genre for fun and profit. Dick Chibbles' takeoff on the "Saw" horror series is exploitation and plagiarism in equal amounts.
What disturbed me here is the anti-clever notion of actually applying the Saw formula to the porn industry as the script's central plot device. So we have porn stars and a porn director (David Lord, who has also made a number of lousy porn parodies himself) as central characters in a police procedural format.
James Bartholet as the detective investigating the Saw-like murders sets the tone in his overacting, carried on by players supposedly playing themselves but of course overdoing it since they are actually fictional representations by definition (it's only a movie, it's only a movie).
Sex scenes are the usual, but with gore included as well as torture, generally not used in XXX anymore for fear of censorship but included as "parody". Chibbles' script is insincerely anti-porn, using the familiar refrain (to which I agree) that Adult Cinema has devolved into gonzo crap after a promising artistry back in the '70s and '80s, with Ron Jeremy as the police chief actually voicing that sentiment. Chibbles tries to have it both ways, unsuccessfully using torture porn and nominal "acting" and "story" but ultimately delivering content closer to the Lizzy Borden/Max Hardcore school of XXX garbage than opposing same.
Clearly anti-erotic are two sex scenes featuring old farts humping away: Bartholet as well as Ron Jeremy humping his secretary Ginger Lynn, latter unbilled and adding zilch to her all-time great Adult Cinema career.
Oddest element turns out to be casting Syren De Mer as Bartholet's detective partner but not involved in the XXX action.
