Porno (at Monster Fest ’19) ★★½

BE WARY of the horror/comedy Porno.

For the first half this low-budget effort, a debut feature by Keola Racela, has a nice feel about it with some fun characters, snappy dialogue and a good sense of place and time.

But in the second half the horror aspects jump up a notch and there is a particularly gross, almost out-of-place, scene involving exploding testicles.

It’s set in 1992 in a small-town’s cinema complex run by a God-fearing manager who makes his staff participate in a group prayer prior to each day’s opening.

The staff comprise four teenagers, typically dealing with their raging hormones, and an older projectionist trying to keep them on the straight and narrow.

It’s the one night of the week when the staff are allowed to stay after closing time and watch one of the movies together.

The night is disturbed by a homeless man who has broken into the complex and in searching for him they find a series of hidden rooms. In one of them are a bunch of old films and they decide to watch the one film still intact.

It turns out to be a pornographic movie with satanic overtones that unleashes an insatiable, blood-thirsty succubus who entices the males and then kills them horribly.

This is a film that has many good aspects but doesn’t pull them together into a coherent and satisfying whole.

Even though it’s only 90 minutes long the film runs out of steam and ideas by half-way and the remainder is full of repeated sequences and dialogue.

In addition to the testicle scene there are a couple of other unfortunate moments that are simply gross rather than funny or frightening.

The performances are all fine and I certainly laughed out loud a few times, but it’s not a film I will revisit.