What a novel concept – a parody of a homage to an experience. Huh? Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s three hour film geek hemorrhage/50 million dollar attempt to recapture the head-spinning sensation of screening a movie in a grindhouse via a pair of short exploitation films surrounded by cheesy theatre snipes and fake trailers, is given the usual porno-reconstructive surgery here courtesy Andre Madness, Lee Roy Meyers and David Lord, with decidedly mixed results.

Corresponding to the structure of the original; there’s a cheesy opener, an outrageously bad fake trailer (Meyers’ ‘Easter’ offered as a direct response to Eli Roth’s holiday slasher ‘Thanksgiving’) and a pair of short films that, if one were to go reaching, could be deemed  ”inspired by exploitation films of the ’60s, ’70s and very early ’80s”. In reality, the first film, the better of the two, is merely a re-rendering of Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” but in a high school setting, while the other is just your average teen slasher film dotted with a trio of graphic sex scenes, neither of which have much of a “grindhousy” feel to them. As stand-alone films, however, they aren’t bad.

I don’t know. There’s a sense that Madness and Lord failed capitalize on what could have been an epic homage to porn’s earliest days, especially when one factors in the idea that porn’s long road to semi-legitimization is rooted in grindhouse cinemas – in film’s like “Water Power”, “Forced Entry”, “Sex Wish”, “Sometime Sweet Susan”, “Joy” and the lumbering, laughably cheesy “Johnny Wadd” series. I don’t quite understand why porn is so reluctant to look back at itself, why they fail to revere their own history. Why not a grindhouse film about those early porn and sexploitation films screened at grindhouses? Why this need to merely ape Hollywood at every turn?

Eli Cross’ recent Scream Parody proved that porn films could be both introspective and interesting. Tasked with parodying Wes Craven’s Scream – a film about two teens who embark on a murderous rampage inspired by their obsession with horror films – Cross and company elected to go in a completely different direction. Instead of merely creating a mock artifact of their Hollywood source, they turned the concept inwards  – making it about porn films and the fans who obsess over them. Not only was it brilliant, in a story sense, it was loaded with references (some semi-obscure) to porn’s past including a whole segment on some of the industry’s most respected filmmakers. Easily enough meaty morsels to keep a film geek like me wanting more. To me, that Scream Parody remains one of the best adult films to be released in the past decade, and I have a feeling this one could have been right up there with it, had Madness and Lord not opted for the status quo. Ah, think about it: the swanky music, bell bottom pants, wild hair, bad acting, choppy editing, jump cuts, low-hanging boom mics and more pubic hair (on the film print and in the film) than one can shake a raging hard-on at – this really could have been something. It could have been a contender.

That out of the way, time for me to get to the film in front of me. I will say that I wasn’t entirely unhappy with it. From the costumes to the writing to the special effects, it’s clear that a lot of time, energy and passion went into the production and I have to respect that. While the sex tended to be fairly uninteresting, there were enough smart, laugh-out-loud developments in the various stories, including a spot-on impersonation of Youtube sensation Antoine Dodson by D. Snoop (2011′s “Katy Pervy: The XXX Parody“), that I couldn’t totally disregard this.

Following the vintage opener (the standard public domain footage found at the lead-in of most Kung Fu movies and in the original “Grindhouse” movie), the prevue of coming attractions kicks in. It consists of only one fake trailer, “Easter”, directed by Lee Roy Meyers (credits: Lee Roy Myers). With no pretence towards sex, this is just a bloody good time and a nice way to bring us into the main feature. Starring Kortney Kane (2011′s “Bikini Warriors“), Crash, David Lord and Robert Brickman, this short piece, running under five minutes, involves a psycho dressed in a bunny suit running around a Los Angeles suburb mowing down anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.

The first film, “Student Assassin”, soon revs to life, as Teagan Presley (2011′s “Badass School Girls 5“) is shown making time with her girlfriend Nina Mercedez in the shower. It’s interesting to see how the footage has notably altered to give it that ragged ‘film print’ look, however, the jump cuts have been kept to a minimum. In what amounts to a fairly generic scene, these two tattooed, bustular augmented pros dine on each other’s twats and stick fingers into holes leading to the inevitable fake orgasms.

As revealed in a follow-up segment, Nina is a cop and she and her partner (“Superman XXX: A Porn Parody” star Eric Masterson, donning a bad Fu Man Chu moustache, and doing double-duty as Assistant Director) are scheduled a major take down of one’s of Los Angeles’ biggest narcotics traffickers, later that day. Teagan, a college student, is understandably worried.

With that bit of exposition out of the way, somewhere across town, the focus of Nina and Eric’s investigation, Derrick Pierce (2010′s “Barely Legal 120“), is making time with one of his floozies, Britney Amber. Tattooed and fake breasted, Amber certainly looks the part. In between blathering on incomprehensibly, she manages to throw Pierce a rabid, hard-pounding, multi-positioned screw. While it’s not exactly clear what she’s saying, the fact that she’s enjoying it is palpable. He drenches her watermelons in semen.

Impatience proving their downfall, Nina and Eric elect to forego back-up and charge into Derrick’s pad, guns drawn, ready to make some arrests. They are almost immediately taken hostage by Pierce’s goons, including Jordan Lane (recently cast quite a bit in the heavy role). Leapfrogging logic, rather than send in a S.W.A.T. team to deal with the matter, the LAPD decides to consult Teagan Presley, barging into her classroom with the news that her lover has been taken hostage. Apparently Teagan moonlights as a hired killer or something, thus justifying the LAPD’s decision to go to her first. Did Luc Besson secretly write this?

Before running into Teagan, the officer tasked with informing her (Kenneth B. Trevias) accidentally stumbles upon a student (Seth Gamble) and a teacher (India Summer) getting intimate in one of the classrooms. Judging by the scribble on the chalkboard behind them, this is a Sex Ed session gone awry. While this scene feels like a diversion and adds nothing to the central story, it’s still unbelievably hot. India (2011′s “Captain America XXX: An Extreme Comixxx Parody“) is gorgeous (!) and watching her getting pounded atop a desk in three positions is never a bad thing. After getting his fill, Seth Gamble (2009′s “Barely Legal Miami Girls“) unloads across her pubes.

Upon being informed about her lover’s situation, Teagan rushes home to prepare for war. She is intent on getting her lover back safe, even if it means bringing the battle to Pierce’s heavily armed fortress herself. Utilizing a full arsenal of weapons including a samurai sword, a baseball bat and a never-ending array of machine guns, Presley charges the compound stabbing, garrotting and shooting everyone that gets in her way. This massacre proves the perfect lead in for the next film on the docket. Yeah, as I’m prone to divulge “plotted elements” I won’t give away the ending as much as I’d really like to. I’ll only point out that it leaves open a cute tie-in to the next film.

More blood is spilled in “Massacre At Pine Lake” – a homage to ’80s teen slasher films. Having personally worked on a number of such titles in my time, most of which can be found currently lining the bottom of those 2-for-the-price-of-1 Walmart movie bins, I have to admit I have a special place in my heart (alongside Christina Saunders, of course) for this horror sub-genre.

In a veritable re-hash of the opening chat in “Friday The 13th 2″, Alexis Ford, in the final girl role, assembles her staff of counsellors and maintenance crew (Rocco Reed, Briana Blair, Andy San Dimas, Mr. Pete, Ralph Long and D. Snoop) to prepare the camp for the onslaught of kids who are scheduled to arrive later in the week. If anything, this lets us know our cardboard-thin characters before they are systematically picked off for our morbid amusement.

Down the road, a prisoner transfer goes horribly wrong, leaving both officers dead (one of which is “Couples Seeking Teens 6” star Jack Lawrence, forever typecast as a cop) and a maniac known as the Angel Killer, for the way her arranges the corpses, on the loose. Massive, imposing Lee Stone (2011′s “This Ain’t Conan The Barbarian XXX – This Is A Parody“) is perfectly cast here as the seemingly indestructible psycho. Doesn’t take much brain power to figure that at some point our escaped crazed lunatic is going to make his way to the campsite and start to make real the massacre promised in the title. Before we get to the kills, however, we have to settle for a trio of screws.

While cleaning out the stables, nerdy Ralph Long (2010′s “Sex And The City: The Original XXX Parody“)  is accosted by a horny Andy San Dimas (2011′s “Justice League of Pornstar Heroes“), who is desperate to take him for a roll in the hay. San Dimas, looking positively gorgeous, as usual, dives into her temptress role, seducing uber-nerd Long and offering up her tail in return for him doing her chores. Standard three positions leads Long to nut hard across San Dimas’ meaty rump.

Without revealing too much, the arrival of a character from the last film provided me with a rare “Oh, shit, that’s cool!” moment and a couple of laughs. Smart.

As night sets on the camp, the counsellors get busy dancing, partying and having sex which is, of course, interrupted by machete wielding Stone. While waiting for Long to arrive with more alcohol, Rocco Reed (2011′s “10 Things I Hate About Love“) makes time with Briana Blair in one of the rooms. Briana is looking infinitely hotter than she looked in “Simpsons: The XXX Parody” and Rocco has no trouble slamming her in three positions. He drops a load across her left tit to end the scene. She cleans him off.

While laying in bed, Alexis Ford confides in her boyfriend, Mr. Pete (2011′s “Revenge Cuckold“) that she has a bad feeling – that something is amiss and she doesn’t know why. In an effort to ease her mind, Alexis decides to indulge Pete in a little pre-sleep nookie.  They run through about four positions with Alexis seeming to light up after Pete inserts a couple of digits into her ass while screwing her pussy. He launches his seed across her face and into her mouth to end the scene. She cleans him and even deep throats him for good measure.

Waking up hours later and realizing that everybody has disappeared, Alexis’ final girl instincts kick in and her training montage, randomly inserted into the opener of the film, proves useful in her climactic throw-down with hulking Stone. The camera rigging here, by Mark Nicholson, is very effective. However, it’s not nearly as effective as the post credit segment in which D. Snoop, as the only other survivor of the Pink Lake Massacre, mocks up a hilarious Antoine Dodson impersonation, repeating almost verbatim his infamous July 28, 2010, WAFF-48 News interview, with a few notable changes.

No condoms.

Date of Production: 2/2011. Release Date: 9/19/2011.

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