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Director Terrence
Williams shows real promise on occasion, especially with films like "The
Hood Has Eyez," and with his newest film entitled "Horno," he has an
interesting concept but one that doesn't pan out to an interesting
movie. I wish I could have loved the shameless disgusting tripe that was
doled out as something Troma angled, but in the end it's just a good
concept with a pretty faulty delivery. Williams has the right idea by
inventing a concept within a concept, almost like a meta-movie, but the
fact remains that hornos are a relatively established concept. Joe
D'Amato infamously did it with films like "Sexy Erotic Nights of the
Living Dead." And the grindhouse sub-genre boomed in the seventies and
eighties with the sexploitation subset that included gems like "The
Cheerleaders." So while Williams has a name for it, it's basically
already been done.
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It's almost
like saying "I have new way of writing where you rhyme,
while telling a story! It's never been done before!"
Nevertheless, Williams ambition is admirable as he directs a
movie within a movie (sometimes within that movie) that's
cleverly introduced and conveyed for the audience. Ron is a
porno director who wants to direct his first horno. A
guaranteed money maker, he wants to create a movie that's
half porno and half horror movie. The problem is, his
concept becomes a reality when a mysterious new drug gets in
to the hands of a local drug dealer who smokes it with his
girlfriend turning her in to a ravenous nut munching
monster. |
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The reaction when the
dealer gets his penis gnawed off makes for a comical eye roll inducing
moment, and it only gets worse from there as most of the film is reduced
to actors sitting around a living room and yapping at one another while
dick monsters and hungry zombies stand outside waiting to get in.
Williams has his finger on the pulse with satirizing of porno and using
the porno concept to squeeze in as much obligatory nude scenes and tit
shots as humanly possible, but beyond that, he forgets that part of his
concept is a horror film. And where "Horno" fails in is being a horror
film where it bows to the porn medium and them strictly the darkly comic
form, while never really managing to creep us out. Even when director
Williams is explaining his concept through main character Ron, we're
still patiently awaiting the horror element, and it never really comes
since the situation is so abundantly absurd it's more humorous than
anything else.
I appreciate
director Terrence Williams ambition and his concept that works in
theory, but "Horno" falls apart from the beginning when it establishes
an already pre-established sub-genre, and fails to deliver in one part
of the hybrid genre that is supposed to be horror. The women are hot,
and the intention is well meaning, but the film is generally
forgettable.
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