In what I can assume is the final film in the “Amateur Pornstar Killer” film series, Shane Ryan commits fully to the “Final Chapter” in which our villainous voyeur Brandon returns yet again to wreak havoc and pure sexual violence on a poor young girl. Rather than lure her in like the first film, or gain her trust as a friend in the second, he’s just taken her hostage. Seemingly out of options this time around, Brandon and his camera have kidnapped a horrified young woman and brings her to a deserted landscape where he proceeds to pretty much sexually abuse and rape the crying woman as she can do nothing but cry and endure his punishment. As far as Ryan’s film series has gone, this is his most disturbing film to date and I seriously had a difficult time sitting through this. As is the case with Ryan’s other films, there are some utterly pointless sequences here including the first ten minutes which cuts from Brandon’s torture of his first victim, while oddly cutting to establishing shots of a city and Halloween decorations.
What that can mean to the narrative, I can only imagine. But after cutting through the artsy fartsy hokum, we’re subjected to even more over the top sex scenes that don’t really serve a point. If Brandon had sex with these young gorgeous women… why did he kidnap poor girl in the first place? And has no one yet caught on to his ruse? With this premise you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, especially when the women he picks up aren’t at all freaked out by his invasive questioning and camera focused on them. Brandon is now more rabidly sexual and violent than ever and seeks some new flesh with the aid of his black and white camera lens.
While Regan Reece is a truly sexy woman, her casting is confusing as Ryan has excelled in casting leading ladies who are sympathetic and down to Earth in their beauty while Reece, a porn star in real life, isn’t as believable as a victim of Brandon’s sexual violence. Much like the second film, Brandon seemingly meets his match with Reece’s character Nikki who seems about as off the wall and psychotic as he is, and for a while I assumed Brandon was at the end of his road as a lunatic. But then Ryan adheres to the very same formula as the first two and just turns it in to an all around quasi-snuff thriller never actually daring to change the very conventions he put forth for his audience.
The films almost seem to want to change its story but Ryan often seems hesitant to test the waters, so they’re all basically the same, except this final blow to the trilogy is underwhelming because Reece just doesn’t pull in a strong enough performance with a character who just isn’t interesting at all. Her ultimate fate is weird bordering on the utterly ridiculous as Ryan pulls such an old trick on her, that you wonder why he took so long to off her in the first place. Meanwhile the climax ends on a question mark that really just feels safe and just much too easy. If it’s this simple to trap and lure good looking women, why isn’t every guy doing this? The final scenes literally left me muttering to myself “Seriously? It’s that easy? Seriously?”
It seems to be open in case Ryan wants to revisit this territory in the future, and that’s a shame because after three films, there’s zero progression and slim conclusion to what should have been a three part chronicle of a sexually deranged maniac. There are about thirty five directions the climax could have been taken, and instead Ryan goes for safety. Part two is still my favorite with Part one a close second because Ryan tests the waters with both premises while casting two leading ladies who are sympathetic, realistic, and complex, while the final act in the series is pretty much a disappointment from the start that doesn’t take this premise anywhere new or interesting, it just goes through the motions and finishes on a “The end… or is it?!” I really hope so.