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FUN LOVING CRIMINAL

While psychotic serial killer Brandon aka the “Amateur Porn Star Killer” seems to be able to avoid police no matter what he does, Shane Ryan - the actor, writer and director behind the mythological character - isn’t nearly as lucky.

Earlier this week, the controversial and critically acclaimed underground filmmaker was held at gunpoint by police for “walking where he shouldn’t be, while filming.” Ryan recently officially announced that for the climax of his snuff trilogy, he would be filming a dark and serious movie in the same vein as his first two and a campy horror porn parody in 3D as well. Ryan had just wrapped a scene with actress Jayden Green for “Amateur Porn Star Killer 3D” when he was accosted.

“I had some crack head put a gun to my head when I was a kid, but nobody has done that since,” Ryan told PollyStaffle.com. “Who would have thought the next person to do so would have been a cop?”

Ryan was leaving an abandoned house in Lompoc, California and headed to his car when he heard someone screaming for him to get on the ground.

“Now see, if you stole a car, crashed it, ran away with the cops chasing you, and then they corner you and someone says get on the ground with a gun in your face, you know immediately what to do,” Ryan said. “But when you’re casually walking to your car and that happens, you kind of freeze, like ‘What the fuck?’ So, I was just standing there and he kept yelling for me to drop my camera, and I thought it was some idiot who was just playing around.”

Since releasing “Amateur Porn Star Killer,” Ryan has become accustomed to people screwing with him. The man behind Alter Ego Cinema has been confronted physically and verbally, as well as via email. This time it was no ordinary hate monger.

The man with the gun later turned out to be a highway patrolman. But he had approached Ryan from behind the house, there was no police car in sight and he didn’t look like a cop. Or not to Ryan, anyway, whose prescription glasses were sitting on the dashboard of his ride home.

“So I was, again, just going ‘What the fuck?,’” Ryan said. “And then I was thinking, ‘I ain’t dropping my camera on the ground, are you nuts?’ But finally it clicked that I had a cop pointing a gun to my face so I dropped it. Then he wanted me on the ground.”

But the area where Ryan was standing was unkept rugged terrain and he was wearing his favorite shirt, one he got printed up just before the release of his original “Amateur Porn Star Killer” that advertises the film.

“I was like ‘There are all kinds of branches and shit, I haven’t done anything and I’m not ruining my only APSK shirt for whatever bullshit this is,’”Ryan said. “So, he keeps yelling and I finally get on my knees. He keeps yelling, so I finally put my hands on the ground, but refuse to lay down. I thought the police are supposed to serve and protect anyways, so fuck those bitches.”

Shortly, a scene that seemed almost straight out of Arthur Penn’s film “Alice’s Restaurant” based off Arlo Guthrie’s folk song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” begin to unfold. Several other highway patrolmen arrived on the scene, along with six cop cars, for a total of ten authoritative figures to harass the guerilla filmmaker and his actress. The duo was cuffed and stuffed into the back of separate cars, while the lawmen tried to figure out what crimes had been committed and whose jurisdiction it was as the property lies where the street ends and the highway begins.

The desolate house has been the shelter for a number of homeless people and scurrying creatures over the years and has been trashed to hell by partying punk teenagers. It’s a dilapidated mess that should probably be condemned and torn down, which makes it the perfect free location for independent filmmakers.

“ We’ve been shooting there for months with a couple of other projects,” Ryan said.

The cops searched the house and found nothing. They also searched the two suspects and their belongings. Aside from his camera, Ryan had a pocket full of condoms, a bag featuring tapes with month’s worth of footage, a replica gun and a stack of “Amateur Porn Star Killer” postcards. The postcards and condoms were temporarily taken away and the award winning director was given the third degree about what type of films he makes. Their curiosity and suspicions even lead them to having Ryan show the content of his tapes. At this point Ryan got quite worried as he had just finished filming hardcore sex and a faux murder, using a piece of fried chicken.

“I thought they might confiscate my tapes and Jayden was freaking out that the cops would see her naked, ,” Ryan said. “But they didn’t as I didn’t have most of the tapes labeled.

“Eventually they let us go,” Ryan continued. “They warned that if I’m ever seen over there again I’ll be immediately arrested, which sucks because we have three more scenes from two different movies to shoot over there.”

Ryan managed to sneak a few photos while he was detained in the back of the cop car, but was turned away when he asked for the men in blue to pose with him.

“But the funniest thing about the whole event was we were shooting a film down the street the day before that involved a much larger crew and a naked man laying in the middle of the street in broad daylight,” Ryan said of a shoot he did with the makers of “TV: The Movie” and “The Adam Bomb Show.” “Cars passed by and nobody cared. We walked away clean.”

This ordeal marked the third time Ryan has been in police custody in Lompoc for filming. During his days making short films, Ryan was questioned for three hours after trying to get a shot of a prison from across the street for his project “The Cleansing.” The other time, Ryan was pulled over after leaving a hotel room where he was filming. Somebody called the cops, saying they thought a girl was being murdered in the room next door. Ryan, who is essentially a pioneer in the rapidly growing horror subgenre of “mocksnuffumentaries,” also had a few run-ins with the law at a younger age. Those can be read about in this month’s issue of Penny Blood Magazine.

“Amateur Porn Star Killer 3” and its 3D funny half are expected to be released on DVD sometime shortly after Halloween. The DVD release will feature a total of three versions to wrap up the story of Ryan’s boy next-door murderer.

SERIES BACKGROUND

Before “The Poughkeepsie Tapes,” “Head Case,”or “Snuff 102,” Ryan kicked off the “Amateur Porn Star Killer” series with a shocking film that was made for just $45 in 2004. In it Ryan introduced the world to Brandon by blending the genres of horror, true crime, mockumentary and exploitation for an extremely effective watch.

For nearly three years, Ryan pitched, promoted and offered the movie to buyers. It appeared no studio wanted to release it until the ballsy distributors Cinema Epoch got their hands on it. Prior to a DVD release, they even gave it a select theatrical run, which was protested and nearly shutdown thanks to some adult film critics and Hollywood celebrities that found the film offensive without having seen it.

Ryan followed that film up with his spellbinding sequel, which screened during Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors in April. “Amateur Porn Star Killer 2” was made for even less than his first film and released on DVD with two different versions that veered into pornographic territory. Both a “snuff version” and an arthouse “movie version” were completed for under $20.

CLASH OF THE PORN TITANS

Shane Ryan recently attended an invitation-only after party, celebrating the Los Angeles premiere of Lloyd Kaufman’s “Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.” The event was suppose to feature the likes of Eli Roth, Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Quentin Tarantino. The party, which will took place on Friday the 13th at the Hustler Store in Hollywood, didn’t quite live up to its billing, but the “Amateur Porn Star Killer” did get to meet the man AVN Magazine ranked as number one in their 100 Top Porn Stars of All Time list. In fact, Ryan walked in on Ron Jeremy banging a girl in the bathroom. Ryan accidentally slammed the door right into them and was kicked out by The Hedgehog, who later apologized.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

“They was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.”

– Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” 1967