IS THAT A SEVERED ARM IN YOUR POCKET OR ARE YOU JUST PLEASED TO SEE ME? HORROR MEETS PORN
by Nigel Wingrove

The world of pornography and the world of the horror film may not immediately look like two siblings separated at birth but their similarities are like two halves of the same blood cell. Both are genres often spurned and mocked by the mainstream, though their commercialism wins begrudging respect. Horror throws up multi million dollar successes like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity and, equally, porn can produce titles on meagre budgets and generate vast profits in return.

Indeed, both genres are designed at their most basic to elicit an emotional response in the viewer, fear and sexual arousal and both have garnered a hugely loyal fan following as a result. Furthermore, both genres have been, and continue to suffer from, censorship and media blame when occasionally events in real life mimic events on screen. But, most of all, both genres offer a route to film mainstream and, even if that journey stops with a few cranky appearances in some straight-to-DVD gore-ghastly or a few dozen anal gape epics.

These are, after all, genres without shame and for the most part without scruples; Hollywood may have had the casting couch but horror has the casting coffin, and porn will just bend you over the nearest sturdy object, fuck you stupid, film it, and release it as ‘Casting Cuties’ before the ink’s dry on your contract.

For porn stars, horror offers a relatively easy entry point into the mainstream, though the reality is that most lack either the talent or ability to truly shed their porn past. The underage porn star Traci Lords is an exception. Her transition occurred after she had effectively ostracized the entire adult industry by lying about her age and leaving key producers and distributors open to prosecution for child pornography. She had no choice but to move, appearing in titles like The Tommyknockers before settling into a mainstream acting career that has taken in everything from Will & Grace to The Princess of Mars. For true porn-horror crossover though, they don’t get any bigger than Jenna Jameson.

Jameson is, first and foremost, a commodity. Having successfully clambered up porn’s jizzum covered pole, she has set about consolidating and exploiting her name and body in ways once the preserve of mainstream celebrities. This transition came at a time when the porn industry itself was shedding its image of being part criminal, part illegal and made up of drug-addled performers and immoral, misogynistic producers. By the nineties, porn was changing - no longer illegal, it was starting to produce real stars and some studios were making millions of dollars.

However successful, Jameson was still a pornstar and, in an attempt to cross into the mainstream, she chose horror, though initially with little more success than her less famous sisters. Her first vehicle was a confused gorerotic title called Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain which probably holds the record for the highest number of porn stars to star in a horror movie, featuring Ginger Lynn Allan, Chasey Lain and Taylor Hayes, all with heaving blood splattered bosoms.

Not that it mattered to Jameson of course, whose career into mainstream respectability and superstardom was continuing at breakneck speed with appearances on the Oprah Winfrey show and features in Vanity Fair magazine. Yet, within a few years, Jameson was back in horror, this time in the hugely successful Zombie Strippers, with Elm Street's Robert Englund and alt. rock star Roxy Saint, where she does what she does best, stripping off and eating flesh. The audiences loved it, so much so that Jameson was soon back in horror again, this time with William Shatner in Horrorween, the world's first viral horror movie and its a given that Jameson will not lie down and die but, like a character in a horror film, will just keep coming back for more.

Indeed, dozens of porn stars have crossed into horror. And most 'scream queens' have flirted at the very least with glamour, stripping and pole dancing. It makes the women who do this tough (anyone who has seen a single, potentially vulnerable stripper, control a rowdy drunken crowd of men with a look will know this), uninhibited and great movers which, if they also have an acting ability, make them perfect for horror.

Horror has actually mixed sex and violence for decades, from Hammer's curvy beauties to Jess Franco and Jean Rollin's forays into dark erotic horror. Fear and sex have long been uneasy bedfellows with pornography's graphic pleasures constantly hinted at or used to tease and entice the viewer. Yet the mixing of horror with strong sexual content is never a happy mix, stirring as it does too many conflicting and disturbing emotions, and for this reason it is an area that whilst not taboo is rarely ventured into.

One who did is Joanna Angel, the New York producer, business women and Alt. (Alternative) pornstar, whose gruesome porn films XXXorcist and Re-Penetrator looked briefly set to ignite a whole new horror porn craze. They didn't, but they were a brave attempt, with genuine gore effects and full-on genital action, double-penetration scenes and green cum slime. Whilst these two horror-porn crossovers did not spawn a resurgence of similar goregasm material, they did help propel Angel towards the mainstream with softcore versions of these films.

The porn film that really broke the rules though was Porn of the Dead, mixing Fulciesque levels of gore with full on sex with the result that viewers could get turned on seeing someone get sucked off one minute and be in danger of throwing up the next, as the fellatio-loving zombie girl bit the man's cock off! Such horrors abounded and made Porn of the Dead almost unwatchable and proved, once and for all, that flesh and entrails just don't mix, no matter how toned the stomach with guts ripped out of.

What does mix is the glamour that pornstars, rockstars and celebrities can bring to a struggling horror production, their presence alone ensuring greater sales and commercial success. In an era obsessed by fame, we have seen Paris Hilton appear first in a sex tape and then in House of Wax, while renowned director Steven Soderbergh chose beautiful 22 year old porn star Sacha Grey for his lead in his acclaimed movie The Girlfriend Experience. Even Ron Jeremy, pornography's chubby Lothario, made it into Troma's Toxic Avenger IV.

What all this means is that porn and horror, thanks to the tenacity of its performers, directors and producers, is not just alive and kicking, but thriving. Thanks in part to the internet and to the activities of Jameson and co, the public no longer see porn as a criminal product but rather as something fun, if a little risque. And horror, well horror's never had it so good, and while every year dozens of would be Blair Witch productions are scurrying around looking for their star or an actress who doesn't mind showing a bit of flesh, or both, there will always be a place in horror's coffin for this year’s model.

Originally published by Gorezone.