When an audience is anticipating watching a zombie movie, usually they can count on the walking dead vigorously craving brains and human flesh. However, some audiences now expect the living dead to be hungry for pussy and cock, as part of the newly established zombie porn genre.
The zombie porn genre began in 2005 with the release of director and writer Rob Rotten’s Porn of the Dead. Distributed by Metrointeractive and Loaded Digital, Porn of the Dead stars Rotten himself, and actresses such as Siera Sin and Hillary Scott. It was the very first zombie porn film, combining gut-wrenching FX along with creatively violent and extremely explicit sex scenes. Porn boasts such erotic scenes as a zombie "bukkake" style gangbang, a zombie autopsy gone horribly array (depending on how one looks at it) and a full blown corpse eviscerating bloodbath, all to the tunes of some of the finest death metal. The film brings up the question whether every female zombie - upon being "turned" - prefers a good, hard, double penetration; something the likes of George A. Romero or Paul W.S. Anderson never touched upon.
In 2008, gonzo porn auteur Rodney Moore (home of the infamous "Rodney Blast") wrote, scored, produced and directed Night of the Giving Head, a hypnotic and grandiose adult tale, in which a group of friends having a house party at a remote location quickly turns into a zombie sex nightmare after ozone radiation from a passing comet affects the male sperm, turning any woman that comes into contact with it into a cum-craving, zombie slut! Night boasts plenty of zombie-erotic setups, including a petite virgin turning into a demonic, sex-starved zombie vixen, plenty of extreme public displays of affection, including a four-way, roadside, zombie suck-a-thon and concludes with over twenty zombie girls in a full blown orgy fighting over one lucky male victim. Night stars a plethora of established porn actresses, including Caroline Pierce, Nikki Rhodes, Kylee Reese and Samantha Sin. When asked about the genesis of producing Night, Moore stated "I had done a Vampire movie the year before, and it seemed like the next logical step. I was a big fan of horror movies when I was a kid."
As to the audience reaction to Night, Moore commented “I screened the movie at a theater once, and also at a sex club once, and it went over really well. It didn't do that great in the stores, I think because I'm known more for gonzo porn. It did get a lot of award nominations, and won the 'Most Outrageous Sex Scene’ [2009] AVN award.”
That AVN award (short for Adult Video News, the "Oscars" of the adult film world) went to actress Pierce, who plays a zombie countess in the film’s most intense orgy scene. Pierce had worked with Moore previously, having done his Rodney Moore's Vampires production. When it came to winning an award for her work in Night, Pierce commented "I have to say, of all the categories to win in, 'Most Outrageous Sex Scene' is the cool one! Wahoo, yay us! And indeed, it was one of the most bizarre scenes I've shot with the throng of zombies swarming around us."
As for being pitched the concept of Night previous to filming, Pierce was excited from the get-go, admitting that "the folks at Rodney Moore knew I had to be in this movie or I'd never forgive them because it's right up my alley!" Moore added "[the actresses] loved the idea of doing a zombie movie, of playing zombies. I told each one to get in touch with their 'inner zombie' and move accordingly. I think the fact that the women came in all shapes and sizes made the movie so much better than if they all looked like 'typical porn girls.'"
Most recently, director Bruce LaBruce directed L.A. Zombie, pitched as the adventure of a homosexual alien zombie, who may be a schizophrenic homeless man suffering from delusions, who travels across Los Angeles encountering various dead men that can have the life brought back to them only to the taste of a zombie penis.
When asked about why it took so long for the zombie porn genre to develop, LaBruce responded. "I think the porn/zombie cross-over was inevitable. When a genre becomes so popular in culture, it's going to end up becoming fodder for porn. It creates all sorts of problems, however, because the prohibition against necrophilia is so strong. Even the porn companies that produced L.A. Zombie aren't really expecting that a lot of gay people are going to want to watch zombie porn. They are interested more in producing a more creative kind of porn product made by a name director partly for the purposes of promoting their companies and partly because they believe in cross-over between art and porn."
LaBruce adds, "L.A. Zombie was designed as a porn product, with a minimal narrative that sets up scenarios whereby the characters can have sex. It also clearly has an art intent, and a certain documentary element to it as well. I purposefully made a softcore 'art' version intended more for festival and theatrical screenings and a hardcore version with extended sex scenes intended for porn purposes. Each is packaged and marketed separately and distributed by different entities with different audiences in mind."
Of course, LaBruce's attention to detail isn't always appreciated. In Australia, L.A. Zombie was banned from the Melbourne International Film Festival, but ended up being screened at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (or MUFF, so really, was there a better venue?). The result was a police raid on the festival director's home, and, possibly, criminal charges for showing an unclassified film.
Whether there will be a wider audience for a gay or straight zombie-themed porn product remains to be seen, yet, according to LaBruce, "the horror genre has a wide appeal, so audiences of all stripes seem to be curious about [L.A. Zombie], almost despite of its gay pornographic intent.”
With audiences still thirsting for movies with zombies and movies with other people having sex, it seems like the zombie porn genre is here to stay. Whatever happens, at least no kernel of popcorn will be short of butter flavoring.
The hardcore version of L.A. Zombie is currently available for sale on lazombie.com. In January it goes to wider distribution according to Dark Alley. A digital download version will become available January 1, 2011.
Porn of the Dead is available from Loaded Digital or Metrointeractive.com.
Night of the Giving Head is available from Rodney Moore at rodneymoore.com.
All three titles may be available in certain video stores as well. Check the "adult" areas in the back of the store to be sure.
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