"Lucky Bastard" was a porn website in which fans were invited to have sex with porn stars. It's last video broadcast was meant to be document starlet Ashley Saint's (Betsy Rue) first sex scene with an amateur, but it became an impromptu reality show and eventually a crime scene. Competing with torrents and downloads, site producer Mike (Don McManus) has sunk quite a bit of money into his production, renting a house fitted with eighteen cameras intended for a failed reality show, and promising Ashley to winner Dave G. (Jay Paulson) before securing her agreement. At first, Ashley is reluctant to participate since Mike has a habit of humiliating amateur performers, but she soon starts to get stalker vibes off of unassuming, ex-soldier Dave (especially since he knows her real name). Mike emotionally manipulates and maneuvers the increasingly agitated performers and crew into position, but this may be an instance where the failure of fantasy to live up to expectations has deadly consequences.

A low budget film with a bona fide MPAA NC-17 rating for sexual content, LUCKY BASTARD - not to be confused with the 2009 gay drama of the same name - does indeed feature some frank nudity (digital blurring is used only to obscure genitals in scenes meant to imply hardcore activity) and sexualized situations; but the opening salacious material is far from titillating. While part of the tension comes from what we might see subsequently, suspense and dread supplant prurience as we start to believe that tagline admonition that "This will not end well" (we also learn from the opening that four bodies were found, so we are compelled to see who of the initial five and later additions dies as well as who survives and how/why). It is also refreshing that the shots taken at the morals and professionalism of the porn stars come from an unbalanced character who happily consumes their output. Produced by softcore low-budget exploitation maven Jim Wynorski (THE LOST EMPIRE) - and edited by HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II director Tony Randel who got his start cutting features for New World Pictures - the film is the debut directorial feature of Robert Nathan, a veteran writer and producer of various incarnations of LAW & ORDER, and boasts a cast that is not exactly high profile but not your usual DTV erotic thriller regulars. Especially good are McManus - a familiar face from episodic TV drama as well as supporting roles in mainstream fare like THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and MAGNOLIA - and Rue, who provided the requisite T&A in Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2 and the MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D remake but acquits herself well in a lead (her nudity also never seems gratuitous).