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Slashing out >> As the first gay splatter film, HellBent makes no apologies for sticking to the genre rulebook |
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by JOHN CUSTODIO
When I tell Paul Etheredge-Ouzts I've reduced his film to a personals' ad, he laughs good-naturedly. The writer and director of HellBent - which is being dubbed as "the first-ever gay slasher" - doesn't let my ribbing get to him. After all, he can afford to be easy-going: the Image + Nation festival, which focuses on the horror genre this year, selected his film to open. "That's great," he says, after I've read him my ad. "But don't let the producers hear it! They're still working on the artwork for the publicity campaign and they would be all over that idea." "And that's bad?" I ask. "Well, I love the bawdy humour," he says. "But I don't think it suits the tone of the film." I still don't understand, so he clarifies: "Making this film, I felt a lot of pressure to ‘sex it up.' But I was determined not to pander to audiences, the way so many gay films do with soft-core porn." Well, it's not porn, but it's certainly titillating enough to satisfy the demands of the genre, and HellBent is nothing if not faithful to slasher conventions. The only difference is that its T & A are of the West Hollywood gaybot variety, and since its setting is WeHo's annual Halloween Carnival, there's plenty of skin on parade. Cruising and killing The film's earnest protagonist is Eddie (Dylan Fergus), a would-be cop whose disability cost him the uniform. (He puts one on anyway, for the festivities). His buddies are Joey (Hank Harris), a sweet ingenue who's shy about putting on his S/M slave costume; Chaz (Andrew Levitas), a voracious bisexual who's dressed like a cowboy and talks like a frat boy; and Tobey (Matt Phillips), a jaded model who wants guys to like him for more than just his looks, so he eschews his friends' Village People drag in favour of, well, drag drag. Rounding out the principal cast is Bryan Kirkwood in the role of Jake, a rough-trade loner who becomes Eddie's love interest for the night. Anyone remotely familiar with slashers should be able to guess what becomes of Eddie and his friends, who first encounter the film's villain when he cruises them in a park on the way to the carnival. He's muscular, well hung, and disguised as a devil, but what the boys don't know is that he gets his jollies by scything guys' heads off. By the time they find out, it's too late. Campy vs. coital conventions HellBent hasn't had its theatrical release yet, but already it's stirring up controversy, mainly because of its adherence to the genre rulebook. There was an outcry after the film screened at Frameline, San Francisco's queer film fest. "Some people thought I'd made it seem like gay sex is wrong and punishable by death," explains Etheredge-Ouzts. "But obviously no one associated with the film believes that." Even so, post-coital death is a slasher staple, and Etheredge-Ouzts wasn't interested in altering the formula. "I didn't want to make HellBent campy, which is probably what would have happened if I'd set out to subvert conventions." That explains his response to the personals ad. It turns out, I'm not the only one who can't resist the temptation to camp, as Etheredge-Ouzts discovered when the producers held a contest to name the film. "I was stumped," he admits, about being inundated with playful puns like 28 Gays Later. My favourite was Queer Eye for the Dead Guy, but Etheredge-Ouzts, betraying his own camp sensibility, prefers Scream Like a Girl. "It's a great tagline," he says with a laugh. "I'm hoping to put it on the T-shirts." Hellbent Screens at the Parisien, Thursday, Sept. 23 at 8 p.m.
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"Horny devil seeks hot guys willing to give head. Clones welcome, but no fembods."
There once was a boy who loved horror films. Day and night he would watch them, as many as he could, as often as he could, some of them so many times he could recite their dialogue by heart. He knew it was weird, but mad scientists and monsters fascinated him. He felt inexplicably drawn to them. He had a crush on Vincent Price.
Dracula's Daughter (1936). "The first lesbian vampire film, which is practically a genre unto itself now. Even though they're made by men, many lesbians enjoy watching the spectacle of strong, sexually alluring women running around and terrorizing people. The Hunger (1983) is a good modern example."
Interview With the Vampire (1994). "Another coming-out story. Brad Pitt doesn't want to be a vampire, but eventually he hooks up with Tom Cruise and together they raise a child. I saw this film several times, just to watch audience reactions to a particular scene near the end of the film. Antonio Banderas has just asked Pitt to leave Cruise and go away with him forever, and there's this two-shot where it looks like they're going to kiss. The panic of the primarily teen audiences I observed was practically palpable. For them, that was the scariest moment of all." |
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