Joshua R. Pangborn, the bear behind the web series Demon Doctor (and the happy bottom in the pic above), is back with two full-length features that celebrate bear bod positivity while offering the perfect blend of gay indie film elements—sex, nudity, camp, comedy, cute guys, and blood. This is the way you do fun gay horror on a budget. So glad Joshua gave me the opportunity to check out these two that are currently running in the festival circuit, which both earn spots on the homo horror movies page.
THE BROOKLYN BUTCHER
Joshua co-writes, co-directs, and co-stars in this devilish little movie that plays out like a series of non-chronological, tie-in gay horror tales about murders in an apartment building. It’s sort of like…Only Murders and Mos in the Building!
What I love about these intertwining stories is that there’s no clear-cut killer. This is an apartment building of horrors in which all kinds of murderous hijinks are taking place, and not all of them at the hands of humans.
There’s shapeshifting, possession, occultism, a Cthulhu looking fucker, the undead…but is there really a Brooklyn Butcher? Hell, yeah!
Joshua is a serial killer expert whose interview on television about the Brooklyn Butcher has the paranoid tenants tuned in…although it doesn’t stop them from seeking out sex every chance they get, which never leads to anything good.
On top of all the horror vignettes, there are sexy scenes, plenty of cute bears, twists and turns, and even the use of Bright Light Bright Light’s song “You Want My…” from his latest album. Awesome.
A TASTE OF YOUTH
While The Brooklyn Butcher is pure horror fun that feels like a throwback to the indie horrors of the VHS days, A Taste Of Youth keeps things fun and super sexy while delving into the complexities of gay existence, including obsession with looks, fitness, and youth, as well as drug addiction, monogamy, intimacy, dick size, ageism, and more.
Yet even with all those concepts being explored, this one is loaded with sexy scenes. Sex is one of the driving factors of the whole story—our main character, who is in a monogamous relationship with Joshua, is struggling with his own insecurities about himself, which is affecting their love life.
His mental state is also leaking into his job, into the gym, and into his dreams, which begin to consist of macabre nightmares that meld murder and erotic encounters.
The horrors he envisions in his sleep begin to spill into the real world as the story progresses, a mystery starts to unfold, and there’s even a bit of witchery involved. Awesome.
Also awesome? My gay horror buddy Stan the Mechanic makes a brief appearance in the film!
I really love Joshua’s balls-to-the-wall approach to gay horror, along with his unique storytelling approaches and his casts of appealing, likable characters. This isn’t mere copycat horror of more mainstream horror like many of the indie films we get these days. You can check out his gay horror series Demon Doctor on the Sidekick Productions YouTube channel.
