The two latest additions to my movie collection check off a couple of my must-own boxes, each for a different reason: Frank Grillo in a horror movie, and gay horror. So, in essence, two horror movies for the gays. Let’s get right into them.
WEREWOLVES (2024)
Director Stephen C. Miller, who brought us Automaton Transfusion, Under the Bed, Scream of the Banshee, Silent Night, and Margaux, delivers a fun action horror flick with mostly practical effect werewolves. Awesome.
This is how you start a horror movie—hottie Frank Grillo in a tank top securing his family’s home as protection against the night of the “super moon”, a recent occurrence that has been turning people into werewolves. People have been ordered to stay locked inside, not only as safety from those who turn, but to avoid turning themselves.
There’s a side story about Frank’s family trying to survivor in their home while it’s under siege, but we really don’t have any time to connect with those characters. Besides, they’re not his nuclear family, they’re his sister-in-law and niece.
The juice is in Frank teaming up with a female scientist at a lab where they are working on a cure. Things go horribly wrong, there is a werewolf outbreak, and Frank and the scientist have to make it through the empty city to get back to his family.
The werewolves look awesome, there’s lots of shooting and plenty of gore, and the idea of transforming just by getting hit by moonlight adds a new element to the usual werewolf plot.
There is one aspect of the film that really pissed me off though…
***SPOILER*** in the very last scene, Frank turns into one of those hulking werewolves temporarily until the sun rises. As soon as he begins to transform back, I said to the hubby, “We’re going to see Frank naked!” This is some bullshit. Instead, he’s in his tight jeans, which never would have stayed on him once he transformed. Worst.Plot.Hole.Ever.
THERE’S A ZOMBIE OUTSIDE (2024)
I picked this one up because I like to collect any gay horror flicks that are available on disc. I will say right up front that this is more of a psychological thriller about a filmmaker who is basically being haunted by the horror movie he created, but it still earns a place on the homo horror movies page.
The film feels sort of like a therapeutic project for writer/director Michael Varrati, who has been in this business for a while. Much like the handful of Stephen King stories in which the monster a writer has created comes for him in reality, this is like Varrati exorcising his demons as he reflects on his own career and abilities. The main character essentially is him, for the movie within the movie is There’s a Zombie Outside. The script is even loaded with meta references to what could be considered flaws in the movie by viewers that come into it with preconceived expectations of what they will be getting and then criticizing it for not living up to those expectations. That in itself becomes a challenge to viewers…how do you criticize a movie when your own criticisms are so predictable and being called out in advance? Clever.
The movie begins like a horror movie. Four gay guys are renting a house. The main guy begins seeing a zombie outside. There’s a bit of a slow burn until we get exactly what any gay horror fan could hope for…dick eating and zombie sex, of course.
And right there is where we are taken out of that movie and the film becomes an exploration of the main character questioning what is real and what isn’t, and how his creativity is stifled because of demands from producers and agents about his art and his queerness.
The film is short, there are philosophical conversations rather than standard thrills or chills, and you’re likely to not quite understand what’s going on if you’re approaching the movie pragmatically and anticipating a basic gay horror movie. Michael has written plenty of queer, campy, midnight horror movies, but that is not what he was going for here. However, he leaves you itching to see the full-length version of the There’s a Zombie Outside movie that we get a taste of here, which leaves Varrati wide open to making that another project if he so wishes.
