And if he doesn’t, who are we to judge?
Alternating between a stream of hot man bods and Corey Feldman in drag, the trailer for Corbin Nash intrigued me…and the reviews on IMDb accusing it of homophobia and transphobia sold me on it. Those types of attacks are also the reason we can’t have nice and nasty things. So let’s see how many people I can offend with just one nice and nasty blog.
Seriously, there are approximately two lines in this movie that I’d say one could interpret as transphobic if one spends his, her, or their life determined to feel attacked and hurt at every turn. But I’ll get to that.
For me, the film’s biggest issue is that it falls into somewhat of a cycle of repetition. By the end it kind of feels like the whole movie was just an introductory “pilot” for a TV show or first installment of a movie franchise along the lines of Blade (meaning, I’ll take either).
The story’s timeline does some jumping around, but basically we have Rutger Hauer echoing his Buffy role, coming to tell our studly leading man that he’s actually the descendant of vampire slayers and it’s his destiny to be one himself. Our hero becomes hell-bent on terminating the monsters that killed his parents.
He does some investigating, which gives him a sense of the kind of erotic vampirism he’s dealing with…
But mostly he ends up prisoner in a hellish dimension…which is comprised of just some cages and a barbed wire boxing ring where he’s constantly pitted against other muscle studs he must fight to the death…or to the buffet table, in this case.
This homophobic flick sure is homoerotic.
“Come on, man. Give me the whole fist. I can take it.”
Not to mention, it might be inadvertently incestuous considering the director is the actor’s brother and ensures the camera constantly makes love to his sibling’s oiled (and bloodied) up bod. Hey, we should all be so lucky as to have a brother that looks this hot covered in blood.
Meanwhile, the even bigger highlight for me is the storyline of the vamp he seeks—played by Corey Feldman in what I would consider his ultimate role for me (after recently bestowing that title on his too minuscule role in The ‘Burbs).
Corey is absolutely delicious as a bisexual transgender drag queen diva vampire—perhaps the performance of his career. Look, don’t attack me. I didn’t cast the film, so I have no idea why they didn’t get an actual bisexual transgender drag queen diva vampire to play the role.
Anyway, Corey fucks women with her cock.
She sucks cock with her mouth.
Her home is filled with naked female slaves. She has a sexy male vampire lover.
She’s gets as wet for our hunky hero as his director brother does. And she has huge insecurities about her looks and her age. She insists her fuck friends—voluntary and involuntary—tell her she’s beautiful. She fears her male lover will leave her for the women he feeds on. And her relationship with him is better explored and demonstrated than the development of the main stud’s story—which happens to be free of a romantic interest (beyond his bromance with his prisonmate in the hellish dimension).
Corey’s confrontations and battles with the main stud absolutely kick ass. I would have preferred more of this action horror goodness than the sexy-sweaty-shirtless ultimate fighting championship sequences (I know, it shocks even me that I said that). Larger roles for Rutger and Malcolm McDowell would have been cool as well. That’s right, McDowell comes on the scene at one point in just a hint more capacity than Rutger.
So what about the homophobia/transphobia, you ask?
As an overall concern, if you’re offended by an LGBTQ character ever being the bad person in a movie, then it doesn’t get any more queerphobic than this. Personally, I consider it equal opportunity employment.
Just like that! I’m about to pop my top!
But let’s get down to specifics. There’s one line in which a cop says to a bartender he’s grilling for information, “Two guys. One’s a mean-looking bastard all in black. The other one is…you know, I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it did this.” He then points to slices on his face and brings up the occult.
Excuse me, my bar could use some tending…
Sounds to me like he’s talking about being attacked by a vampiric creature in devilishly gaudy makeup—an uncommon occurrence for him I’d imagine. Since he does refer to Feldman as a guy before calling him an “it,” I take that as him assuming he’s dealing with a male monster, not taking a derogatory jab at a transgender human. And if that isn’t the case, well, isn’t it just shocking that a hypermasculine cop doesn’t know the rules to properly gendering an individual?
And the other instance I assume could be construed as queerphobic has Feldman saying, “That is no way to talk to a lady.” The hero’s response: “There ain’t no lady here. You’re a freak!” Call me crazy, but maybe he’s not referring to Corey as a bisexual transgender drag queen diva freak, but as a bloodsucking freak. I mean, transgender woman or not, this evil bitch definitely ain’t no lady.
However, if our hero is being queerphobic, well, I’m teaching him and this movie a lesson by adding it to the homo horror movies page on my site and to the gay horror section on my horror shelf.
