It’s a gay exorcism horror flick for the homo horror movies list!
If little sexy/sadistic religion-hates-gays indie A Closer Walk With Thee could have afforded some nasty demonic possession special effects, it would have upped its horror cred, because it definitely scores the homoerotic cred.
In fact, the sexual moments are the only thing that clarify that this is not a religious propaganda film about gays being possessed by the devil, because you know religious folk would loathe that they secretly loved sitting through such perverse visuals to get to the justification of their hatred.
The film doesn’t really clarify the circumstances (or the religion), but there’s this little cult of young people living in a rustic building in the city. Everything they do is so not structured to avoid sin. For starters, the guys and girls all live communally in the same building. And even worse (or better), the guys sleep in the same bed together in their underwear!
The focus is on a gay preacher who is perfectly hot, and his very queer assistant/buddy, who is perfectly closeted. His performance is actually excellent—you can feel his desire for the preacher and his fear of being discovered.
There’s lots of praying and singing of hymns, and to let us know this is a horror film, there’s a quick exorcism of a young woman.
This preacher sure is confident in his battles against the devil. He could practically run his exorcism business at a drive-thru window.
The film then gives us plenty of erotic moments of the gay boy lusting after the preacher. Now we can almost taste his desire. Yum.
Naturally, fricking girls get in the way, the gay boy is outed, and then he’s strapped down for an exorcism. The stark setting and the cold, emotionless, brainwashed performances of the other kids is unsettling when you realize there are people that are actually like this and actually do things like this to young gay people, so be warned if you have triggers.
The exorcism itself is kind of dirty, with the gay boy in his undies and the preacher saying filthy things to him about the perversions of gay sex with the devil. Again, if only there were some actual exorcism special effects, this would have delivered more horror, but I assume the notion is not that this is horror movie “devil possession”, but more realistically about the young boy being convinced that the devil is inside him.
Even without Linda Blair makeup, the young actor once again proves himself by getting super fricking creepy as he turns the tables on his exorcists and does some brutal damage.
As I said, if you took out the homoerotic moments, the conclusion of this film would have religious freaks screaming, “See? The gays really are evil and possessed by the devil!” As for a gay audience, you know we’re all screaming, “Yes! Whip out your demon and rip those motherfucking straighties a new one!”
