Gay horror, thriller, and comedy overload

Just when I finally decided to break down and watch some titles I’d not yet seen that are on my complete homo horror movies list, a few new and unexpected ones came my way, so here’s a smorgasbord of 6 films focusing on gay guys—starting with the silly and moving to the (hopefully) scary.

YETI: A LOVE STORY (2006)

It’s no surprise the Troma intro kicks off this film. What’s more surprising is that it’s probably worse than most Troma films, mostly because despite having some raunchy humor and running only about 70 minutes long, it’s boring on top of being dumb.

A cult sacrifices young men to the Yeti in the woods…for anal rape. A group of campers begins getting killed off, but then one of the guys falls in love with Yeti and gives up his ass willingly. In the meantime, his friends hatch a plan to stop the cult.

The bright side is there’s no fart humor. But man is this movie slow. Dialogue is not funny, there’s an “old man” character that is just a person in an old man mask, the Bigfoot mask is a bad ape mask, and about all that I enjoyed was the adolescent sex stuff—especially Yeti getting a hand job.

Definitely reminded me of the trashy sex in my Comfort Cove gay horror novel series…there just wasn’t enough of it.

ANOTHER YETI A LOVE STORY: LIFE ON THE STREETS (2017)

It took over ten years, but a sequel finally arrived. While I prefer the first film’s plot from a “horror” perspective, in terms of a trashy exploitation flick about a dude and a gay Yeti getting it on, the sequel does way better.

I appreciate it for the excessive pervy sex scenes that were lacking in the original film, but the story, while ripe for sexploitation, is beyond absurd.

The guy from the first film is now in a relationship with a guy in a wheelchair, and together they are raising the Yeti baby he had with the Yeti.

The Yeti is now a junky on the streets.

There’s a skanky strip club and a pimp dude who will do anything to keep his stripper whores enslaved.

The Yeti and his former human lover must reunite to save their family.

The film is much more gay-friendly than the first film, but there is a pretty darn tacky, flippant attitude towards HIV. Like I said, I’m so glad this one had pervy sex scenes.

POLTERGAY (2006)

It took me so long to commit to watching this French gay ghost movie because I expected it to be along the lines of the Yeti movies. If it were an American film, it probably would have been. Instead, it’s a campy, cute, sexy comedy without any gross-out humor. I adored it and ordered the DVD for my personal collection of gay horror films.

A straight couple moves into a wonderfully creepy old house, and the husband, who is sizzling hot, begins to hear disco music at night and noticing other odd signs of them not being alone—like penis graffiti.

The mischief continues, and it’s pretty clear why he’s got these ghosts…

Soon he encounters a gaggle of gay ghosts from the 1970s that his wife can’t see, so she thinks he’s crazy.

He befriends the disco queens that party nightly in his basement, calls in an expert to help them cross over, argues with them about reversed intolerance, and gets their help in recapturing the magic with his wife.

What astounds me is that there are reviews on Prime trashing this film for being dated, playing into gay stereotypes, and being homophobic. I can’t believe how far the gay community has fallen since the 90s—the last decade when we had a sense of humor and were able to laugh out ourselves, poke fun at our stereotypes, and just enjoy a campy, funny, sexy movie that actually shows a straight man and his gay ghost buddies finding common ground and working together to make their existences better, right down to the upbeat, feel good ending.

STRANGER BY THE LAKE (2013)

This is another French film it took me years to watch…because I was pretty confident it was barely going to pass as a thriller, let alone horror.

It passes mostly as a softcore porn, and a boring one at that. Supposedly the film was originally like 140 minutes long before the director pared it down to 100 minutes. He should have just kept trimming.

In short, a young man goes to a cruising beach, befriends an old “straight” dude, watches and has lots of explicit sex (including an actual hand job with cum shot), and romantically pursues a guy even after seeing him drown another guy. Hey, If I saw a guy this pretty smiling with his face buried in another guy’s ass, I’d probably want to marry him, too.

Anyway, the movie continues to creep along, an old dude detective keeps popping out of the bushes to ask questions, and we just wait and wait and wait for all hell to break loose.

Right at the end there’s a brief and way too dark chase scene, plus a few more bodies, but it’s not satisfying enough for this horror fan.

The film is more notable for exploring issues concerning gay men searching for casual, anonymous sex, from the threat of diseases to the risks taken when desperate due to being closeted or lonely.

The most compelling thing to me about the film is how it manages to present characters with distinctly different motivations and depth beyond being horny.

THE SIREN (2019)

This is a haunting film that manages to create unnerving suspense without exploiting visual horror elements.

A beautiful mute man comes to stay at a house by the lake, and we immediately begin to dread the water…and the sense that some sort of creature lurks in its depths and comes out at night.

The mute man meets a gay man who is convinced a monster in the lake took his missing husband. He also meets a pretty woman who swims around the water outside the house. As they fall in love and start a relationship, she struggles to fight the urge to do to him what she does to other men she seduces…

The gay guy narrates, but the film is focused more on the straight relationship. However, it is chilling when the gay guy realizes what the woman is; her warmth comes and goes in an instant, and we can feel that she’s a monster.

Just the fact that neither man questions where she comes from and why she just hangs out in the water all the time adds a subtle authenticity to the idea that she’s a siren they can’t resist.

The film is tragic, dark, and frightening and doesn’t wear out its welcome as it runs only 80 minute long.

BOOGEYMAN COMETH (2013)

I found Boogeyman Cometh to be an oddly charming, wickedly engrossing little indie slasher with a freaky as hell killer, numerous suspenseful chase scenes, brutal kills, a quirky tone and sense of humor, and a curiously gay subplot. The only downsides—it is so obvious from the start who the killer is, and absolutely none of the plot points presented ever come together to complete a thought.

An effeminate older black man is the boss of a young white guy who likes to blow shit up, but it’s never clear what their job is.

The older man also rents a house to the younger guy and his family. The pair is oddly close, and you would swear the older guy has the hots for the younger guy.

Meanwhile, the freaky killer, in a hazmat mask that registers the current number of kills inside the visor but doesn’t hide a head of Jheri curls, is stalking and slicing up women in the streets with a razor glove that would make even Super Freddy envious. Also, the young guy’s wife and son keep seeing the killer at their window.

Along with funky camerawork, there’s loads of focus on bugs on screen, constant references to the black guy’s sexuality, fog machines, and growls coming from the killer, which eventually does speak in a demonic voice.

Right up to the crazy babysitter scene in the final act, Boogeyman Cometh is such a fun, sleazy slasher with huge potential for a blatantly gay storyline, but dammit, not a single thing makes any sense at the end, and so this one lands a spot on the does the gay guy die? list with The Siren instead of the homo horror movies page.

Nothing is explained, the gay subplot fails to live up to its promise, and I don’t even think a sequel could fix that. Despite all that, I would love to add Boogeyman Cometh to my DVD collection, but it seems it never made it to physical media.