It’s every gay horror boy’s dream to have more naked boys than girls being chased by a masked killer in a slasher, but we rarely get that scenario. It’s even less likely that they are actually gay films. However, the triple feature I selected for this blog manages to score one film each on my homo horror movies page, my die, gay guy, die! page, and my stud stalking page.
SEEING HEAVEN (2010)
More of an intriguing erotic psychological drama than a thriller, mystery, or horror film, Seeing Heaven can easily lure you in due to the main character’s recurring nightmare of rough sex, being terrorized by a hooded figure wearing a blank mask, and having passionate sex while continuously saying “I need to see.”
Making it seem like it may go even more into horror territory is that the men the character has sex with also see the same nightmarish visions he does.
There’s so much potential for an intense psychological slasher film here (the masked “killer” scenes alone are great).
Instead, the story itself is more abstract.
Pretty boy comes to city looking for his twin brother, falls into hustling, falls into porn, regularly states that he knows he’s beautiful and everyone wants to use him…
…while allowing everyone to use him, convincing him that the nightmares he has will develop more fully if he has more sex, eventually escalating to rougher and more dangerous sex.
It’s really an allegory about the horrors of gay culture a small town boy will face when he comes to the big city. No, folks. We still haven’t quite moved totally past the days of negative messaging in gay art yet.
THE BROTHERHOOD V: ALUMNI (2009)
I was never a big fan of this homoerotic campus cult series by David DeCoteau, but I had to go back to it for parts 5 and 6 because the unrelated plots veer into simple slasher territory. There’s no logic in placing these films under the “Brotherhood” umbrella beyond cashing in on the franchise name (if there’s really any cashing in possible). Personally, I would have been thrilled if DeCoteau had used these two installments to instead launch an entirely new series of homoerotic slashers, considering there are even some semi-slashers that have gotten tossed into his 1313 series.
Part 5 is another close to authentic slasher along the lines of The Raven that uses a basic premise; high school kids pull a prank on prom night, someone dies, they cover it up, years later they’re called to a reunion, and a masked killer with a knife comes for them.
Visually, it goes old school, giving me Prom Night 1980 flashbacks. And the intro superlatives introducing the characters are a great touch.
The group spends much of the film looking nervous as they hunt for a videotape they’ve been instructed to find in a note left by the killer…or else.
But what they really do is split up to have lengthy conversations about their pasts together and to participate in extended sex scenes that never get to the sex.
Yes, in true DeCoteau fashion, it’s mostly just guys in their underwear.
A couple take showers, two are gay, another pair has a bi threesome with a girl. But each time, it’s just kissing and petting. For a very long time. To horrible songs.
However, once the killer really kicks into action in the last half hour, the film taps into the best classic slasher scenarios. There’s even a final girl, a chase scene, and a twist.
If it weren’t for the long exploratory scenes accompanied by a heartbeat sound effect, this would definitely be more worthy of attention in the mainstream slasher genre.
THE BROTHERHOOD VI: INITIATION (2009)
DeCoteau takes the franchise to an isolated country resort for a backwoods slasher. Based on how badly this one gets trashed online, I can only assume those who review it are mostly a) straight dudes uncomfortable with male nudity, and b) clueless about the DeCoteau formula. In my opinion, along with The Raven and Brotherhood V, this is one of his best homoerotic films/slashers.
For starters, it manages to encompass his more exploitative side by featuring a whole group of frat pledges in their underwear for the entire movie. It’s literally the all-male version of dozens of female-centric slashers of the 80s. The boys get paddled (underwear stay on).
They get hosed down (only one has white undies on that become transparent).
There’s a group shower montage (nothing below the waist).
Yet, there isn’t a single gay character!
There is a girl, as in most DeCoteau films, but her appearance is short-lived, so to speak. Yay!
Mostly, it’s the boys hanging around the woods, learning the story of a pledge who disappeared several years before, and talking about a legend of a killer lumberjack. It doesn’t get much sexier than a killer lumberjack hunting down pretty boys in undies.
Just like DeCoteau’s other slashers, many of the scenes of the killer are pointless flashback clips at absolutely random times, a desperate attempt to inject horror into the horrorless void before the streak of kills finally begins 50 minutes in.
Once they do, it’s the return of that annoying heartbeat sound effect (totally unnecessary because the music soundtrack is quite serviceable), and a general kill scene formula of the killer coming up behind a guy and swinging his axe, followed by blood splattering on the camera lens and a scream.
But the killer has a good ominous presence, a creepy ramshackle cabin lair, stacks his bodies up in a bloody, homoerotic way, and gives the final boy a run for his money shot.
And this is by far my favorite DeCoteau slasher ending, going for a jump scare that totally works followed by a good old nod to the first Friday the 13th.
