Our Own Worlds
A terrifying vision of isolation and debauchery from a queer perspective
Everyone has a lifestyle they are devoted to which keeps them moving forward and enjoy the life they want. No matter its struggles, we decide what we want with the caution of uninviting preventable problems. Particularly in the gay community, problems arise when something invades our comfort homes and shows us our weaknesses that often has criticized us. Our minds begin to spiral and the atmosphere turns against us. The following queer horror short films highlights that invasion of freedom that we desperately want albeit in strange circumstances.
The Latent Image (2019) is directed by Alexander Birrell and written by Joshua Tonks and Alexander Birrell. The story follows writer Robert Walsh (Joshua Tonks) who is writing his upcoming thriller novel at an isolated gorgeous cabin while facing writer’s block. One night, a strange man (Jay Clift) enters Robert’s cabin and requests bandages. Robert’s world is quickly spiraled by the enigmatic presence of this man who remains nameless as he helps him. As both men interact during several days, Robert starts to imagine from erotic to terrifying situations with this man. As such, these inspire him to write his novel. As imagination and reality are crossing so as the terror when Robert uncovers the man’s intentions, threatening his novel work in progress.
Without spoiling, the movie perfectly serves as a parallel to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) where writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) moves his family to the Overlook Hotel to keep it vigilant while writing his upcoming novel. During the course of the movie, Jack struggles with writer’s block as well as the supernatural phenomena of the hotel that influences him to becoming a murderer. The Latent Image and The Shining share the terrifying nature of isolation in beautiful locations like Robert’s cabin and the Overlook Hotel. Robert and Jack share their writing struggles to compose their next work as they succumb to imagination and confusion. Finally, both films introduce an object at the end of the film that documents the phenomena that they experienced which are Robert’s film camera and the Overlook Hotel’s New Year’s Eve Party. Both objects represent the only leading image of their fates. Thus, The Latent Image takes a symbolic and literal form in highlighting the fate of our main character.
In addition, Robert mentions his writing technique of not including exposition as he talks with the stranger; meaning that mystery is better to display rather the background story of each character, especially our antagonist. A great horror trope introduced in 1974’s Black Christmas where the killer’s identity is never discovered nor his motive; an element introduced in more modern horror movies. Therefore, this short film is a great queer horror film that tackles common problems that writers face as the story transitions into a psychosexual thriller between two different men leading to unsettling moments.
A Halloween Trick (2019) is written and directed by Michael Varrati which centers on the tense relationship between neighbors Bryce (Ben Baur) and Valerie (Tiffany Shepis) during the last three days of October finalizing on Halloween Night in a terrifying attack. On October 29, Valerie can’t sleep due to the loud sex that Bryce has with another hookup man. During these days, Valerie pleads Bryce to keep the noises lower much to the dismay of Bryce as he sees it as an invasion of his privacy. On Halloween Night, Bryce receives his next hookup date with a strange man (Sean Keller) whom becomes his enemy. As Bryce pleads for help, he realizes that his night was setup by his mistakes.
A Halloween Trick explicitly displays the troubles of invasion of privacy between neighbors, especially if it involves an oversexed gay man. As Valerie tries to create mutual respect with Bryce, their relationship deteriorates due to Bryce’s debauchery as he defends it due to Halloween being the Gay Christmas for queer people. However, Bryce also becomes a victim of the terrifying crimes via hookup dates which are occurring more among the queer community especially in conservative countries. Bryce’s world is turned upside down when the unknown man has been invited to his home to create chaos.
Similar to the Devil killer from Hellbent (first gay slasher film) and Guy Favre from Knife + Heart (first queer giallo film), both display sexual imagery using leather costume garments. This film does the same with the murderer’s formal dress and leather mask to attract his prey. Halloween is the heaven of the queer community but also a terrifying holiday whose creatures (human and non-human) take advantage to exact their wrath upon them.
Overall, these two queer horror short films share the language of our own worlds as presented by Robert in The Latent Image and Bryce in A Halloween Trick. Both protagonists created their own safe space to feel freedom. Robert is introverted as he prefers to write alone, feeling safe; whereas, Bryce likes to party and have sex as his coping mechanism to feel excitement and fun in his life. Both men deal with strangers who use their sexual imagery to attract and confuse them; thus, falling as preys. Both films pay references to incredible horror films by their aesthetics while a telling a terrifying story. In a great side note, it was reported that The Latent Image will become into a full-length film giving more good opportunities to expand the story. For Queer Horror fans like me, it is incredible to see the increase of horror films from a queer perspective taking place in a new era where there are rich storylines of queer people at the forefront of horror. To conclude, the common warning of these films for queer people is to be cautious in who we let in our homes and what this person wants from you. Thus, our own worlds which were safe became our real horror fields.
