Short Takes: ‘Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots’ (2019) ★★

A former roommate once quipped that you’re not going to find the love of your life in a bar. And then he threw a party that resulted in us getting evicted. Still, he was not wrong—about not finding love in bars, at least. Ditto for Grindr. It’s a lesson the main character of Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots, Leo (the movie’s co-writer and director Thales Corrêa), has yet to learn as he visits San Francisco to search the city’s bars for the Grindr trick he wants to make his boyfriend.

Leo’s S.F. guide is fellow Brazilian Donnie (the other screenwriter, Izzy Palazzini). Donnie, who looks like the estranged cousin Alvin doesn’t want the other chipmunks to know about, may be an expert on the Castro’s nightlife, but he’s also hot mess. He’s more about scoring drugs n’ dick than helping his friend, a fact that Leo is surprisingly slow to pick up on. Except, no, Leo already knows this. He says as much.

“I should’ve known this was gonna happen because every time I go out with Donnie some crazy, stupid shit happens,” Leo moans after Donnie gets them kicked out of a bar when caught blowing his “straight” friend Hunter (Oscar Mansky, the answer to the unasked question: What if Jon Heder was fuckable?) in one of the titular bathroom stalls. And this is a mere 15-minutes into the movie.

Clearly, it’s going to be a long night, and I began to fear Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots was going to make me feel every goddamn minute of it. I don’t have a lot of patience for people like Donnie in real life, yet the movie was presenting him as just a comic foil, mistaking his obnoxiousness for hilariousness. I was seriously considering giving up on the movie before it hit the 30-minute mark.

But the movie is barely 80 minutes long, so I stuck with it, and though Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots didn’t become a great film, it did become a more meaningful one. After what has got to be the saddest underwear party ever, Leo realizes that he is looking for love in all the wrong places, and those are the only places on Donnie’s itinerary. He decides to focus more on quality than quantity, though not before one more sleazy (mis)adventure.

Given its minuscule budget, Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots is better made than one would expect, with passable acting and production values (the cinematography is a bit spotty, however). Its main drawback is its script. Though billed as a comedy, it’s only intermittently amusing at best, fucking irritating at worst. It’s only when it stops trying to so hard to make Donnie the life of the party that the movie starts to rise above viewers’ lowest expectations, though by that time many of them may have already decided, as Leo ultimately does, to cut ties.

Remember, Ladies: No Orgasm Goes Unpunished

I knew this day would come, the day I finally check out yet another godawful Fifty Shades of Grey knockoff that confuses abuse with romance. I’m talking, of course, about the 2017 British movie DARKER SHADES OF ELISE.

This movie was put in my Tubi queue shortly after reviewing that more notorious Fifty Shades knock-off, 365 Days, as it looked like it would provide ample opportunities for ridicule. Then I realized I’d have to watch it first, and the prospect of doing that was significantly less fun.

via GIPHY

It took the recent Netflix release of the second installment of the 365 Days saga—if a collection of montages, drone shots and sex scenes, varnished over with an overbearing pseudo-R&B soundtrack, even qualifies as a “saga”—to spur me to learn about Elise’s darker shades.

Elise is subjected to the judgmental gaze of
Janet, the cunty co-worker.

Elise (Becca Hirani), once an aspiring model and actress, is now a bored London housewife, married to workaholic Rick (Tommy Vilés). At the movie’s opening she shows up at his barren office with champagne bottle and glasses in hand, interrupting Rick having a flirty conversation about salads(?) with his colleague Janet (Louisa Warren). Janet, who should really be a lot humbler considering her shitty dye-job, takes her sweet time fucking off, making sure to give Rick’s wife a condescending once-over on her way out the door. Rick is just as annoyed by the interruption. It’s their anniversary, Elise reminds him. Surely, he could make time to celebrate. Though Rick apologizes, he’s not making any indication he plans on leaving the office anytime soon. When he gets a call about a work “emergency,” he seems positively relieved.

Elise begins to suspect Rick of having an affair. “Know what I would do?” Elise’s friend Bianca (Charlene Cooper) volunteers. “Go fuck every man in sight.” But Elise says she can’t do that—she’s married. Bianca, as the free-spirited/slutty best friend, doesn’t see that as a barrier. Then, just to rub salt into her friend’s wounded sex life, Bianca hurries Elise out the door so she can greet her latest internet hook-up. Elise instead lingers at the back window, getting so turned on watching a hot Black guy go down on Bianca that she can’t help but touch herself. 

There can be a fine line between sexy and sad,
and Elise quickly crosses it.

It’s while tailing Rick, hoping to catch him in the act of cheating, that Elise meets Felix (Arron Blake), an attractive, if somewhat hawk-faced, photographer. Felix immediately starts chatting up Elise, who blushes at his smarmy compliments but clearly enjoys the attention. When he asks if he can photograph her, she gives the request a millisecond of consideration—the same amount of time required to cut to Elise in her apartment, posing for Felix. Felix just as quickly jumps to suggesting Elise take her dress off. “What?” Elise gasps. “I don’t even know your name.” Wait, what? I’m sorry, even in my desperate bar trash days, when my affection was won by anyone who would talk to me for more than three minutes, I still knew the names of the men I was about to leave the bar with, at least until the next morning.

Once introductions are out of the way the pair kiss. Though Elise isn’t exactly resistant, this seduction feels more like an uncomfortable assignment in a James Franco-led acting class. Elise stops Felix before things go too far, but her marital commitment snaps a day or so later when Rick and his assistants, doing some pre-meeting prep work at the apartment, respond to her offer of refreshments like she just farted. Rick and company are barely out the door before Elise is inviting Felix over to initiate her into the joys of adultery.

Felix shows us the pale side of the moon.

Because movies can’t let female orgasms go unpunished, Felix quickly proves to be every bit of the creeper we suspect him of being. In the first of many red flags, he shows up in Elise’s bedroom while Rick is in the shower (this apartment building either has really shit security or Felix can scale walls like Spider-Man). Despite her protests, Felix fucks Elise (quickly), ducking out of the room—but not out of the apartment—the moment Rick asks his wife to hand him a towel. But, uh-oh, Rick decides now is time to tend to his husbandly duties and initiates sex with Elise, thinking her flushed face and WAP are the result of watching him shower (Vilés is cute, but “moisture-inducing” might be a wee bit of an overstatement).

Felix enjoys the show.

But watching Elise bone her husband gets Felix dripping, so after Rick leaves on yet another business trip the photographer proposes inviting random men over to fuck her while Felix watches. How would she like that? Elise responds as if just offered a cup of tea: “Yeah. I guess so.”

Felix wastes little time finding participants for his voyeuristic fantasies, though it’s clear what he really enjoys is Elise’s terror when these randos suddenly appear unannounced in her home, like the hunky Black man (not the same one who ate out Bianca), who walks into the bathroom while she’s bathing and begins undressing.

He quickly breaks the ice.

Later, Felix brings two twinks over to have their way with her. Elise is so blinded by all this nubile British boi-flesh that she fails to notice Felix has set up his camera to record the action. Or maybe she’s too horny to care. It’s not until brings home Mindy the Half-Price Dominatrix (Claire-Maria Fox) that Elise realizes this affair has to end.

The moment Elise re-evaluates her relationship with Felix.

Felix isn’t one to let go easily, however, and he quickly launches into a campaign of harassment that begins with threats and humiliations before quickly escalating to revenge porn and gang rape. Elise, feeling she has no other option, confesses the affair to Rick. That’s when things get all murder-y.

Though its title and marketing suggest Elise is a down-market Fifty Shades rip-off, it’s really just a kinkier (and significantly cheaper) Fatal Attraction, with a little bit of Animal Instincts thrown in. With a beefed-up script, higher production values and an effort to make the sex scenes sexy, Elise could’ve been an OK direct-to-streaming erotic thriller. As it is, Shannon Holiday’s script is populated with one-note characters spouting bland and/or dumb dialog (including a police detective making the most ridiculous/offensive request of a victim ever) and Jamie West’s direction does nothing to elevate the material. Whereas Fifty Shades and 365 Days are as much lifestyle porn as they are just porn, Darker Shades of Elise is aggressively drab, as if West shot the entire movie through a dirty window.

Director Jamie West captures the romance of the London setting.

The cast is largely comprised of actors who have worked together on similar Z-grade titles, and while none of them are especially good, a few are better than the material they are given. Had Elise’s character been given a few more shades, I have no doubt that Hirani could’ve made her seem more like a fully realized human being instead of a doormat in need of a good lay. Similarly, I’d like to think Blake might have displayed some charm in the early scenes had the script supplied Felix with any, which would make Elise’s attraction to him more believable and his psychopathic behavior a bit more shocking. Instead, he comes across as a predator from the start, though, for what it’s worth, Blake is quite effective the nastier he gets. Weirdly, the only character given any sort of nuance is Rick, who is first shown to be an insensitive dick, only to soften up over the course of the movie. I found myself wondering if the movie might’ve been better served if Vilés and Blake switched roles, though both actors would’ve been better served taking different jobs.

I know I’m trespassing on Nick DiRamio’s territory, but girl,
who did your make up?

So, Darker Shades of Elise wasn’t as unwatchable as I feared, but that’s about the most that can be said for it. It isn’t sexy, it isn’t good, and it’s not worth your time.

On the other hand….

Let There Be No More Tomorrows After This Day

Binge and purge.

While Darker Shades of Elise is bad, 365 DAYS: THIS DAY, as most readers already know, is fucking dreadful, and just as offensive as the first movie. The “story,” using the loosest definition of the word, picks up several weeks/months (time doesn’t matter in this universe) after the first movie, on the wedding day of Massimo (Michele Marrone, who again contributes to the movie’s soundtrack, as grating as it is relentless) and “Low-ra” (Anna-Marie Sieklucka). The final scene of the previous film, in which Laura and her friend Olga (Magdalena Lamparska) are seen being driven into a tunnel but never coming out the other side, is explained away in a few lines of dialog: there was an accident and Laura miscarried (but don’t tell Massimo she was ever pregnant!). Now let us never speak of it again.

Massimo has his own secrets, like the fact that he has a twin brother, Adriano. The brothers may be identical, but they are quite different: Massimo looks like drug trafficker while Adriano looks like a drug trafficker who uses the product. Henceforth, they will be known as Scowly and Twitchy. Anyway, Laura is pissed that Scowly—who, you’ll remember, kidnapped her and held her prisoner until she finally submitted to fell in love with him—withheld this information from her. She’s also starting to get a teensy bit annoyed that Massimo treats her like his property (who would’ve guessed?). But while Laura is relatively accepting of her abusive relationship, cheating on her is just a bridge too far. So, when she catches Scowly in flagrante delicto with his ex, Anna (Natasza Urbanska), she storms off, not realizing it was Twitchy the whole time.

Scowly and Twitchy

Nacho undulates into Laura’s life.

Enter Nacho (yes, Nacho), Scowly and Laura’s new gardener, who conveniently shows up to give the cuckqueaned gangster’s wife a lift, ultimately taking her to his place. It turns out Nacho, who is never once shown gardening, lives in a beautiful seaside villa. It’s his father’s place, he explains. Laura doesn’t ask any more questions, since Nacho, played by reality show contestant Simone Susinna, has a smile that can melt away panties and cloud minds. Yet, while Nacho is significantly more pleasant than Scowly, viewers—those who have made it this far, at least—will suspect that he, too, is a piece of shit, and they’d be right. He’s just significantly less shitty than Massimo.

The only reason to watch the film adaptations of Blanka Lipińska’s porno trilogy is the explicit sex, and even there This Day disappoints. The sex scenes may be early and often (the first one happens a mere two minutes in), but there is significantly less flesh bared this time out. It’s not like Sieklucka and Marrone decided to beef up the nudity clauses in their contracts. They still get naked, just not as frequently, though you can still rest assured that Sieklucka will be baring more than either of her male co-stars. And it’s not like the sex is all that daring or interesting, the movie failing to realize that in the internet age it will take more than whipped cream and toys to get audiences’ collective blood pumping. However, there is a scene on a golf course that will get them laughing.

Olga and Domenico are interrupted—again.

As with the first one, I’m providing the time codes for the “good parts” of This Day. I’m not counting that first sex scene, in which Laura and Scowly have pre-wedding sex (sample romantic dialog: “I don’t have panties”) as both actors remain fully clothed. The same goes for Olga and Domenico’s frequently interrupted couplings (people are always walking in on each other fucking in this movie), which aren’t very explicit and meant solely as comic relief. So, for those who want to see the hot people have simulated sex without having to sit through the movie’s remaining 95 minutes of watching them drive Lambos, eat spaghetti, shop, jet ski, drive Corvettes, walk on the beach, lounge on patios, lounge by the pool, and model comically large sunglasses, here are the parts to fast-forward to:

I eat your face!

10:40 – Massimo and Laura’s wedding night. “You have one hour. Then I’ll do whatever I wan’ w’ju,” Scowly tells his bride. “No,” she replies, “I’ll do whatever I want with you.” She ties him (fully clothed) to a chair, then gets naked and pleasures herself with a vibrator until Scowly gets so horny he breaks free of his flimsy restraints and pounces on her. This scene segues into the movie’s honeymoon montage, which includes hot tub sex (non-explicit), Laura walking topless along the beach and, during a game of golf, Laura squatting over one of the holes as her husband/kidnapper putts a ball toward her cooch. 

 

Laura proves that nothing will make golf sexy.

21:10 – Massimo and Laura, who had sex on a patio table during the movie’s first two minutes, have sex on a dining room table after she slinks into the room wearing skimpy lingerie (almost everyone in this movie walks as if they are about to make a stripper pole their bitch). Scowly finally shows his ass (Marrone isn’t much of an actor, to put it kindly, but his body—woof!). He also goes down on Laura, which may not be entirely simulated.

Michele Marrone displays his greatest strength as an actor.

38:42 – Massimo gets his Christmas gift: a night of BDSM Lite with a box set of sex toys. So, just like any other night. Laura is gift wrapped in a garter belt and leather cuffs with gold lettering spelling out “Fuck Me” (Eat your heart out, Nicholas Sparks.) Scowly once again gets naked, though the illusion that he’s really giving it to his victim/wife is shattered with a brief full-frontal flash.

No wonder he had to use the toys on Laura.

51:00 – Laura walks in on “Massimo” and Anna. Not terribly explicit but you a brief glimpse of Urbanska’s naked butt (Marrone’s is kept covered by his shirttail).

1:09:17 – Laura and Nacho get it on (though it might be a dream; the movie isn’t clear, and you won’t care). Lots of close-ups of Laura looking pre-orgasmic and Nacho looking sleepy. Nacho kisses his way down her naked torso before dining downtown.

Hel-lo!

1:25:25 – Laura may/may not be dreaming of Nacho eating her pussy for breakfast. “Are you having a nightmare or just an erotic dream?” asks Nacho when she wakes up. Then they have spaghetti for breakfast, because they are in Italy.

1:30:18 – No sex, but Nacho finally shows his ass. 

Not bad, but Sussina looks better from the front.

You’ve got 20 more minutes to go after Sussina shows his two handfuls—20 loooong minutes. Not only is This Day unerotic, offensive and stupid, it’s also punishingly dull. At this rate, watching the third installment will likely feel as if time is standing still. It’s time that would probably be better spent watching real porn (see the internet for details.) But who am I kidding? I know I’m going to watch it when it drops on Netflix.

Short Takes: ‘Sunburn’ (2018) ★★ 1/2

Put some sexy Europeans with complicated love lives around a swimming pool and I’m there: La piscine (a.k.a. The Swimming Pool), Swimming Pool (which is not a remake of La piscine), A Bigger Splash (which is) — I enjoyed them all. So, it was damn-near inevitable that I’d watch Vicente Alves do Ó’s 2018 film Sunburn (a.k.a. Golpe de Sol), which ups the ante by making its characters queer. Yes, please.

Four friends—Simão (Ricardo Barbosa, wearing Speedos for the majority of the film’s runtime), Vasco (Ricardo Pereira), Joana (Oceana Basílio) and Francisco (Nuno Pardal)—are spending a long weekend at Francisco’s secluded villa when they each receive a phone call from David, whom they haven’t seen in 10 years and whom a few hoped never to see again. When David invites himself over, his impending arrival turns what was supposed to be a relaxing weekend into a tense confrontation with their past decisions and encroaching middle age.

Though it would seem that it’s poised to rage out of control like the distant brush fires that surround Francisco’s villa, Sunburn spends much of its runtime merely smoldering, gradually revealing details about its characters and their history with David. Except, the movie never reveals as much as it holds back. In fact, for the first 20 minutes I wasn’t entirely clear on the characters’ relationship to each other. This is made more frustrating by intermittent voice overs from David himself that suggest the movie might take a much darker turn, but it’s just one more tease without a payoff.

Sunburn looks gorgeous, and writer-director do Ó manages to slip in a few pointed insights about aging and regret. That the characters’ sexuality (Simão and Vasco are gay; Francisco is bi, in a relationship with Joana) is treated matter-of-factly is also appreciated. But the movie is never as profound as it thinks it is and I never liked it as much as I hoped I would. It may be titled Sunburn, but this Portuguese drama is wearing SPF-50.

A Gay Glucose Drip for Christmas with a Booger Sugar Chaser

My husband had this to say about Christmas movies: “You can go schmaltzy or take the piss out of the holiday. Neither the twain shall meet.” Though there have been a few exceptions (A Christmas Story, kind of), he’s right. As far as holiday movies are concerned, Christmas is a time of either sugary sentimentality or unbridled debauchery (or terror), no mixing.

Now that holiday movies are trying to be a little more inclusive—and I stress a little— studios might also want to try to combine sappy and the cynical. And who better to tie the nice, the gaudy and the naughty into one fabulous bow than the queer community? I’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, the Netflix movie SINGLE ALL THE WAY would be the one to break down this barrier between the sentimental and the salacious.

I took the inclusion of Kathy Najimy and Jennifer Coolidge in Single All the Way’s cast as a good sign, and though I’ve been burned by Netflix queer content before (the platform’s 2019 version of Tales of the City qualifies as a hate crime, against Laura Linney if not LGBTQs), I held out hope that since Netflix wasn’t bound by the same restraints as the Hallmark Channel, its queer holiday movie would at least spike its eggnog.

The opening scene suggests this gay Christmas might be
a little sexier.

Netflix decided to go another way, which is to say they decided to go the same way: same as Hallmark, same as Lifetime.

Michael Urie tries his best to act against
Tim Lund’s wig-like hair.

Peter (Michael Urie) lives in Los Angeles, works for a social media marketing company but his true passion is plants (he has a separate Instagram account dedicated to them), and for the first time in a long time is genuinely excited about visiting his family in New Hampshire. Why? Because he’s finally bringing home a boyfriend—a doctor no less (“What do I have to do to get cardiac arrested?” swoons one of Peter’s colleagues when the doctor makes his entrance to a plaid-themed Christmas party). But marriage to the doctor is out of the question, especially once Peter learns the doctor is already married. To a woman. Now Peter will have to return home single once again, and after he’s hinted to his family that he’s bringing back a “surprise.”

Instead, Peter convinces his roommate Nick (Philemon Chambers) to come home with him and pretend to be his new beau. Nick is understandably reluctant, first claiming he’s looking forward to having a Christmas staycation, then saying he doesn’t want to dip into his savings to buy a plane ticket (both valid reasons). Peter counters with rapid exposition: he doesn’t want Nick to be alone with his memories of his recently deceased mother, and as for Nick’s finances, he has the money he got from publishing a children’s book about his dog, Emmett. “Now you have all this money in the bank that you’re saving for a rainy day. And look—” Nick gestures at his own anguished visage—“it’s pouring.”

Philemon Chambers mimics my reaction to Single All
the Way’s dialog.

Movie premise established, Peter and Nick head to New Hampshire, where they’re greeted by Peter’s mom Carole (Najimy, doing her best with what’s she’s given), who not only insists on being called Christmas Carole for the month of December but also occupies herself making signs with cute/inspiring sayings, the kind that are derided in Progressive commercials.

Kathy Najimy’s face hidden to protect her dignity.

Before Peter can spring the news that he and Nick are a (pretend) couple, Carole (I refuse to call her Christmas Carole, and Netflix can’t do shit about it) springs a surprise of her own. It turns out her spin class instructor James is gay and single, so she has set the two up on a blind date! Peter is understandably horrified, but that’s before he meets James, who is played by Luke Macfarlane.

“I don’t care if my mom is standing there, I will suck your cock
right now!”

But while Peter is rapidly warming up to being a real boyfriend to James, his teenaged nieces (Madison Brydges and Alexandra Beaton, their performances actually more palatable than I expected them to be) think he and Nick are a better match. Peter’s dad (Barry Bostwick) would also like Nick as a son-in-law, though I suspected he might prefer keeping Peter’s hot roommate to himself. Seriously, I think Peter’s dad wants to fuck Nick, though I may be reading too much into Dad’s cajoling Nick to go down into the basement with him to fix a pipe.

OK, he meant that literally, but I still felt the heat
between these two.

The nieces—with the help of their parents (Schitt’s Creek’s Jennifer Robertson and Victor Andres Turgeon-Trelles) and, of course, Grandpa—make it their mission to gently sabotage Peter’s relationship with James. They needn’t bother, as Peter seems to be doing a good job of auto-cockblocking, fending off James’ invitations to go back to his place because of lame plot contrivances. 

Regretfully, Single All the Way doesn’t take this opportunity to
make a facial joke.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot involving a Christmas pageant written and directed by Aunt Sandy (Coolidge), an actress whose career high was being Ellen Greene’s understudy in Little Shop of Horrors. It’s this pageant, weirdly, that bridges the dueling efforts to meddle in Peter’s love life, shoveling the snow off the movie’s path as it slides toward a predictably happy ending.

I spent the first thirty minutes of Single All the Way groaning and rolling my eyes at the obvious jokes (old people struggling with their smartphones; referring to HGTV as the “Homosexual Gay” network; “Christmas Carole”), but the movie eventually won me over as it went along. 

The moment I was won over.

The movie is basically a feature-length syndicated sit-com, and most of the performances are pitched accordingly, meaning most of the cast displays Kelly-and-Ryan-on-meth levels of enthusiasm, though a few (Chambers, Macfarlane, Bostwick) favor of a more grounded approach. Coolidge, as always, is in a class by herself, but her scene-stealing potential is squandered by a script that is too beholden to a TV-PG rating, reducing her Aunt Sandy to little more than a sight gag.

And Bette Midler impersonator.

Netflix gets points for casting gay actors (all three male leads are out IRL), as well as presenting interracial dating as the non-issue it should be. Had it remained a gay version of a Christmas fake engagement movie (and, goddamn, are there a lot of them), Single All the Way might have held its own. But it more closely resembles Lifetime’s The Christmas Setup, and it suffers from the comparison, failing to have half the charm of that movie. While Single All the Way is a pretty good approximation of a Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movie, considering all the holiday movies those two channels churn out one would think Netflix would want to do something different to distinguish itself. Oh, well. At least we can watch it with our parents without fear of any uncomfortable conversations.

“What is felching?”

Straight Christmas Cynicism

After watching Single All the Way, I immediately wanted to watch something cynical to cut the sweetness, so I watched Zach Clark’s 2013 black comedy WHITE REINDEER. 

Single All the Way also gave me a strong desire to subscribe
to Noir Male, but I guess that’s not Christmas-y
enough for this post.

Jeff gives Suzanne an excuse to buy Hawaiian
Christmas CDs.

Washington, D.C.-area real estate agent Suzanne Barrington (Anna Margaret Hollyman) loves Christmas in a way only a woman with the middle name Noel can. And at the start of White Reindeer, Suzanne’s Christmas is set to be an especially merry one: she sells a house in her neighborhood to a charming young couple, George and Patti (Joe Swanberg and Lydia Hyslop), then, after a pre-dinner fuck, her TV weatherman husband Jeff (Nathan Williams) surprises Suzanne with the news that he got a job at a station in Hawaii.

But Suzanne’s dreams of a holiday luau end abruptly when she returns home from Christmas shopping to discover her home ransacked and her husband’s brains splattered across the floor. She’s still in the early stages of grief when one of her husband’s colleagues, wracked with guilt, reveals that Jeff was having an affair with a stripper named Autumn, who worked at a club near the TV station.

Autumn meets her lover’s widow.

Suzanne goes to the club confront Autumn (Laura Lemar-Goldsboro in her only film role), except their interaction isn’t confrontational. Suzanne is more curious about the other woman than angry with her. Suzanne is quickly bonds with Jeff’s lover, joining her and the other strippers for coke-fueled nights clubbing and going on shoplifting sprees at Macy’s during the day. They even get close enough for Autumn to share her real name: “Autumn is my stripper name. My real name is Fantasia.”

The high holidays.

Partying with strippers isn’t Suzanne’s only diversion from her grief. She spends thousands of dollars shopping online. She also angles for an invite to George and Patti’s housewarming party and attends even after she learns it’s not your typical holiday soiree.

Unless you’re Thomas Middleditch.

Though she’s game, sex with strangers isn’t as much fun as Suzanne hoped it would be. I’ve never been to a swingers’ party, but I suspect White Reindeer’s portrayal, which includes guests standing naked around the kitchen discussing one of their children’s struggles with little league, is closer to the unsexy reality.

The party always ends up in the kitchen.

But getting pounded by George while blowing a roly-poly guy with erection issues isn’t Suzanne’s rock bottom. No, what sends Suzanne crashing back to earth is discovering her credit cards are maxed out from her indiscriminate spending.

Though a few other things happen on the way down.

Hollyman is perfect as Suzanne, portraying her character with the right mix of optimism, despair and cluelessness one would expect from an upper-middle class white woman whose world is crashing down around her. Likewise, Lemar-Goldsboro’s Autumn/Fantasia is quietly tough, a woman who has dealt with enough shit by her early twenties that she’s unfazed by whatever shitstorm comes her way. The two actresses play well off each other, both deadpan but far from wooden. 

Suzanne is determined to have the best Christmas
money can buy.

White Reindeer is, as far as I’m concerned, a holiday classic. It fits neatly in the empty space left when I had to banish The Ref to the same purgatory where all the other Kevin Spacey movies I’ve enjoyed now reside. White Reindeer is a bit rough around the edges due to its limited budget, and some of its humor can be a bit cringey (Suzanne to Autumn/Fantasia’s mother: “Oh, you look pretty healthy for somebody on disability”), as well as kind of juvenile (Suzanne sniffing her own fart), but it always had me laughing. Given the past couple of years, I found it much easier to relate to Suzanne processing her grief in unhealthy ways than Peter’s deciding which hot man he wanted to be his boyfriend. I’m all for holiday escapism, but maybe next year Netflix could give us something we could watch with Family instead of with our families.

More Flaccid than Fabulous

The vampire was just made for sexploitation. After all, seduction is a large part of the vampire’s M.O. And since it’s ideal for sexploitation, then it stands to reason it’s perfect for gaysploitation. Yet while there are quite a number of movies featuring lesbian vampires, gay vampires aren’t quite as well represented (though there might be some mitigating factors).

Interview with the Vampire had potential, but then they
cast this guy.

But the gay vampire is out there. You just have to step off the well-lit path of Netflix and Prime algorithms and go deeper into the streaming service abyss. Eventually a thumbnail image of two or more attractive men, baring fangs and abs, will catch your eye, tempting you to join them. And like a willing victim, you press play.

Which is how I ended up watching the 2011 British “film” VAMPIRES: BRIGHTER IN DARKNESS.

Like any cute, young gay man, Toby Brighter (puppy-eyed Dan Briggs) has had trouble getting dates in the six months following his breakup, so his sister Charlotte (Rebecca Eastman, deftly making her obnoxious character insufferable) has secured him a blind date via a gay dating website. Though Toby doesn’t have high hopes the date will be a success, he nevertheless bathes for the occasion.

And gets our hopes up for what will follow.

Toby’s date isn’t with some drooling troll but the very handsome, very elegant Lucas Delmore (Rhys Howells). And he’s wealthy, too, having reserved the entire guild hall restaurant so they can be alone. Lucas is equally enchanted by the working-class stud. By the date’s end the two men are, if not in love, at least very infatuated with each other. However, Toby goes home alone as the two men have agreed to take it slow.

But just as Toby is about to enter his flat, Lucas appears on his doorstep, only now Lucas is more menacing and rape-y than suave and charming. Through the power of boners, he convinces Toby to invite him inside, whereupon the two make-out hot and heavy. What the audience knows but Toby doesn’t is Lucas is a vampire!

Except the man on top of Toby isn’t Lucas but Lucas’ jealous ex Anthony (James MacCorkindale), who shape-shifts back into his true form when Lucas appears at the front door. Toby manages to invite Lucas inside before he bleeds out and, after lots of hissing, growling and fast-forward action, Lucas fights Anthony off. This leaves Lucas with a choice: let Toby die or make him a fellow vamp. He makes Toby one of the undead, of course, though he at least asks Toby’s permission, as he’s a gentleman. So much for taking things slow.

Anthony and Lucas prepare to do battle, yet I’m preoccupied with
thoughts about doing something with that drab kitchen. Painting
those cabinets a different color would do wonders.

Get comfortable with this expression. Abigail
Law-Briggs wears it for the movie’s entirety.

Alas, the movie maintains a glacial pace, despite promising to ramp up the action. Not only do Lucas and Toby have an angry Anthony to contend with, Lilith, the vampire queen who turned Lucas, (Abigail Law-Briggs, who gives the movie’s best bad performance), has returned and she’s mobilizing her coven and summoning CGI demons from the Sega Genesis Hell to take Lucas back into to her fold, or whatever. Then Lucas travels to Green Screen Egypt to meet with Semech (Richard Sherwood), who I think is like an ancient vampire king (but he’s still a queen, gurl), and then I went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee because there was no way I’d be able to make it to through the remaining hour and ten minutes without some additional caffeine in my system.

I should’ve done cocaine. 

Experience the horror of ’90s caliber CGI.

Vampires: Brighter in Darkness isn’t a work of incompetence so much as the result of writer-director-editor Jason Davitt’s grand ambition exceeding his £5.99 budget. This movie originally aired as a TV series on Sky channel 201 (is that a public access station?) and was edited into a 2-hour-10-minute movie, but I doubt it would be any more enjoyable in 15-minute installments. Davitt clearly wanted to craft a vampire epic with a gay romance at its core, but there are too many story points to keep track of and too little action to hold a viewer’s interest. And if you’re expecting to see a lot of skin, forget it. Briggs’ opening credits shower scene is the only nudity in the thing. The acting, at least, isn’t too terrible, though all the actors cast as vampires speak like they have loose dentures whenever they have their fangs in.

Admittedly, this scene was kinda’ cool.

Davitt went on to make a sequel, Vampires: Lucas Rising, but given that I spent the last 45 minutes of Brighter in Darkness wishing it would just fucking end already! I decided to give it a miss. So instead, I watched VAMPIRE BOYS (also 2011). I doubted it would be much better, but at least it was significantly shorter.

Jasin (Jason Lockhart, who just might be literally sleepwalking through his role) and his coven of Vampire Boys, roam the streets of Los Angeles, seeking The One, which, as established by the movie’s black and white opening (artsy!), is to be someone of the opposite sex. And not too bright, apparently, as the young woman’s escape attempt amounts to little more than her twirling in place while Jasin and crew slowly approach. Alas, she dies, for in this movie’s mythology, The One must truly want to become a vampire to be turned (seems like her attempt at escape, lame though it was, would’ve been a giveaway). And immortality must be renewed prior to an expiration date, like a library book: “You’re entering your one-hundredth year,” warns one of Jasin’s vampire bros. “We must find The One.”

These vampires are also invulnerable to sunlight
and Hot Topic jewelry.

“Los Angeles, City of Angels,” Jasin says in a stilted approximation of wistful. “Let us hope I find mine.”

Jasin finds his angel, and his angel has a dick. Said dick is attached to Caleb (Christian Ferrer), a twink college student who has just moved to L.A. from Ohio. Caleb is sharing a house with fellow student Paul (Ryan Adames, who also contributed some songs to the soundtrack), who says his parents used to own the house then immediately contradicts that statement when he tells Caleb his parents own the house free and clear. (Regardless, someone needs to tend to that lawn.) Paul is clearly interested in Caleb, and Caleb encourages his interest by walking around the house in his boxer briefs. 

Christian Ferrer and Ryan Adames introduce us to the
concept of Sub-DeCoteau Cinema.

 

Jasin Lockhart tries to maintain some dignity while
Dylan Vox channels Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus.

But then, thanks to a bit of vampire telepathy or something, Jasin becomes aware of Caleb’s existence and, sensing he’s The One, goes out of his way to cockblock Paul. Jasin’s infatuation with Caleb doesn’t sit too well with Jasin’s right-hand Logan (best actor of the cast Dylan Vox, of The Lair as well as other things), who thinks Jasin should go after platinum blonde babe Tara (Zasu), apparently wanting the reverse of the agreement between male-female bi couples: outside play is OK so long as it’s with a member of the opposite sex. As for Caleb, he easily falls for his bleached-blond paramour, though he reconsiders when Jasin springs the whole vampire thing on him.

Vampire Boys is indeed not much better than Vampires: Brighter in Darkness. In fact, it’s actually a little worse. Sure, Vampire Boys doesn’t have the Spawn-caliber CGI, the all-over-the-place story, or the patience-trying runtime, and the movie even sweetens the deal with some full-frontal nudity...

Why is this man smiling?

Asked and answered. And in case you’re wondering, yes, he has.

...but Brighter in Darkness at least had heart. For all its shortcomings, you can tell the people involved gave a shit. Vampire Boys, on the other hand, is just one more thing released in 2011—when the Twilight Saga was still dominating the box office—that’s cashing in on the vampire craze. I’m not against cashing in, but at least be creative about it. Creativity, however, is perhaps too much to ask from a screenplay written by the same man who gave us Reptisaurus and The Amazing Bulk, and Charlie Vaughn’s directing does little to help matters. It’s a porn parody with all the sex and parody cut out, making its hour and nine-minute runtime feel like 109 minutes. Oh, well, at least they refrained from titling it Vampire Boyz.

‘Want Some Hot Fuckhole?’

As with Vampires etc., I was so grateful when Vampire Boys reached the end credits that I didn’t even consider watching its sequel, Vampire Boys 2. I was sick of watching cock-teasing gay vampire movies. I wanted some movies that would put out. So, I cruised the sleazier side of the internet went home with Tom DeSimone’s SONS OF SATAN (1973) and Roger Earl’s GAYRACULA (1983).

The plot of Sons of Satan offers nothing new beyond replacing blood and guts with boners and cum. Jonathan Trent (Tom Paine), rocking a pair of polyester bell-bottoms and stacked heels, visits the home of “Natas” (nope, not obvious at all) in his search for his missing brother Clark. Though Natas’ name and address were found among Clark’s things, Mr. Natas’ caftan-wearing manservant, radiating bitter antiques dealer energy, sniffs that he knows nothing of Jonathan’s missing brother, that the master of the house is unavailable, and that ring in a display case that looks exactly like the one-of-a-kind that Jonathan gave Clark has been locked that case for over 200 years. Good day, sir!

Jonathan politely fucks off, then reconsiders and breaks back into Natas’ house, discovering that Clark has joined a vampire worshiping cult! He just as quickly learns that “interruptions in our services are never tolerated, Mr. Trent.” His punishment: providing nourishment to the cum-hungry Natas!

Clark (Shannon) prepares to give his master his ‘life force’
(not to be confused with Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce).

Natas awakens to a chalice of freshly squeezed jizz.

I recently learned from the Ask Any Buddy podcast that DeSimone only put his real name on the porn movies he was proud of, so the fact that Sons of Satan was released under his Lancer Brooks pseudonym tells you right away it’s one of his lesser offerings. Then again, he put his real name on Chatterbox and Angel III, so maybe DeSimone isn’t the best judge of his proudest achievements.  

That said, though Sons of Satan isn’t one of DeSimone’s better porn movies, it’s hardly his worst. It has the look of a cheap drive-in horror, which I appreciated, and its atmosphere is appropriately claustrophobic and creepy. But even cheap drive-in horrors—or Vampire Boys—have outfitted their vampires with more convincing fangs. Seeing Darryl Hughes, as the unduly tan Natas, struggle to keep his plastic vampire teeth in his mouth kills the mood, be that mood spooky or sexy. As for the sex…meh. Other than some cum-guzzling and a bit of incest (Jonathan is “forced” to suck off Clark, played by a blond cutie billed simply as Shannon), it’s all fairly bland. Still, Sons of Satan manages to have more bite than either Vampires: Brighter in Darkness or Vampire Boys. 

Who says Sons of Satan isn’t scary? Just look
at that wallpaper!

Jonathan (Tom Paine) is about to be initiated
into the Sons of Satan.

Not much better but way more entertaining than the previous three movies combined is Gayracula, which goes full-on camp with its story about Gaylord Young (toothy blond Falcon star Tim Kramer), a courier in 1783 Transylvania who delivers a package to the Marquis de Suede (Steve Collins) and gets turned into a vampire for his trouble. But before the fangs are bared, cocks are sucked. Gaylord helpfully narrates the action for the vision-impaired: “He sucked my big, hot cock with his moist, juicy lips. He twirled that tongue around my hot dick.” This voiceover is not by Kramer, who delivers his lines like a sixth grader reading aloud in English class, but by one of Gayracula’s screenwriters, Bruce Vilanch (not sure if he's Lorei I. Lee or Dorothee Pshaw), clearly relishing this opportunity to tap into his inner Vincent Price. 

The cardboard castle of the Marquis de Suede

As much as Gaylord enjoyed the Marquis’ “tight, and moist, and hot” ass, he’s not as appreciative of being made into one of the undead. And so he vows revenge on the Marquis, whom he learns 200 years later, is running a nightclub in Los Angeles.

“I traveled inelegantly but effectively.”

Michael Christopher: Master thespian.

The titular Gayracula is delivered to L.A. by none other than gay porn legend Michael Christopher. Once Gaylord’s manservant Boris (Rand Remington, in his sole film appearance) helps Christopher unload the coffin containing Gaylord, he offers the delivery man that most common gratuity in pornography: hot sex. Christopher is so into it that he is not only oblivious to the rats crawling nearby, he barely notices Gaylord rising from his coffin. When Gaylord does attract his attention, all he can do is ask if the vampire would like some “hot fuckhole.” Gaylord declines (“I don’t like sloppy seconds,” he lisps) but still can’t resist eating Christopher’s ass.

 

Though not in the way one would expect.

His bloodlust satiated, Gaylord heads to the Marquis’ nightclub, where he’s invited to watch a dancer rehearse his moves.

The rhythm doesn’t get everybody.

After taking a stroll into the club’s backroom for a quickie, Gaylord returns to the main room of the club to check out another performance, this one featuring hunky Ray Medina. Medina’s act includes popping a cork or something out of his foreskin, pulling a chain attached to his leather-cuffed balls, and, in a moment that is either hilarious or sexually traumatizing, periodically shitting out silver balls, complete with farting sound effects. (How I wish I was present to witness the audience reaction to that scene when this movie was screened for a benefit for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.)

Performance artist Tim Medina.

If you’re wondering if the movie—and it is a movie, shot on film, not video—might try to top this moment, let me assure you/burst your bubble: it doesn’t. After watching Medina’s act, which ends with him fucking the rhythm-challenged dancer seen previously, Gaylord invites the Marquis back to his place for a threesome with Boris. But once the guys nut, Gaylord chains up the Marquis and prepares to drive a stake through his heart. To spare his undead life, the Marquis tells Gaylord of a way to break the vampire’s curse: take the virginity of a man he truly loves, in this case Randy (Randal Butler, another one-and-done performer), a waiter barely glimpsed earlier at the Marquis’ club. Once Randy is deflowered (sure), the Marquis performs a ritual (i.e., an orgy with some mild BDSM). Gaylord plays along until he gets off, after which he rids himself—and the world—of the Marquis for good.

Leaving Randy and Gaylord free to frolic in
the pool happily ever after.

Gayracula knows what it is and doesn’t try to put on airs. It’s camp with extra cheese and it’s better for it. I found it more amusing than arousing, however. Though the guys in it are hotter than those in Sons of Satan (or, for my taste, Vampire Boys), the sex in it is almost uniformly mechanical (for all his physical charms, Tim Kramer fucks like an animatronic sex doll). Still, as gay vampires go, I’d rather spend my Halloween watching the robotic ramming of Gayracula or the ’70s shagging of Sons of Satan than sleeping through the turgid talk of Vampires: Brighter in Darkness or enduring the vapid Vampire Boys.

Can I interest you in an ... Egyptian feast?

If You Like ’Em Uncut: Should you seek out either Sons of Satan or Gayracula, beware that there are heavily edited versions out there. The print of Sons acquired by Alpha Blue Archives was apparently delivered to the company as a bunch of random film strips in a shoe box, requiring Alpha Blue to re-assemble as best they could, and their best isn’t very good. Pieces of the film are missing, and the last third is rendered almost incoherent, jumping between Jonathan being held captive in a basement room, being fucked by Natas, then back in the basement, then being approached by Natas. Parts of the footage aren’t even right-side up (though this kind of works). You’ll find a more complete cut from Something Weird Video or, ahem, other sources. Gayracula was heavily edited when initially released on video, leaving out some key plot points, as well as that climactic ritual orgy. I wasted $3.19 renting the edited version, but I was able to find an uncut version elsewhere.