QUEER FEAR! AN LGBTQ+ HORROR/THRILLER MOVIE DISCUSSION GROUP

This is a movie discussion group. While participants usually arrive having watched the film beforehand, you are invited to come and listen if you haven't seen the film yet.

“In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the crew find themselves fighting for their lives.”

X (2022)
Written and directed by Ti West
With Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow and Kid Cudi
1 hour 45 mins.
Violence rating: very high
Available to stream and rent in a variety of places; check https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/x-2022 for details.

There’s really only two ways to respond to Ti West’s work: either reject the retro vibes as nothing more than camping up tired horror cliches, or taking him at his word that the stories he’s telling require an interplay with nostalgia to comment on the present moment. West goes hard on the referentiality here, generously borrowing tropes from the 70s “hillbilly horror” subgenre (Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Hills Have Eyes, etc.), and juxtaposes them with the self-referentiality of the “making a movie within the movie” movie—in this case, 70s low-budget porn that's modeling itself after more conventional narrative structures (Deep Throat, the Devil in Miss Jones, etc.)—all of which puts even more pressure on the film to justify its wistful nostalgia for sleaze. The horror, though, comes from the juxtaposition of icky representations of sexual liberation with grotesque images of sexual repression, leading to some truly repellent (and suprisingly emotional) activity and imagery. Lust and rage are synthesized into something monstrous, which might reflect the extreme cultural polarity of the present moment. The film is certainly not for everyone, and despite the fact that it’s clearly designed to be the first in a trilogy (“Pearl,” also 2022, and “MaXXXine,” later this year), it might be about showing and celebrating Mia Goth's range as an actress more than anything else.

This is a movie discussion group. While participants usually arrive having watched the film beforehand, you are invited to come and listen if you haven't seen the film yet.

“As the human species adapts to environmental devastation, bodies undergo transformations and mutations. Accompanied by his life partner Caprice, artist Saul Tenser showcases, in grotesque and mesmerizing performances, new organs that have appeared inside his body. Meanwhile, a mysterious group tries to use Saul's notoriety to expose and advocate for this next phase of human development. The oppressive National Organ Registry, though, has outlawed evolution, requiring the removal and archiving of these mutations."

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (2022)
Written and directed by David Cronenberg
With VIGGO MORTENSEN, LÉA SEYDOUX, SCOTT SPEEDMAN, DON MCKELLAR and KRISTEN STEWART
1 hour 47 mins.
Violence rating: high
Available to stream on Hulu, and to rent in a variety of places. Check https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/crimes-of-the-future-2022 for details.

One of QUEER FEAR's honorary queer straight directors (the others being Ken Russell and Hitchcock), Cronenberg interrogates sexuality through his beautifully grotesque view of the human body, and its unstable and fractious relationship with gender and identity--key concepts with which queerness is, by definition, always grappling with. But as this is his 21st first film, and his first original script in 23 years, it offers little to no guidance on how it is to be processed by the unsuspecting viewer. (Whether this is meant to be a remake, reboot, sequel or prequel of his equally queer 1970 film "Crimes of the Future" is anyone's guess.) All his obsessions are present, although metaphors like the obsessed doctor-researcher as artist, or selfhood located inside the body, are made literal, taking some of the fun out of the decoding process. The typically convoluted narrative is so attenuated and elliptical that storytelling seems the least of its concerns. One thing is certain--like many of his previous films, his image of the future, which initially seems outrageous and preposterous, turns out to be alarmingly prescient. Are we queer enough to handle the oncoming world he's putting forth?

OF INTEREST:

"In a dystopic world where a plague is killing off pubescent human females, an esoteric researcher seeks his missing mentor while trying to retain his morality in the sex-obsessed society he lives in."

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (1970)
Written and directed by David Cronenberg
With Ronald Mlodzik, Jon Lidolt and Tania Zolthy
1 hour 3 mins.
Trigger warning: implied pedophelia
Violence rating: low
Available to stream on The Criterion Channel, Mubi, Mubi-Amazon, and https://youtu.be/Y8PhjIBblPA?si=-SnWYasHwJzi9RG5.