Monday, May 26, 2014
Airless
Today's film is a gay slasher film with a side of horror.
It is a sort of sealed box. And it is a very hard box to get out of even if I sort of want to.
A gay beach with a routine of cruising, having sex and sometimes going home with one another. Typical, only French.
The same might be said of the film itself. It is basically a slasher film. A guy with a knife who likes to use it when he is not drowning people.
All this seen by a guy who shows up to meet other gay men. An outsider.
It doesn't take too long before he is a regular and not long after that realizes that there is a killer loose among the habitués of the beach.
The newcomer is attracted to the murderer before he realizes what is going on. But he lingers just a little too long around this guy to make it credible.
But that is the way with this type of film. There are a lot of loose ends and odd circumstances.
The point is more to scare the viewer than to provide a deep substantial drama.
To this extent it worked. I tried to extract myself, to see through it, to nod at the hooks that were laid out for me and I did succumb to it.
I am upset and freaked out at the whole thing. The director has achieved his result.
I could say that I didn't like it but I didn't turn it off. And that is the whole thing. At some point the hero is having sex with the killer and he can't help himself from doing so. So, we are complicit.
In a way it is a lot of nonsense, blarney. But it has its effect. This is the art of the genré. I have never seen a good horror film that I could really walk away from.
I am not sure that I would watch this again.
I suspect that knowing how things turn out doesn't matter. It will still be scary as fuck.
A 4 out of Netflix5.
