Open Cam

It's a whodunit wherein a serial killer stabs his victims on live web cam. The main character, Manny, is a youthful, budding artist who in his spare time watches a sleazy chat website. On one visit to the website he witnesses one of his friends being stabbed. A big part of the story is the relationship that develops between Manny and the Black cop who investigates. This subplot provides story continuity, as the investigation proceeds.

Given that this film is very low budget, the weak production design and uneven sound quality are not surprising. The director does create some suspense by means of the atmospheric lighting. Acting is below average; but again, this is what one would expect for an independently produced low budget film.

A legitimate complaint is the existence of so many plot holes in the script. How did the killer get easy access to the victim's living area without being observed? Why were neighbors not questioned? What about forensics? Is it realistic to think that after the first murder, the website would not be shut down?

"Open Cam" is marginally worth watching, mostly as a technical study of low budget film-making, to see what works and what doesn't work. Yet, even with all the plot holes, I still found the whodunit puzzle engaging enough to hold my attention.

I just saw this movie at the Toronto gay film festival, and let me tell you, if you can't appreciate this satisfying, sexy thriller, you must be secretly straight. That's because this movie has loads of male nudity with the camera lovingly lingering on the beautiful bubble-butts (instead of the quick little cuts we usually get in movies or on TV), shots of guys masturbating, and the oh-so-rare joy of seeing erect penises on the big screen. We even get to see the erection of the hunky hero, an actor named Andreau Thomas, who I consider to be one of the hottest guys on the planet.

All that, plus great characters, writing, directing, acting, and music. This is the type of sexy movie I would make if I was a filmmaker, but I don't know if I would be as skilled in pulling off the amazingly suspenseful climax.

Thankfully, director Robert Gaston is very talented in this regard, and he's given us a movie that successfully puts the c@#k into Hitchcock.

I recently saw this film (which I thought ROCKED!!!) and found myself wondering why is it only relegated to film festivals? It would surely do well at a run in your local indie film house. I enjoyed everything about it...it was smart, fast, challenging, well paced and sexy. I thought all of the actors did amazing, especially given for most of them (if not all of them) it was their first film. An amazing feat. I would have liked to see the character's friends more as they added an interesting dynamic to the story line. They each had an interesting personality that could have been more evolved. If we had seen more of them it would have given more of a "Sex and the City" feel to it, which we gays love but don't see enough of in films about OUR lives. The soundtrack was amazing and I really do think you need to give it residency at theaters in select cities. I want my friends to see it, but they are definitely not going across the country to see it at it's next showing. Good job cast!

I rushed to the cinema yesterday to make this movie (which was shown as part of the "Verzaubert" Gay Film Festival that takes place each year in the major German cities and which normally shows really good stuff. Anyway, I was looking forward to it (though I am female and straight, I find a lot of gay movies well made and interesting; something else from the usual Hollywood crap!!). However, even though I am definitely not an expert on acting, it was quite blatant even to me that this was extremely poor acting, by almost every character involved!! The lines sounded so studied, there was nothing spontaneous or witty about them. I did find the plot somewhat interesting, but it could have been made into a much better movie, in my opinion. I also did not find the actors particularly dishy, which surprised me as they normally have quite the lookers in gay movies !! I also did not see the necessity for the drawn-out and lengthy sex scenes -- what purpose did they serve?? I mean, this was not meant to be a porn movie, as far as I understood.... Anyway, I considered it a waste of time and money!!

Now we know that being a murder suspect can be yet another opportunity to land a piece of ass. If only "Skinemax" could offer us gay boys something like this.

The difference between Open Cam and a porno is that pornos usually have less blood, better acting, and a few more sex scenes. It offers moments of unintentional-but- hysterical camp, and Amir Darvish was often impressive as Detective Hamilton. But the rest of the cast, including it's lead character, Andreau Thomas, come across as community-theatre-amateurs. In the case of Thomas, a community-theatre-amateur who is oh-so-eager to bare his sculpted, sexy bubble-butt for half of the time he's on the screen. silly, stupid, smut.