Open Cam

I truly believe this movie brings gay cinema to a new level. It moves the genre away from the same "coming out/coming of age" and HIV/AIDS story lines that have defined gay movies since their inception and takes viewers into the realm of gay men living their lives just like everyone else (to the extent they can when a serial killer is one the loose!).

We all know coming out is hard and it plays a central role in gay men's lives. And HIV/AIDS has defined a generation of gay men since the 80s. But coming out is a brief moment in the lives of gay men and HIV/AIDS has become everyone's problem not just gay men.

What about falling in love, getting married (that's legal in MA now, ya know!), having children, getting chased around by obsessive serial killers, and growing old? This movie boldly does just that. It makes no excuses about the choices people have made in their lives. It accepts them and moves on with the story at hand - killing people!

This is the worst gay film I have ever seen. And, as a member of the Stonewall generation, babes, I've seen 'em all. The most disturbing thing about this movie is its soft-core eye candy. The experience of watching this film mimicked one of those horrid chat room conversations with a hottie who turns out to be a vacant narcissist in an Adonis suit. If the acting hadn't been so abominable, this parallel universe to the real gay universe on line might have been amusing. If it had been a farce, it might have been amusing. If it had been populated with bad drag queens, it might have been amusing. It was none of these things. It was just a bad movie, badly written, badly acted, and badly designed. Amir Darvish was the only minor exception to the general lack of redeeming features of this opus. What a waste of pixels.

'OPEN CAM' could have been so much more than it is. Writer/director Robert Gaston takes a few risks with this latest entry into the gay cinema foray, adding a story that avoids the usual topics that stereotype gay men. He assembled a cast of young actors whose best attributes are physical appearance rather than technical training, and then covers the dialogue with incessant background music that makes the viewer strain for the conversations - and much worse, he hides behind the mores of restraint that prevents US films from achieving what European films do well.

The story revolves around a recently jilted young artist Manny (Andreau Thomas) who when not in front of the easel spends his time on the Internet dating on a sleazy chat line, keeping his physical encounters anonymous to avoid personal disappointment. On the Internet chat line (using 'open camera') some murders are captured and a detective Hamilton (Amir Darvish) takes over the investigation - a detective who also happens to be gay and acts out with just about anyone it seems. When Manny's friends (or ex tricks) begin to fall victim to the serial killer on the Internet, Hamilton moves in with Manny to protect him, and it is in this living situation (a very physical arrangement) that the serial killer is finally caught on camera and in person. How the episodes of loss of friends and re-establishment of trust and love replacing just lust brings the story to a bit of a disappointing end.

The cast (Andreau Thomas, Amir Darvish, Ben Green, J. Matthew Miller, Christian Jones, et al) are a good-looking group of men. There are a lot of sensual scenes, but unlike European films the men who are supposed to be nude for a reason are shot to protect them from full frontal exposure - and that seems so very ludicrous and insulting given the theme of the film. American cinema has a long way to go: even movies of heightened physicality in straight films have little problem showing every detail of the female body yet either blur or out-of-focus shoot or drape male bodies as though there were some secret that MUST remain off camera. Time to grow up - and where better to start than in films such as OPEN CAM. 'Tis pity....Grady Harp

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!!

For me this film has three parts. The first half and the end, which make no sense at all. And the second half minus the end which is pretty decent.

The first half and the end are the definition of a bad B movie. Bad acting, a script unconnected and with no heart, a plot that jumps everywhere and a feel low budget in the film. Apart from that we get the stereotype of gay men being addicted to sex, all spiced up with lots of skin, some of it quite good looking.

The second half of the film minus the end though seems to fit together much better. Suddenly the main character seems more human and overall we can relate a little bit to what's going on and feel for him and the cop who is trying to help him. In this part the script and the plot seem much smoother at telling a story though we still get the occasional character that suddenly shows up for a scene and is treated as an important piece of the plot, only to see him disappear again. But the plot between the two main character does hold your attention during this part.

It's very refreshing to see a film with the main characters being gay which is not about coming out, much more so when it's a thriller, one of my favorite genres. For that attempt I give this film an extra star. Unfortunately I found that this film was lacking of the glue that makes a scenes merge into a movie. Anyways if you're just looking to chill out for a while you can watch the movie and still enjoy it. I kind of like B movies.