Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Virgin Viewings: Not Undead In Bed


L.A. Zombie (2010)
"written" and directed by Bruce LaBruce

Times are HARD on the Boulevard.


Well fuck my still beating heart... I don't often find myself reviewing art/gore/porn films. Nor films wherein a still beating heart is liable to get fucked. Never doubt the curiosities of current filmmakers. Mildly-notorious queer moviemaker Bruce LaBruce is back with his unique cultural commentary by way of hardcore sex and splatter. My commentary: there's no way Francois Sagat would be homeless in LA for long. He'd quickly be cast in a film much like this one.

"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk..."
Sunset Boulevard with their dicks out.


Adult gay film thespian Francois Sagat stars as a schizophrenic homeless man with washboard abs and a tattooed skullcap left adrift in the City of Angels. Believing himself to be a zombie (alien? demon?), Sagat feels free to consume amidst all the vast concrete consumerism. Crash victims, corrupt businessmen and the shanty town homeless... No one is spared LaBruce's sideline commentary or Sagat's undead violation. In the spirit of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, replacing its Monroeville Mall setting with a soiled mattress in the LA River. Social satire cum actual cum shots. Deep penetration with illusions of going deeper. Truth is it might just be about a really hot homeless man having sex with corpses. Or a film about Francois Sagat walking around LA with a boner and grumpy face.


For LaBruce it seems a "pointed" film and thus so is Sagat's demon/zombie member that spews blood upon climax. It's more playful fetish material for those who thought the Nekromantik films were lacking in explicit gay sex (I know I did) and some nods toward topical issues. It certainly begs the topic of what makes for sufficient erotic material. Plenty of members, some of them dismembered.


This is all for arousal but equally a critique of that. Protruding fangs and genitals airbrushed in aqua makeup, soaked in plasma. You haven't seen this many open wounds being pounded since David Cronenberg's Crash. Beautiful men with fresh gaping holes, although some of them bloody and caused by bullets, in your garden variety XXX porn scenarios. But an admirable variation has its hot and sweaty scenes take place outside the auto shop and inside the cardboard box of a dead homeless man. Socially conscious gay porn.


Erection, revulsion, pretension, repeat. The obvious visual appeal is spread evenly with all things repellent. Yet perhaps that's the point of all this for Bruce LaBruce -- other than having a more legit reason for Francois Sagat hanging out naked on set. If you're busy flogging, his films would like to flog back.