This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat. The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
February, 1983. Detectives are called to a residential address in the London suburbs following reports that the drains have been clogged by human remains. One of the property’s residents, Jordan March is called in for questioning. Slowly he accounts for how he lured young gay man, mostly homeless and jobless, got them into his apartment and eventually kill them. He would bury them under his floorboards and take them out and sometimes sleep with them or just sit with them till the bodies get too smelly.
The film is shot in a very documentary like style without any high production thrills. In fact the photography is often grainy and dim, but it does capture the sleazier late eighties London night life with a raw beauty. The film looks much older than it really is and I am told that this was done on purpose (I wonder why since personally for me , that doesn't work). One thing that's missing here is any overt reflection on the homophobia prevalent at the time. We encounter it only through its secondary effects: the number of young queer men drifting through life with no-one to look out for them. The interrogating officer goes from plain mad to somber to arrogant, which I presume was the situation of the detectives those days in dealing with a criminal like this man. Also we do see trippy flashbacks to Jordan’s childhood where he witnessed the death of his grandfather, presumably triggering his various morbid fascinations that we never really get any background on. Something seemed to be missing in the film, since it never really went deep into the why's and psyche of the characters. Interestingly, even the victims were not shown as likable characters for some off reason.
I would recommend to give this one a miss and watch Des instead. Brilliant acting with a detailed account of exactly what happened, this experimental film instead leaves a lot to be desired. (3/10)
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