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Stop! That! Train!

By Golu
Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...
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Remington and the Curse of the Zombadings (Filipino)

By Golu
This horror comedy is one of the most absurd, weird film; but strangely, also very very entertaining and a fun film to watch. You may not find political correctness here and it also probably ridicules and makes fun of almost every gay stereotype, which I can see many people taking offense to, but honestly, I had fun watching this goofy Filipino quasi camp-isa gay film.

As a kid Remington runs around his village pointing "Homo! Homo!" to all gay folks in his town making fun of them. One day at a cemetery, he picks a wrong person to mess with. He is a grieving man, who curses Remington that he will be gay when he grows up. Circa 15 years later, the town is seeing murders of gay people. Remington is all grown up and meets a girl whom he starts fancying, but he dreams every day of a monster trying to hill him and over multiple nights, his machismo is being stripped turning him into a feminine gay. On the first night, his goatee and body hair vanish; after the second, he’s prone to speaking in effeminate slang; and so on. Struggling to understand the changes, his mother at the same time is trying to find the killer. Apparently the killer has been using a ray gun that identifies gays and zaps them with electric shock. Remington traces the guy who cursed him and the only cure is if a straight man would willing swap places with him. Eventually the killer's identity is revealed and Remington's prior homophobic father agrees to swap places with him because he has his whole life ahead of him.

Although touted as horror-comedy, the film clearly relies a lot more on comedy aspects. I must warn that this is a campy comedy, and as I mentioned before, a lot of dialogues and situations could be offensive to people with serious sensibilities, but personally I thoroughly enjoyed the camp and goofy and absurd plot of the film and quite enjoyed it without taking anything seriously. I thought rather than mocking gays in general, the film maker was taking a passive aggressive approach to mocking so called straight men who pick on gays. One thing to note is that such films usually end up replying on adult humor, but this film is total PG which relies mostly on acting and dialogues to provide the humor. The whole film replies of the lead actor playing Remington's shoulders and he does a swell job of it, particularly in the scenes where he begins to transform and reels in disgust at his feminine mannerisms and his newly adopted cute terminology. Other remaining actors have one note acting but they are all extremely good in providing humor quotient, especially the side kick constable in the police station. The zombie effects used are simple, low budget, but hey the idea of the film is to entertain, which it surely does. Thanks to the lead actor and his amazing acting, this whimsical zombie, campy comedy becomes a worth watch and a good use of your time. For a change, try to not take everything so seriously and enjoy a film. It might just surprise you. (6/10)
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