Coming on the heel’s of Billy Eichner’s major studio theatrical release gay rom-com BROS (Review Here) now we have Universal stepping it up a notch with more much needed gay male representation in the movies with M. Night Shyamalan’s new horror film Knock at the Cabin.
Based on Paul G. Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World, the movie follows gay couple Andrew (Jonathan Groff) and Eric (Ben Aldridge), who take their seven-year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) on holiday to a remote cabin but the vacation takes a sudden turn for the worse when “four armed strangers” led by Leonard (Dave Bautista) take the family hostage and demand that they “make an unthinkable choice.”
Rupert Grint, Abby Quinn and Nikki Amuka-Bird are also set to join Bautista, Groff and Aldridge as Redmond, Sabrina, and Adriane, respectively.
Knock at the Cabin is coming to theaters Feb. 3, 2023.
It’s being reported that Iran executed ten people on Wednesday, including a gay man, in Karaj, the capital of the Alborz Province, just outside of Tehran.
According to Human Rights Activists News Agency, the identity of Iman Safari Rad and Mehdi Khalgoldi, have been verified by HRANA. Iman Safavi Rad had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “sodomy by rape”
British LGBT activist Peter Tatchell stated: “Yet again another man has been executed on a charge of sodomy, which he may or may not have committed, with or without consent. What is certain is that this man almost certainly did not receive a fair trial under the notoriously biased Iranian judicial system. Defendants are routinely denied access to lawyers and defence witnesses. They can be sentenced after brief ‘trials’ lasting as little as 20 minutes, with lawyers provided only shortly before the court hearing starts. People can be found guilty without corroborating evidence. This execution is consistent with Iran’s state policy of the death penalty for same-sex relations.”
According to a 2008 British WikiLeaks diplomatic cable, Iran’s regime has executed between 4,000-6,000 gays and lesbians since the nation’s Islamic revolution in 1979.
In the new Blumhouse-produced horror film They/Them, a mysterious masked killer stalks a gay conversion-therapy camp.
The film’s cast also includes Claws/True Bloods: Carrie Preston, Anna Chlumsky, Quei Tann, Anna Lore, Darwin Del Fabro, Theo Germaine and Kevin Bacon, who portrays Owen Whistler, the owner of the conversion-therapy campand brings his career full circle from Camp Crystal Lake.
They/Them premieres Aug. 5 on Peacock. Watch the film’s teaser trailer below.
Filmmaker Scott Calonico’s documentary short, When AIDS Was Funny released audio a few years ago that showed the Reagan administrations chilling and despicable reaction to the mounting problem and deaths of gay men during the AIDS crisis.
Using never-before-heard audio tapes from three separate press conferences, in 1982, 1983, and 1984, When AIDS Was Funny illustrates how the reporter Lester Kinsolving, a conservative (and not at all gay-friendly) fixture in the White House press corps, was consistently scoffed at when he posed urgent questions about the AIDS epidemic. With snickering, homophobic jokes and a disturbing air of uninterest, Speakes dismisses Kinsolving’s concerns about the escalating problem. “Lester was known as somewhat of a kook and a crank (many people still feel the same way),” says Calonico. “But, at the time, he was just a journalist asking questions only to be mocked by both the White House and his peers.”
This disturbing audio puts a face on the homophobic Reagan administration and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that because AIDS affected mostly gay men that the Reagan and his cronies could not be bothered and did not care that American citizens were dying just because they were gay.
It would not be until 1986 that Reagan requested $85 million for AIDS research, but Congress horrified at the low number bumped that figure up to $244 million only to have Reagan try to unsuccessfully rescind $50 million of that figure, but he ultimately agreed to Congress’ figure. In 1987, Reagan proposed cutting the research budget for AIDS down to $214 million. Congress again responded dramatically against Reagen by raising it to about $400 million.
As Barbra Streisand put it in an address to an AIDS Project Los Angeles fundraiser in 1992: “I will never forgive my fellow actor Ronald Reagan for his genocidal denial of the illness’ existence, for his refusal to even utter the word AIDS for seven years, and for blocking adequate funding for research and education which could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”
By the end of 1989 when Reagan left office over 115,786 Americans, mostly gay men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States—more then 70,000 of them had died.
Stephen King is making a personal appeal to Iowans: Vote Steve King out so people won’t confuse the two of them anymore. The best-selling author tweeted Sunday morning about his exhaustion at being confused with Iowa’s controversial 4th District Republican congressman.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll of the district shows that on a generic ballot a Republican candidate leads a Democratic candidate by 4 percentage points. With the exception of a 2012 race against former Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack, King has won each of his other races by at least 22 percentage points.
My name is Victoria Winters. My journey is beginning, a journey that I hope will open the doors of life to me, and link my past with my future, a journey that will bring me to a strange and dark place, to the edge of the sea high above widow’s hill, a house called Collinwood, a world I’ve never known, with people I’ve never met, people who tonight are still only shadows in my mind, but who will soon fill the days and nights of my tomorrows.
Long before American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries. Dark Shadows, a gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971 and has become one of the Top 25 Cult TV series in history.
The series which had a rocky start and was facing cancellation but became hugely popular when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) appeared ten months into its run. Dark Shadows also featured ghosts, werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe. A small company of actors each played many roles; as actors came and went, some characters were played by more than one actor.
Dark Shadows was distinguished by its vividly melodramatic performances, atmospheric interiors, memorable storylines, numerous dramatic plot twists, unusually adventurous music score, and broad and epic cosmos of characters and heroic adventures.
Although the original series ran for only five years, its scheduling as a daily daytime drama allowed it to amass more single episodes during its run (1,225) than most other science-fiction/fantasy genre series including Doctor Who and the entire Star Trek television franchise.
Dark Shadows also has the distinction of being one of the few classic television soap operas to have all of its episodes survive intact except one, although a handful of early episodes are available only in 16 mm kinescope format. Dark Shadows was filmed LIVE daily.
For a blast to the past all episodes are currently available on Hulu and many on YouTube.
TRIVIA:
Veteran actress Joan Bennett and Louis Edmonds are the only actors to appear in both the first and the last episodes of the series.
For more than a year and a half the characters of “Dark Shadows” used almost every possible phrase to refer to Barnabas Collins (“He’s not alive!” “He’s one of the undead.” “He walks at night but he ain’t alive.”) It wasn’t until the 410th episode that the word “vampire” was actually used on the show.
Bert Convy was considered for the role of Barnabas Collins. (Oy!)
Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith, was offered the role of Victoria Winters when Alexandra Isles exited the show, but she declined. Kate Jackson would later join the cast in a separate role.
The series was ABC’s first soap opera to appear in color, beginning with the August 14, 1967 telecast. Many shows which transitioned to color endured radical set overhauls, but following some screen testing the crew discovered they didn’t have to change a thing.
At least 11 Dark Shadows Actors were gay. Including: Jonathan Frid, Humbert Allen Astredo, Don Briscoe, Christopher Bernau, Joel Crothers, Louis Edmonds, Anthony George, Gene Lindsey, Keith Prentice, Craig Slocum, and Brian Sturdivant
Tobe Hooper, the iconic horror director best known for helming “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and “Poltergeist,” died Saturday in Sherman Oaks, Calif. at the age of 74. The cause of his death at this time is not known.
The 1974 “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” became one of the most influential horror films of all time for its realistic approach and deranged vision. Shot for less than $300,000, it tells the story of a group of unfortunate friends who encounter a group of cannibals on their way to visit an old homestead.
Leatherface and his hungry kin terrified a generation of picture-goers while critics admired Hooper for leaving most of the horror to the imagination.
Speaking in 2014 to Interview Magazine, Hooper explained why the Leatherface character wore a mask.
“When you can’t see his face, your imagination goes wild,” he replied. “When you can’t see, you fill in the blanks with something that’s far more interesting than what can actually be shown.”
Though it was banned in several countries for violence, it was one of the most profitable independent films of the 1970s
The 1982 “Poltergeist,” written and produced by Steven Spielberg, also became a classic of the genre. The story of a family coping with a house haunted by unruly ghosts starred JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson. The film was a box office success for MGM and became the eighth-highest grossing film of the year.
After “Poltergeist,” Hooper directed two movies for Cannon Films, “Lifeforce” and “Invaders from Mars,” a remake of the 1953 alien movie.
His 1979 CBS miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s bestselling novel “Salem’s Lot” is considered by many fans to be a high-water mark in televisual horror. Combining the intrigue of a nighttime soap opera with the gothic atmosphere of a classic horror film, the two-part program was eventually reedited and released theatrically throughout Europe.
VICE News today presents Young And Gay: Jamaica’s Gully Queens. The critically acclaimed series returns to chronicle the underground LGBT community of Jamaica, who have found freedom and acceptance in the sewers of Kingston.
In Jamaica, attacks, murder, and rape are common occurrences against LGBT people, with little to no retribution or justice brought against those responsible. After being forced from shacks, derelict buildings, and their own families, many homeless LGBTI Jamaicans have found refuge in the storm drainage systems of Kingston — known locally as the gully. For trans girls and gay men unable or unwilling to hide their sexuality, the sense of community and relative safety the gully provides acts as a welcome sanctuary, and for many, a hope of change to come.
VICE News travelled to the New Kingston area to see what life for LGBT teens is like in Jamaica — where just being who you are can mean living a life underground and p[ossible death.
Titled by it’s makers “Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D ” 2020 Entertainment which is reanimating the classic for the 4th time and describes their film as a “new take on Romero’s 1968 original in which a group of survivors fighting to stay alive when a mysterious plague unleashes the undead on New York City. Barricaded in an abandoned apartment building, the characters from the original film face new terror and question each other’s compassion and sense of humanity as they fight to stay alive against the army of the living dead. (Yawn)
Directed by Zebediah De Soto and produced by Expendables 2 director Simon West, and will also star Tom Sizemore, Bill Mosley, Danielle Harris. and Tony Todd who starred in the 2009 remake which was dead on arrival at the Box Office.
When there’s no more originality in Hollywood, the sequels and re-imaginings will walk the earth.
