"Bite Sized Halloween": 3-Minute Horror Stories with Cute Guys

It's 48 days to Halloween, but the ghosts and pumpkins are already decorating houses, tv commercials involve cobwebs, and the movie/tv recommendations on streaming services are all scary.  At least I haven't seen any Santa Claus hats yet.  

The Hulu series Bite Sized Halloween consists of two seasons of 3-minute horror stories.  They are a mixed lot. 

 Some give away the plot instantly:

An obnoxious airplane passenger (David Banks) refuses to give up his seat, so he must be forcibly ejected...

Some have (very short) Twilight Zone-style twists:

An office worker  (Casey Feigh) refuses to hold the elevator door open for an old lady, who....

Some feel lik the beginning of a regular-sized movie, and end at a frustrating point:

A man (Aaron Thomas Ward) searching for his brother investigates an old house, where there is a doorway to a parallel world....

LGBTQ representation is also a mixed bag.

8 of the 28 first-season episodes specifically involve heterosexual romance, and 6 involve parents and children.  None mention same-sex couples or LGBTQ people.

The second season is a bit more inclusive.  4 of 18 episodes involve heterosexual romance, 2 involve parents and children, and 3 mention LGBTQ persons:

Nonbinary: "The New Nanny."  An actual witch, complete with black hat, becomes the nanny to a boy who likes to wear dresses (not really nonbinary, just into drag).  He wears his pretty princess dress to the park (to play soccer?  Buy him a skirt!).  A bully starts mocking him, whereupon the witch-nanny..... 

Bisexual: "Unicorn": A bisexual man wants to become a unicorn (a regular sex partner) for a male-female couple.  He appears at their apartment with flowers, which strikes me as odd for a sex partner, and just makes out with the woman.  Turns out that they have nefarious intent.  (A rare 13-minute long episode).

Lesbian: "Freebirth": A lesbian couple go into the woods for a "natural" childbirth.  Things go wrong, but fortunately a heterosexual couple...

Three episodes out of 46 is about 6%.  Better than 0%, but one wonders what happened to the gay men.  At least the guys are cute. 

Searching for Gay Stories in "School Tales", a Horror Anthology Set in a Thai High School

 

School Tales, on Netflix, is a Thai horror anthology series based on graphic novels.  Each episode is directed by a different big name in Thai cinema.  Thailand is relatively gay-friendly, and BL stories (about two boys in love) are common, so no doubt there will be gay characters.  I'll try the first episode, "7:00 am."

IMDB doesn't say which actor starred in which episode, and the closing credits are in Thai only, so the illustrations are anyone in the cast with beefcake photos.

Scene1: 7:55 am:  A teenage boy runs through the school hall, being stopped and ridiculed by bullies.  He stops and approaches a classmate: "I couldn't find the book you mentioned." A magical grimoire?   

He runs into a classroom, looks at a textbook title on the chalkboard (Society and Government), and franticlaly sorts through his backpack.  But it's too late: the sky darkens, and time stops.  A female ghost flies of the wall and grabs him!

Scene 2: A male student tells us that the Q App is a place where "you can be who you want to be," with "friends who understand."  Sounds like a gay kid looking for a safe space.  He goes into the classroom, photographs the book title on the chalkboard, and uploads it to the app.

Plot dump: Every morning at 7:00 am, the title of a book appears on the chalkboard.  Q comes in early, photographs it, and sends it to the students.  They have to present the book by 8:00 am.  If they don't, one of them will get grabbed, and the memory of him erased.

Scene 3: Class begins.  The teacher, calling role, comes to Wittaya, the boy who was grabbed earlier.  "That's odd -- there is no such student in my class."  So do his parents wonder why they have a bedroom furnished for a teenager and lots of pictures of a boy they don't know?  

After class, the students are sitting around, trying to figure out what to do about their curse.  Sure, Q is performing a valuable service, but what if he oversleeps or is sick one day?  So they know about the disappearances, just not who the students were?   Would anyone mind taking over his duty?  They all refuse, and Q gets upset and storms out.  

A student follows him out.  A boyfriend, maybe?  No such luck: he asks Q to photograph the book title earlier, because he has to leave at 6:30 and can't look for it at 7:00. 

Uh-oh, a girl comes to the rescue.  Kind, gentle, nurturing girls and boorish, bullying boys.  I'm in a 1980s nerd comedy!

Scene 4:  It's 7:00 am, but instead of texting the title, Q calmly sits down to breakfast in the school courtyard.  The boys start frantically cyber-bullying: "Where are you?  Why are you so late? I have to leave for school soon!"  The kind, nurturing Girl texts: "I'm worried about you."  Ugh!  I'm done.  

Maybe the next episode: "A female student puts a curse on her rival."  No.  "The most popular girl in school..."  No.  "A female student is bullied..." No.  "A bullied boy makes a deal with a ghost."  Ok.

Scene 1: An abandoned building behind the school.  A boy named Korn is being beat up by three bullies, two boys and a girl.  They order him to let them copy his answers on the upcoming exam.  He refuses; they pummel him.  That's it?  When I was in school, kids copied my answers all the time, without asking permission first.  

The narrator tells us that you have to go to the abandoned infirmary and sit in a wheelchair.  Then the ghost of the school nurse will appear and grant you a wish.

Scene 2:  Outside the school, students are discussing the upcoming exams, playing video games, texting each other, and being bullied.  Korn, still bandaged from his last pummeling, gets pummeled again, plus his homework tossed into a puddle.  The main bullies, Jack and Mor, laugh at him and call him a sissy.  

Scene 3: Lunchtime.  Korn tries to sit with two boys, but they block him out and laugh at him.  Then some younger kids mock him.   Why is Korn universally despised? 

He sits by himself. More bullies drop by to insult him.   I can't take any more of this.  I'm out.

"A pair of mischievous students look into the mystery of the headless teacher."  School Tales, this is your last chance!

Scene 1:  A panicking boy runs across the deserted campus, into the school, and into the library, screaming "Help!"  He tries to hide, but something grabs him!

Psych!  It was just some bullies, who tie him up so they can copy his homework.  

At lunch, a boy is terrified to see two legs coming at him, but it turns out to be a grotesque teacher with a discipline cane, who terrorizes the lunch ladies about money they owe her.  She licks her entire hand like a dog to get it wet enough to turn the pages of her ledger.  Nauseating! 

Grotesque Teacher rushes out into the school yard, tears down pictures that criticize her, and gets a faceful of powder.  She captures the two boys responsible, Ping and Tim, and canes them.

I'm out of space, and this is too disgusting to watch, so I'll just fast-forward to see if the boys have a BL or gay-subtext romance.

In the shower, romantic music plays as Ping and Tim lean forward for a kiss.  But before they get there,  Tim pushes Ping away, yells "Why did you try to kiss me?", and "If you don't help me, I'll tell everyone!"  So not only are they not a gay couple, Tim is actively homophobic.  No more physical contact as they help Grotesque Teacher find her missing head.

My grade: F.

The New "Are You Afraid of the Dark": Are They Afraid of Beefcake?

Everything old is new again on Nickelodeon.  The venerable children's network is brushing off several long-lost shows and giving them a 2019 treatment:
All That
That's So Raven
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

And most recently, Are You Afraid of the Dark, the anthology series that aired from 1990 to 1996: in each episode, the Midnight Society gathers to hear a ghost or paranormal story recited by a member, and acted out for us. 

I didn't care for it.  We learn almost nothing about the lives of the Midnight Society members.  They gather, exchange a few words, tell the story, and "the end."  It would have been much more effective if the stories had some connection to their real-life problems. 

But I had to admit, the actors were photogenic:  intellectual group leader Ross Hull, bad boy Jason Alisharan, nerd Nathaniel Moreau, and my personal favorite, the massively gorgeous Daniel DeSanto.

The reboot, a three part miniseries premiering in October 2019, breaks the cardinal rule of the old series:  the paranormal events are just stories, not real. 

Now they are.

New girl on the block Rachel (Lyliana Wray),who is having mysterious, disturbing dreams, shows up at school, where both the geek Gavin (Sam Ashe Arnold, top photo) and the geekier Graham (Jeremy Ray Taylor, left) hit on her. 

They invite her to a meeting of the Midnight Society, which apparently has only four members.  The other two are girls, Akiko and Louise.

Rachel tells her story, about a sinister carnival that rolls into town, and a manager, Mr. Tophat (Rafael Casal), who steals kids' souls (apparently she's been reading Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes).

To their surprise, a sinister carnival does roll into town, and the Midnight Society must fight real paranormal peril.

As you may have noticed, the miniseries is rather beefcake-deficient:  only two boys, neither likely teen idol material.

I did find Brandon Routh down the cast list as "Mysterious Handsome Man."

So who's looking at his face?

And since personal lives of the original Midnight Society were absent, it was easy to read them as gay.  Not here: the two male Midnight Society boys are aggressively heterosexual.

I give it a C-.

See also: Are You Afraid of the Dark?>

"Room 104": Two Mormon Missionaries Come Out, Sort Of

 

I bought Season 1 of Room 104, an anthology series about the crises of people staying in an old fashioned, run-down hotel room, because it was only$5.00 and I thought there might be some Twilight Zone-style "It's a cookbook!" twists.  And some beefcake -- people undress in hotel rooms, right?

For gay representation, I watched Episode 7, "The Missionaries": "Two Mormon missionares test the boundaries of their faith."

All Mormon men must spend two years in a mission field., often in the United States, usually in pairs, going door to door to spread the Good News.  Since the LDS Church is conservative and homophobic, it's fun to fantasize about what happens in their hotel rooms after hours.

In this case, Elders Noah (Adam Foster) and Joseph (Nat Wolff)  are upset about their failure to get any converts.  They ask God to give them a sign, and He miraculously provides coffee -- forbidden to Mormons!  Then porn on the tv (it's a miracle!).  

They spend the night exploring the wild side by drinking coffee, watching porn, drinking beer, and...um...getting erections.     In the morning, Joseph wants more: "I want to go farther....I want to try everything."

He moves in  to kiss Noah, who backs away.. "I'm not..."

Boo!  They refuse to say "gay."

"We don't know what we are, unless we explore. "

Boo!  You know you're gay without doing anything sexual.  

Joseph chases him around the room, trying to kiss him.

Boo!  Gay people as sexual predators!  No means no!

Noah pushes Joseph away.  He falls and hits his head on the nightstand and dies.

Boo!  Gay panic defense!

Then he wakes up.  It looks like he just hit his head, but the naive missionaries think he rose from the dead.  It's a sign from God.  They should abandon their evil ways and return to the church!

Boo!  You can be gay and Mormon!

They watch each other changing clothes -- nice butt shot through the thin sacred underwear -- decide to try it after all, and leap over the beds to....the screen going black.

Boo!  After all that, you don't even show them kiss!

Well, that was  a bust, like an After School Special from 1998.  We can say "gay" now.

Strangely, a review calls this episode "The year's sweetest gay love story."  Writer/producer Mark Duplass said that, being straight and Catholic, he didn't feel qualified to write the story, but he conducted research by interviewing a Mormon friend and Xan Aranda, a filmmaker who grew up Mormon and had a gay dad.  

For the queasy "Don't say gay!  Don't kiss!  Being gay is way controversial!" closeting, we can blame director Megan Griffiths, who is from northern Idaho, where it's still 1954, and "had a gay friend growing up."  Apparently she hasn't met any gay people lately.

Next I watched Episode 2, "The Pizza Boy": "A pizza delivery boy gets caught up in a couple's twisted games."

Who hasn't fantasized about hooking up with the pizza boy?  And there will proably be a three way, so bisexual representation.

Jarond (Clark Duke) delivers a meat-lovers' pizza to the couple, but they don't have enough money, so Scott (James Van Der Beek) runs out to the nearest ATM.  Meanwhile, Jennifer (Davie-Blue) flirts with him.

Disappointment: the pizza boy is chubby, long-haired, not attractive at all. I guess if he was hot, the seduction would have a different dynamic.

Just as Jarod and Jennifer getting ready to kiss, Scott bursts in, yelling about her being unfaithful, showing her breasts to every pizza boy in town.  She rushes out.  

Scott asks Jarod how many times he "delivered a meat-lover's" to Jennifer, although he was only gone a few minutes, not nearly enough time for multiple orgasms.  Jarod denies doing anything.  Scott hog-ties him and pulls down his pants, implying that he intends to rape him (no bare-butt shot). 

Then Jennifer returns.  She and Scott argue, hit each other, then fall down on the other bed and start having sex.

"You didn't want me, you wanted Scott!" Jennifer calls over.  "Well, now you can have him!"  Fade to black.

In the next scene: 

Spoler alert!

Jarod gives them notes:"Scott, your character was all over the place. Pick a theme and stick to it. Jennifer, you showed your breasts too quickly.  Your clients are major voyeurs, so make them wait for it."  Turns out he is their boss, training them for a job in sex work.

Wait -- the clients pretend to be pizza boys, and they tie them up and have sex with each other?  That's a very specialized fetish.

Jarod leaves just in time for their first real client to arrive.

Wait -- shouldn't they practice some more first?   Or at least have a chance to recover?  Guys Scott's age are not going to bounce back immediately...

How about Episode 4, "I Knew You Weren't Dead": "A visitor seeks advice for his marital troubles from a long-lost friend."

I need another beefcake photo, so I'll go through it on fast-forward.  There's a nude bathtub scene.  The two guys hug.  Then the visitor goes back to his wife.