I don't know anything about Dead Hot, on Amazon Prime in Britain and Tubi in the U.S., except that it stars gay actor Bilal Hasna as a gay ghost. Sounds intriguing.
Scene 1: Elliot (Bilal) walks down the street with flowers, enters a house, and calls for Peter and Jess. But it's all disheveled, with someone moving in or out. So after you died, your roommates moved out? He finds blood scattered about on the floor, and his own severed finger!
Scene 2: Five years later, Elliot saying goodbye to a hot guy, Will (Marcus Hodson), after their first date. They make plans to get together that night. So Elliot is dating another ghost? He struts through downtown Liverpool, takes the subway, congratulates a man who is masturbating in his car, and heads home, where his roommate Jess wants to know how things went. Great! He's tall, and handsome, and funny! They have so much in common! They went on the same cruise in 2005! So, if Elliot was 25, he'd be in his 40s now. Wait -- he's been dead for five years, so he died in his mid-30s.
Plot dump: His boyfriend Paul vanished five years ago. Jess is his twin sister. I get it -- the sinister Paul murdered Elliot and then fled.
Jess exudes enthusiasm and squeals with excitement over the new guy, but when she leaves, she grimaces. I suspect that the date was in Elliot's head, he's a ghost and can't leave the apartment, and she's sick of lying to him.
Scene 3: While Elliot relives the date and stresses out because the guy hasn't texted him since they parted an hour ago, Jess goes to her job at a new age store, grimaces, and remembers her dead brother. Wait, I thought Elliot was the dead one, and brother Paul, the one who vanished after murdering him.
She checks a DNA match app and finds a new match, but just as they are about to identify themselves, a customer pops up! Jess gives her the item for free to get rid of her, then back to the app: "I'm who you think I am. Are you who I think you are?" Is vanished brother Paul coming out of hiding?
Scene 4: Elliot dreams of his fingers getting chopped off. That must be how he died. We spend some time on a subplot about his wealthy, bigoted grandmother, who thinks that he is straight and keeps setting him up with girls, and his Aunt Bonnie, who thinks that she's dating an underwear model that she's talking to online -- played by Sean Flannery.
Scene 5: More memories of last night. Elliot is on a date with Jess when Will approaches. They dump the girlfriend and head to a dive bar, where Elliot notices that Will's nail polish is bright red -- a color called Blood Sex. This will be important later.
He offers to take Elliot someplace better: "I guarantee you'll like it."
More after the break
Later, Elliot drops by the New Age shop to take Jess to lunch. So he can leave the apartment? Is this guy actually dead? Maybe the finger belonged to the vanished Paul, and they wore identical rings to fool the viewers.
On the way to lunch, Elliot and Jess hold hands, linking fingers, and kiss body parts, absurdly horny for each other. Wait -- if they are dating, why is Elliot going after this Will guy? Maybe that's why Jess grimaces in disgust whenever Elliot isn't looking. She isn't happy with having an open relationship.
Jess reveals that she may have found the vanished Peter on the DNA app: tier 1, close relative, and using his signature emoji. "Babe, it can't be Peter," Elliot assures her. "He's dead." Did you kill him?
Scene 6: Rushing through downtown Liverpool, Elliot collides with someone who looks like his vanished boyfriend Peter. Whoops, they turn into a lady. He works at an overwhelmingly pink, frilly, lacey pet grooming service run by Janelle, who thinks she is the queen of the universe.
Timothy, a snooty guy picking up his dog, thinks that he knows Elliot from somewhere: "the weatherman? the pants guy?" "Nope, never saw you before." Timothy appears in four episodes, and screws someone, so apparently Elliot is lying.
Then a stray cat that was brought in snarls at him, causing him to rush to the pink bathroom to throw up. Maybe this isn't the job for you.
Elliot rushes home and looks for the key to the lock box, but Jess has hidden it. He calls to explain how much he needs it. "I saw Marvin! I saw the cat!" Why does the IMDB call Marvin Timothy?
Scene 7: The mysterious DNA guy gives Jess an address and says "be there at 4:00 and I'll ring for you on the red phone." It's a door marked only by a neon-red Eye of Horus? Inside, a scary, dank, red-tinged restaurant, with an old rotary phone -- salmon-colored. Jess stakes a claim, ignoring the bartender's complaint that she has to buy something. It finally rings, but there's only heavy breathing on the line -- she's been pranked by a perv!
Meanwhile, Elliot is trying everything to open the lock box. Finally it bursts open, with pictures of Paul, old cards and letters. What's wrong with keeping mementos of the vanished brother/lover? There's also a picture of a cat -- the same one that snarled at Elliot earlier! What about Marvin/Timothy? He's important to the mystery, too, right?
Scene 8: Jess returns after being pranked to find Elliot staring at the old photos. They discuss the comparative merits of continuing to hope that Paul is alive versus believing that he is dead.
They return to the pet grooming shop to check the security cam for the guy who dropped off the stray cat. He waves! He's playing with them!
Scene 9: Jess and Elliot promise each other that they'll work it out, and go to bed. I think they sleep separately, so maybe they're not a romantic couple after all.
Elliot flashes back to his date last night. Will says "I can telt that something really bad happened to you." Elliot tells about the boyfriend disappearing, leaving a severed finger. And taking his cat with him. That's why he ghosted you, dude: too much baggage for the first date.
He sends Will a nasty text ending with "Bitch!!!" and raised-finger emojis. Whoops, Will texts back, apologizing, saying it's been a crazy day, and can Elliott come over?
It's a scary building with a red spider logo. But before he goes in, we flashback to where they went on their date last night -- the Eye of Horus bar where the DNA guy obscene phone-called Jess earlier! Run away!
Time to enter Will's scary, deserted one room flat with a camera buzzing overhead. Run away! There's a severed finger on the floor, with Will's Blood Sex nail polish! The end.
Beefcake: None
Other sights: Spectacular locations of Liverpool and London.
Gay Characters: I think everyone is pan.
Misdirections: Pretending that Elliot is a ghost; Paul and Elliot wear identical rings, so you think it's Elliot's finger; the cruise from 2005; Jess and Elliot acting like lovers; pretending that Marvin is a guy from Elliot's past, not a cat; "the pants guy."
My Grade: The mystery is intriguing so far, but I suspect that it's going to be a lot more mundane than viewers are led to believe. The misdirections are so vast that they aren't really fun; you feel more like the victim of a nasty prank.
Update: I binged this in two days. The serpentine plot twists and endless misdirections keep you confused, and in the end disappointed: the Eye of Horus bar is not a portal to the underworld, the sinister telephone is just a telephone, the Blood Sex color that was vastly important turns out to be irrelevant, and no one is a ghost. But at least there are still gay guys. B-.
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