Nobody in this movie actually gets a proper name. Apparently, the creators wanted to make sexuality seem normal and strip away all the labels, though I have no clue what they were trying to accomplish with that idea. It plays out as this quiet, low-budget suspense piece with hardly any talking. To me, the whole thing felt like a messy mix of a grim suspense flick and a queer romance blossoming under weird circumstances, which really fell flat in my book. They just didn’t set up the foundations properly, opting instead to pad the runtime with long, drawn out moments that should have been used to flesh out the plot.
The plot kicks off with a nameless guy leaving his house to set up camp out in the desert, seemingly haunted by thoughts of his former partner. After getting ambushed during the night by some unseen force, a guy and a woman rescue him and take care of his injuries. The problem is, their farm feels like it exists totally outside the normal flow of time. It becomes obvious right away that both hosts are into the newcomer, though her behavior shifts back and forth between flirty and outright creepy. At the same time, a mutual pull develops between the two guys, but the woman holds all the power and gets super angry as she notices her gentle partner falling for the helpless visitor. The stranger ends up having passionate encounters with both of them on separate occasions, but as things wrap up, the local guy helps him break free. The traveler begs him to escape this bizarre setup together, but he says no and ends up getting murdered in the end.
I can give props to the team behind it, since the main two actors actually produced and directed it themselves, for trying to break away from the usual tropes of queer cinema, but they pushed things so far in the opposite direction that I completely tuned out. You definitely feel a heavy pulse of lust driving the narrative, but that’s pretty much all it has going for it. The sparse lines we do get feel totally basic, meaning the narrative relies on quiet moments and flashy camera tricks to move forward. They do manage to build a strange, uneasy dynamic among the main trio that shows up in different ways, but I kept asking myself what the purpose was. Marketing this as a gay romance feels pretty dishonest to me because there isn’t any setup or room for that bond to grow. The guys share a single physical encounter, but there’s no real sign of actual love beyond one quick line in the traveler’s journal mentioning how the guy reminds him of his past lover. You shouldn’t expect a standard romance between two guys here, since what they feel has this distant, almost impossible feel that actually gives their brief moments together more weight. On the flip side, the spooky thriller bits really flop, and the resolution leaves you hanging with way too many questions. I couldn’t tell if the host guy was actually the traveler’s old flame or if his former partner got bumped off by this same duo earlier. The three actors pull off solid performances, and the two male leads are undeniably gorgeous with incredible bodies and chiseled features, but staring at pretty people only takes you so far. Calling this movie weird is the easiest way to sum it up, and it completely loses its way early on, while its intentional emotional distance puts you on the back foot right away, making it a total chore to sit through its painfully long 85 minutes.
It is just a bizarre mess that completely loses its train of thought, leaving you with a totally confusing experience that isn’t worth your time. (3/10)
