They/Them
Thoughts on the 2022 slasher film.
4/10
Terrible production value, no rewatch value, lazy writing and generally just not a good film.
I don’t think anyone made this “ ✨ For the girls and the gays ✨” it was clearly a cashgrab, Studio Blumhouse knew the marketing would get people outraged enough to talk about it. So, I’m happy to tell everyone it sucks. Don’t waste your time on this movie.
For people who want to know what it’s actually about:
it’s a slasher film (Supposedly, there’s very little slashing. I was very disappointed) that takes place at a gay conversion camp run by Kevin Bacon (which the entire budget of the movie went to). There’s not much beyond that. We get a little bit of character development for the cast and bizarrely, there are many points where I feel like I’m watching a different movie.
In the very beginning, we see a nameless character get axed on the side of the road along with the worst CGI deer ever. With an opener like that, one would anticipate this movie isn’t going to waste much time trying to develop characters that are just gonna get killed right? Technically, they didn’t do that… Because no one else dies until the very end of the movie and it’s maybe only 3 people. You heard me right, this “slasher” has maybe 15 minutes of slashing in it’s 1 hour and 40 minutes of runtime with a body count of only 4.
The bulk of that time is spent developing the cast, more so the kids at the camp than the camp counselors. Because of this, the entire movie feels like a bait and switch. It’s not just devoid of killing and gore, oh no, there’s a whole montage of the characters doing activities they actually enjoy (I wish I could say I was doing the same) so the movie takes it’s time not just meandering but… Pretending to be a different movie? In particular, there are these two girls who make cute little friendship bracelets in that afore mentioned montage and we see a romance develop between the two of them. In a trope subversion, they even have sex without getting killed! Wow! It’s this in particular that makes me wonder who exactly this movie was made for.
People come to slasher movies with the expectation that most of the cast is gonna die, so unless you’re setting up a red herring there isn’t much point in getting people invested because they’re waiting for characters to die. The audience for the horror/thriller/slasher genre is a very apathetic one.
At the same time, if you want to pander to queer people this really wasn’t the way to do it. The type of person who wants a saucy Lesbian campground romance isn’t going to turn on a show where the expectation is that the characters are going to die, they likely want to embrace something very soft and “cottage-core” because that audience is looking for something that’s all about the sweet and sensual bond between the characters. In the way that slasher movie goers are apathetic to character development, romance movie goers are apathetic to anything that is not about the main characters which is where I should mention: these characters were side characters. Their only role in the movie was a 30 minute romance and that’s it.
From this perspective you can very clearly see that these are two different movies that don’t really go together. I understand he interest in trope subversion, particularly of “bury your gays” BUT if you COMPLETELY FILL YOUR CAST with gay people (implicitly meaning you don’t want to kill them) there comes a point where it’s not even the same genre anymore.
I think this movie is better categorized and watched as an action movie with mystery and thriller elements. Let’s call a spade a spade here, an action movie is just a slasher movie where the character’s don’t die and pick up a gun. That’s the meaningful difference between genre’s really. This reminds me of the 2012 discourse about horror games always ending when the player character picks up a gun to shoot the final boss with. That’s more or less how this movie plays out at the end when it finally remembers what genre it was pretending to be.
In the last 10 minutes, “the killer” finally decides to start killing again. The remaining cast is panicked and sure enough the movie tries to make a statement about guns that I don’t even care enough to go into. Ironically, the killer does not seem to be non-binary. They pretended to be a camp counselor so you see her throughout the film and she doesn’t change up her presentation from just being a typical cis-woman. There was a hint she could have been trans (she gives a trans girl estrogen pills back) but even that is a reach. So, the title still grammatically works it’s just not what people think. Anyway, after “They Slash” (aha like the title) the camp director they do the classic “we could be a team” with the protagonist and reveal their plan to do the same to other conversion camps. The protagonist is too much of a stereotypical “good guy” to say yes and the killer is arrested.
Roll credits.
All in all, maybe watch “But, I’m a cheerleader!” or “Boy Erased” instead.