INTO THE LION’S DEN

Three homosexual pals - Johnny (Jesse Archer), Michael (Ronnie Kroell) and Ted (Kristen-Alexzander Griffith) – embark on a road trip, heading from Los Angeles to Manhattan. Through their in-car banter, their stereotypes are quickly established: Johnny is an over-the-hill slut, still obsessed with fucking any man he can (as exampled in an early scene whereby he seduces a gas station attendant); Ted is the naïve young one whose trust fund is paying for their trip.

Michael is the quieter one, who we learn has recently had his heart broken and is in need of being cheered up. Hence the vacation.

Driving into the night, the threesome begin to tire and realise they are still a few hours’ drive away from their destination. So, at Johnny’s insistence they find a room in the nearest small town. Their motel is a fleapit, but they are there for a reason: Johnny’s been flirting with a fella on his smartphone and has arranged to meet him in a local bar called The Lion’s Den.

Reluctantly, Michael lets the other two drag him out to the bar. Upon their arrival, the boys are alarmed to discover it’s a quiet haven for rednecks and country divas. Undeterred, Johnny – complete with his "Blowjobs Happen" T-shirt as attire – leads them in.

Bar owner Betty (Jodie Shultz) may seem a little rough around the edges and her husband bartender Frank (Michael McFadden) may not appear to be the friendliest guy, but the lads get a drink anyway and stay to enjoy the terrible live music. All the while, Johnny is on the look-out for his blind date, convinced that he will not have been stood up.

An altercation between Johnny and local thug Bruno (Laurence Mullaney) dampens spirits, resulting in Michael and Ted retiring to their motel. It’s here that Michael reveals a dark secret to Ted – something which not only explains the violent dreams he’s been having, but also plays a significant part in surprising a villain later into proceedings.

Meanwhile, still on a mission, Johnny stays in The Lion’s Den. But where is his mystery beau?

Ultimately, these three boys are going to live to regret their decision to pay a visit to The Lion’s Den …

INTO THE LION’S DEN is being billed by distributors Breaking Glass as a "gay thriller". It’s more accurate to describe it as "gay torture porn", as there’s little intrigue but lots of physical endurance testing in the film’s latter half.

But, in truth, it’s the final 30 minutes when we realise the extent of how out of their depth Michael and his pals are, that prove to be the film’s least interesting. Although they do get quite tense and the more squeamish male viewers will need to turn away from close-up shots of a syringe being poked into a penis (leading to a novel female-rapes-male scene), they’re pretty conventional and don’t live up to the build-up of the preceding 45 minutes.

Fundamentally a counter-culture film that also serves as a coming-of-age drama by way of the loss of innocence ("life is fragile, every moment" one character summaries), INTO THE LION’S DEN distinguishes itself from a saturated market thanks to the focus being on the gay protagonists.

The problem, however, is that these homosexuals are extremely stereotypical. From the offset they’re portrayed as being camp, sex-obsessed hedonists – consequently, it’s difficult to empathise with people that come across as almost cartoonish. Likewise, the hetero threat of the titular bar is a victim of cliché too: the women are predictably haggard and the men are burping, farting louts.

Shultz and McFadden are great as the loved-up psychopaths who work together to overcome problems in their sex life (an admirably original motive for their misdeeds) but the rest of the cast are less convincing.

Director Dan Lantz manages to evoke an authentic small-town claustrophobia in the bar scenes, akin to that achieved in BLOOD SIMPLE. The location itself is used well to create a foreboding atmosphere and, at 76 minutes in length, the film is certainly flab-free.

But what begins as something seemingly wanting to challenge genre conventions (near-hardcore gay sex; candid heart-to-hearts on topics such as AIDS and "being different") eventually settles into pedestrian horror fare, where the message coming across is one that the genre’s been peddling for decades: promiscuity leads to death.

The screener disc from Breaking Glass, their first DVD release for the UK market, presents the film uncut in an anamorphic 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Colour schemes are a tad muted and dark, but the transfer is a generally good representation of the film’s digital origins. Images are clean and reasonably sharp throughout.

English audio is proffered in a decent 2.0 mix. There are a couple of instances during early exterior scenes where microphones clearly weren’t as close as they should be to the actors, but overall this is a solid, consistent proposition.

This being a screener disc, there were no menus or scene-selection. The only bonus feature offered here was a brief trailer. I understand the final retail disc is also set to include a behind-the-scenes featurette, a blooper reel, deleted/extended scenes and an audio commentary track from Lantz.

INTO THE LION’S DEN is a decent low-budget horror where broadly written gay characters are used to serve its counter-culture plot. It’s not great, but it does hold the attention.

Review by Stuart Willis