So you want to tell a story about LGBTQ+ struggles but you don't want to write nuanced characters or situations. How do you lend your story the veneer of intelligence to garner, if not popularity, then at least shallow respect? Try using a secret code, something just hard enough that critics easily impressed by their own intelligence can decipher it. For your model, I suggest 1990's Nightbreed in which a race of demons are hunted and driven underground by redneck caricatures.
David Cronenberg did not write or direct this but he tried his hand (unsuccessfully) at acting, playing a psychotherapist, Dr. Decker, who's secretly a serial killer.
He convinces his patient, the film's hero, Boone (Craig Sheffer), that he's guilty of crimes Decker's actually guilty of, an unsubtle comment on how psychotherapists stay in business. Eventually Boone is forced to run off and join the Nightbreed, who draw the ire of cartoonish southern police.
The film was written and directed by Clive Barker. It has some impressive makeup and prosthetic effects for the Nightbreed but as Boone's girlfriend, Lori (Anne Bobby), wanders into the den of demons in search of her beau, it becomes quickly apparent Barker is not up to the task he sets himself. Danny Elfman's score suggests we're meant to be following Lori's point of view as she's overwhelmed by a fantastic labyrinth of magic and monsters. But the cheap lighting and boring camera work makes it feel more like a low budget TV show.
If you're a liberal who likes your opinions echoed back at you with all the subtlety of a mack truck, this movie may be for you.
Nightbreed is available on Cinemax and Shout! Factory.
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