THEY/THEM, pronounced “they slash them,” premiered on the final night of Outfest at the ACE Hotel Theatre in Los Angeles. A Red Carpet with the stars followed by the premiere of the film was the perfect way to close out Outfest’s 40th annual film festival.
Credit: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse
THEY/THEM Review
The quintessential queer horror film, THEY/THEM, drops on Peacock on August 5th. The Blumhouse-produced, Peacock-released LGBTQ+ empowerment film is the first of its kind: a slasher film that follows a group of LGBTQ+ campers who arrive at a gay conversion camp, where campers will spend their days trying to abolish their queerness.
Credit: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse
As if the horrors of psychological abuse that campers will endure at Whistler Camp as they undergo summer conversion therapy aren’t enough, they must also survive a masked slasher stalking them on campgrounds.
Credit: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse
THEY/THEM Review – What Works
Director John Logan’s debut feature film, THEY/THEM, delivers a fresh twist on classic horror tropes with nods to popular horror franchise classics such as Psycho and Friday the 13th, while taking a novel queer approach to horror.
For THEY/THEM to simply be produced is a meaningful accomplishment in overcoming the horror genre’s all-too-often heteronormative formula, considering the overwhelmingly conservative codes embedded in classic horror/slasher films: well-behaving white characters and blonde virgins survive while the diverse and/or marginalized characters are generally the first to be picked off in the film.
Credit: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse
THEY/THEM Review – What Doesn’t Work
While we’re 110% here for the conversation, THEY/THEM isn’t “horror” genre scary, save for a few jump scares. It’s hard to work as a slasher film if the protagonists don’t know they are being hunted and that there is a killer on the prowl; that information comes fairly late in the film.
What IS scary are the truly horrifying camp counselors and their cruel “treatment” of the teen campers.
Credit: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse
About THEY/THEM
A group of teenagers at an LGBTQ+ conversion camp endures unsettling psychological techniques while being stalked by a mysterious masked killer.
Rating: TBD
Runtime: 90 mins
Director: John Logan
Executive Producers: John Logan, Scott Turner Schofield, Jon Romano, Howard Young
Producers: Jason Blum, Kevin Bacon, Michael Aguilar
Writer: John Logan
Cast: Kevin Bacon, Theo Germaine, Carrie Preston, Anna Chlumsky, Cooper Koch, Anna Lore, Boone Platt, Monique Kim, Austin Crute, Quei Tann, Darwin del Fabro, Hayley Griffith
THEY/THEM premieres on Peacock August 5.
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