Category: New This Week

A hustler falls prey to a sinister psycho in the tense Dekkoo-original thriller ‘The Prodigy’

From the producers behind House of the Devil and The Innkeepers comes a bone-chilling new descent into queer psychosexual horror.

Beau Swartz stars in The Prodigy as Adam, a street hustler who has just about given up on life. At the start of the film, he’s picked up by a mysterious trick whose seemingly sinister intentions go largely unnoticed. Adam can’t even muster up the energy to care about his own fate. He accompanies this man to his isolated home in the desert and soon finds himself held captive – stuck at the mercy of a psychopath whose dark history prevents him from understanding the difference between reality and his own murderous fantasies.

As Adam sits locked away in confinement, he finally begins searching his soul… and finds himself faced with an important decision. Should he give up on life completely… or fight like hell to keep it?

Directed by prolific filmmaker Omar Salas Zamora and co-written by frequent collaborator Calvin Picou (who delivers a truly menacing performance), The Prodigy is an unexpected, genre-bending follow-up to their gritty 2020 drama Adam in Fragments. While that film followed Adam during his earlier days on the streets, you don’t need to have seen it to enjoy or understand this one. Both movies function as stand-alone pieces of work that happen to follow the same character.

The Prodigy finds the versatile filmmaking duo sharpening their horror skills – and ‘sharp’ is the right word. This film is not for the squeamish. If you’re looking for lighter fare, we highly recommend the Dekkoo-originals Here Comes Your Man and Nothing But Flowers, two projects from Zamora and Picou that feature far less bloodshed and a whole lot more gay romance! For those who aren’t afraid to get a little twisted, we can’t recommend The Prodigy more highly.

Watch the trailer for The Prodigy below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘Rift’ is a haunting relationship thriller from Icelandic director Erlingur Thoroddsen

Months after they broke up, Gunnar (Björn Stefánsson) receives a strange phone call from his distraught ex-boyfriend, Einar (Sigurður Þór Óskarsson). He drives up to the secluded cabin where Einar is holed up and soon discovers that there’s more going on than he imagined.

As the two former lovers begin coming to terms with their broken relationship, some other person seems to be lurking outside the cabin, wanting to get in. In the most marvelous of Icelandic landscapes, the stage is set for a dense psychological thriller, where something strange and possibly sinister is growing from the ashes of a failed romance.

Packed with eerie atmosphere and captured with stunningly beautiful cinematography, Rift, a taut mystery from Icelandic writer-director Erlingur Thoroddsen, walks a fine line between thriller and relationship drama.

Chilling, thought-provoking, and deeply evocative, this is the kind of film that lingers with you long after the credits roll.

Watch the trailer for Rift below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘20,000 Species of Bees’ tells a heart-wrenching story about gender, sexuality and identity

In a small, sleepy village in the Basque Country, a sculptor named Ane and her three children arrive at her mother Lita’s home for summer vacation. Lita disapproves of her daughter’s frayed marriage, career as an artist and the way she parents her obstinate and mischievous children.

Chief among them is eight-year-old Aitor, nicknamed Coco, after it becomes clear that being referred to by the name Aitor elicits feelings of distress in the child. Born biologically male, neither birth name nor the genderless nickname feel quite right, and Ane’s concern for her child grows as Coco becomes more withdrawn.

The child’s only respite lies in the Basque hills, where Ane’s aunt Lourdes tends to the family’s beekeeping farm. Among the peaceful humming of bees and Lourdes’ open-minded guardianship, Coco slowly begins to confide in family and friends her discomfort in her body, eventually voicing a desire to be treated as a girl.

As Coco explores her own developing identity over the summer, Ane and the rest of her family in turn must learn to accept the child as she is.

From Basque director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, this assured debut feature is a wonderfully sensitive work carried by the Berlinale Silver Bear-winning lead performance of newcomer Sofía Otero.

An authentic and heart-wrenching story of transition, 20,000 Species of Bees is a landmark in the cinematic discussion of gender, sexuality and identity.

Watch the trailer for 20,000 Species of Bees below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

A gay filmmaker is stalked by the undead in the clever horror-comedy ‘There’s a Zombie Outside’

A clever meta blend of queer horror and comedy, There’s a Zombie Outside follows Adam (Ben Baur), a budding young gay filmmaker whose identity is intertwined with cult cinema.

During a camping trip with his hunky boyfriend Ollie (Ty Chen) and his best friends Louis and Zeke (Francisco Chacin and William Lott), Adam finds his imagination bleeding into his mundane reality.

Spotting what appears to be a decomposing zombie lurking near their cabin, he’s sent into a panic. His friends dismiss his claims as stress-induced paranoia, but when Adam returns to Los Angeles, the zombie continues to stalk him, causing chaos in every aspect of his life.

A sharp horror from writer-director Michael Varrati, one of the most compelling queer voices in contemporary genre cinema, There’s a Zombie Outside tells a clever, meta tale about one man’s struggle to stay in control of his own story… no matter how terrifying it gets.

Watch the trailer for There’s a Zombie Outside below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo – just in time for Halloween!

Short Film Spotlight: Impulses

Two very different individuals settle into one romantic unit in the sexy new short film Impulses, a visually striking work from Argentine filmmaker Juan Mirarchi.

Playing out like a dark tone poem, the film follows a writer named Joaquin, who, burdened by anxiety and self-doubt, struggles to embrace the romantic and emotional vulnerability that presents itself when he starts living with Gabriel, his seemingly perfect new boyfriend.

What, at first, seems like it may be a case of obsessive interpersonal attachment soon reveals itself as simple post-commitment jitters blown way out of proportion.

The actors bare both body and soul in this tender and thought-provoking short relationship drama.

Watch a short teaser for Impulses below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Mismatched roommates become unexpected allies in the sly British dramedy ‘Makeup’

When two people are brought together from completely different walks of life, it can make for awkward circumstances, especially when they both have their secrets.

Making his feature debut, writer-director Hugo Andre also stars in the film Makeup as Sacha, an introverted French food critic who travels to London. Moving into a rented room in a house belonging to Dan (Will Masheter), a well-respected stockbroker, they fall into a classic “Odd Couple” dynamic.

As time goes on, Dan attempts to hide his aspirations of becoming a burlesque dancer from those who perceive him as an alpha male. Despite their differences, Sacha and Dan soon become pillars of support in each other’s lives.

A winner of 15 different awards at film festivals around the globe – including ‘Directorial Debut by a Young Film Maker’ at the London International Film Festival – Makeup is a stirring drama about the unlikely friendship that forms between the hidden personalities of two distinct characters.

Watch the trailer for Makeup below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Many Happy Returns

André (Vitor Rocha) is about to turn twenty-five years old. Extremely worried about his future – and about the uncertainties of life in general – he’s not even able to celebrate.

At his birthday party, before blowing out the candles, he wishes for time to stop passing. To his great surprise, his wish comes true. The next morning – and over the next several – he finds that the day has repeated. It’s still, perhaps always, his twenty-fifth birthday once again.

Suddenly André finds that he has eternal youth, the absence of problems and the liberty to do just about anything he wants without the fear of consequences. When he learns, however, that time has stopped passing only for him, what seemed to be a dream come true morphs into a nightmare.

Now he must go back in time – one last time – and correct his past while learning how to enjoy the present without worrying too much about the future.

Taking obvious inspiration from Groundhog Day, Many Happy Returns is a clever short musical comedy about learning to appreciate the time you’re in – no matter how old you may be.

Watch the trailer for Many Happy Returns below. The short film is now available on Dekkoo.

Check out the short works of filmmaker Tristan Scott-Behrends this month on Dekkoo!

This month, we’re shining a much-deserved spotlight on the short film work of auteur writer/director Tristan Scott-Behrends.

His films – funny, eclectic and packed with bold visual style – have been making a splash on the queer film festival circuit since the debut of Curtain Down in 2017. A 25-minute short, he wrote, produced and stars alongside Margaret Cho in this love story from director Emett Casey. The film takes a surreal but tender look at gender, identity and aging as our lead character is forced to choose between art and love.

Only Trumpets, his directorial debut, following an outsider navigating love and sex in the digital age, made it’s world premiere at the 2018 Outfest Film Festival, where it was selected as ‘Best of the Fest.’

Our four-film collection also includes The Man of My Dreams, which follows two gorgeous, magnetic male lovers as they traipse around the streets of New York City enmeshed in a dreamy romance.

Finally, Lilac Lips, Dutchess County, a reimagining of Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus, stars Joey Hardy Gray as nymph-like protagonist, navigating the complexities of relationships in a maze of his own making.

Exploring themes of identity, gender, isolation and sexuality in the most delicious ways possible, Tristan Scott-Behrends is a filmmaker worth keeping an eye on. While he’s currently hard at work developing a script for a feature film version of Only Trumpets, you can now enjoy some of his most stylish and provocative shorts right here on Dekkoo.

A young man looks for new connections in the provocative Dekkoo Exclusive ‘In Ashes’

Spanning the five-year period after an intense break-up, In Ashes is an arresting drama and an unconventional coming-of-age tale.

Christian (Rex Leonard), a twenty-something gay man, is trying to get over the heartbreak of his first love. Looking for meaningful connections through emotionless online dating apps, he goes through a whirlwind of experiences. His passion gives way to obsession as he sets out on an intense journey to find new love… and possibly himself along the way.

A deeply personal, semi-autobiographical film from prolific Danish director Ludvig Christian Næsted Poulsen, In Ashes tells a modern story about the search for love, offering up a raw and unflinchingly honest portrait of one young gay man’s quest to find his way in life.

Watch the trailer for In Ashes below. The film is now streaming exclusively on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: The Blue Angel

Set in the 1990s, director René Pereyra’s 35-minute short The Blue Angel tells the story of a nightclub that is on the brink of disappearing.

Porfirio, an HIV positive man, returns home to run the night club, when he meets a fortuitously-named patron that will alter the course of his life forever.

Part drama, part dark comedy, the film takes place in a small, turbulent Mexican town full of insecure men and tells a poignant story about homophobia and machismo posturing that conceals a burgeoning homosexuality.

Inspired by director Peter Bogdonovich’s 1971 classic The Last Picture Show, Pereyra made the film to shine light on what he sees as a very real and continuing problem in Mexican society.

Watch the trailer for The Blue Angel below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo.