One of the most electrifying films of the New Queer Cinema movement, The Living End left viewers stunned when it premiered at the now-infamous 1992 Sundance Film Festival. Brazenly transgressive, it may be even more shocking by today’s standards. Credited as ‘An Irresponsible Movie by Gregg Araki,’ the film’s take-no-prisoners story follows two HIV-positive men with nothing to lose.
Luke (Mike Dytri), a mischievous and reckless drifter, and Jon (Craig Gilmore), an initially uptight film critic, meet, unconventionally, after Luke has a run-in with a trio of gay-bashers.
A passionate affair – and a whole lot of trouble – soon ensue as the pair embark on a nihilistic road trip – fueled by whiskey, a gun and Luke’s motto of ‘fuck everything.’
Though it was referred to, at the time, as ‘the gay Thelma & Louise,’ The Living End has far more in common with the groundbreaking work of Andy Warhol, John Waters, Derek Jarman and Jean-Luc Godard, iconoclast filmmakers who are all paid some level homage throughout the film.
On a budget of just $20,000, Gregg Araki crafted this ultra-violent Gen-X classic as a primal scream in the face of the mounting AIDS crisis and its accompanying cultural stigma.
More than thirty years later, The Living End has lost none of it’s power or political charge. Now audiences new and old can experience it once again, in all it’s digitally-remastered glory, on Dekkoo. Check out the original trailer below.
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