Apparently, Hulu thinks we need to start 2020 knowing that “gay slasher movie” is now a genre. The Los Angeles Times reported that Hulu "specifically wanted a gay slasher movie," so the streaming site’s Into the Dark horror anthology series celebrates the New Year with what is described as "gleefully remix[ing] familiar genre tropes with distinctly gay subject matter." Already the new decade is going downhill.
The December 27 episode “Midnight Kiss” follows the set-up of every slasher flick. A group of friends travel to a Palm Springs house to celebrate New Year’s only to be hunted down by a masked killer. The only real twist in the story is that four out of five of the group are gay men with only one straight girl in the pack. Somehow, this makes the story, along with the predictable twist being that the killer is a jealous ex, revolutionary.
What the show also considers revolutionary is the fact that a good half of the nearly 90-minute episode is also focused on the sexual and romantic side of gay men. By that, I mean we see a lot of flamboyant flirting, casual sex and hookups, and even near-full nudity on three separate occasions. If this is what the show thinks is realistic or appealing to the masses, I’m even more disappointed in Hulu.
Make no mistake, we do have to assume this is what the episode wants to do. In an interview with Trevino, actor Scott Evans explains, “I feel this one — minus the homicide half — is a really correct illustration of type of a type of weekend with associates and on this neighborhood, or at the very least in my world.” The “correct illustration” he refers to includes public threesomes at a night rave pumped with drugs and nearly naked gay men thrusting themselves at each other. The killer isn’t even that much excluded considering he wears a mask referencing a gay kink known as “pup play.” At this point, the realistic “illustration” is worse than any stereotype.
Of course, this doesn’t stop people from believing this episode still means something in terms of representation. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Evans references the milestone of having a mostly gay cast saying, “I hate that it seems groundbreaking. That really sucks. [But] it’s kinda cool.” Ironically, though, the actor doesn’t show the same consideration to the fact that half of the victims in the episode are minorities, stating, “But come on! Look at the bigger picture!” Groundbreaking material for me but not for thee, it appears.
Into the Dark has spent its 2019 becoming more annoyingly political. From the looks of this episode, the show might spend its 2020 getting worse.
