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The Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror (2007)

Dir: Jaymes Thompson

On the eve of a large Gay and Lesbian party weekend five groups of guests arrive at the ‘Sahara Salvation Bed and Breakfast Inn’ as it’s renowned for being Homosexual friendly.
The guests include;

The uptight Gabby (Denise Heller) and her girlfriend Deborah (Shannon Lee) who are edible body paint sellers.
Alex (Michael Soldier) and his stud boyfriend Dom (Jaymes Thompson) who is the current reigning ‘Mr Leather‘ and who spends most of the film running around in ‘assless leather chaps’.
A quarrelsome threesome made up of ‘Fag Hag’ Lizette (Lisa Block-Wieser), bad tempered bully Michael (Derek Long) and his boyfriend Eric (Robert Borzych).
A singer with a Marlene Dietrich obsession named Starr (Hilary Schwartz) and her girlfriend Brenda (Allie Rivenbark).
And Todd (James Tolins) and his older lover Rodney (Jim Polivka).

When they get to the B&B they find it run by a strange older woman named Helen (Mari Marks) and her ditzy daughter Luella (Georgia Jean).
It turns out Helen is really a fanatic Christian fundamentalist who wants to find Luelle a husband, by converting a ‘confused’ Homosexual man back to the spiritual path of Heterosexuality, to move Luelle away from her sinful Lesbian desires.

And if all that wasn’t enough it turns out Luelle has a mysterious brother named Manfred (Noah Naylor) who is meant to be kept locked up.
But the guests have not long settled in when some of them go missing…..

 

“The Gay B&B of Terror” opens with a lacklustre ‘shock’ pre-credits scene before redeeming itself with a groovy title sequence that sees a blonde go-go dancer belt out a fine tune called ‘Watch Out For The Straights’ before we are introduced to the unfortunate B&B guests as they drive to their fate.

Every Homosexual cliché and relationship convention is represented by the characters that star/Director and Writer Jaymes Thompson has offered up for us and nearly all of the characters are bitchy and unfaithful.
Thankfully though the performances, though not conventionally ‘good’, manage to instil these people with enough personality that what could have been an obnoxious bunch slowly gains some sympathy from the viewer as they battle to stay alive.

With such a title and such a set-up it will come as no surprise that Thompson’s film is camped up to the max and wallows happily in the conventions it has set for itself and he keeps things moving at a steady lick (ho ho).
The film is far too long though and should have been tightened up in the editing phase. As such the genuine energy the film has running through it has to labour hard to overcome the movie's 109 minute length.

And although the multiple flashbacks, that reveal various twists in the tale, are mostly entertaining enough (indeed the Mother‘s flashback, about the conception of Manfred, is a glorious work of warped genius and also a great anti-Republican take on the origins of Freddy Krueger no less), they are generally too long and appear too late in the narrative and thus slow down, and break up, the escalating chaos as we move towards the climax (ho ho) that the film has spent too long already getting too.

The high camp, jokey, OTT attitude that runs through the heart of the movie does occasionally clash with its more serious moments as well, but at least these more dramatic scenes add a genuine plot dynamic and gravitas to what would otherwise be a nothing more then a slice of gay horror slapstick. Not that there is anything wrong with a slice of gay horror slapstick.

Some of the dialogue is fun as well, but most is not as fun or clever as it thinks it is and as such some of the more dialogue heavy scenes drag.
In fact it goes to show just how superb and natural John Waters was when it came to crafting his many dialogue scenes and just how important the deliver of them is…and sadly, despite the cast giving it their all, Thompson has no Divine’s, Massey’s or Lochary’s to work with.
But there are still a few gems to be dug up and admired here:
Highlight has to be the deranged Helen’s utterly mad rant to a tied up Alex;
“You will no longer yearn for the engorged penis of a well-muscled man in uniform! From this point on you will embrace the light of God and dream of the sugar sweet holy vaginal walls of your soon to be wife, and my lovely daughter, forever”!
Indeed Helen, in the most flashy and Watersesque role, has all the best speeches.
Enjoy such gems as “I must pray very hard…There’s too many fucking assholes around” and (when spotting she is covered in a victim’s blood) “Damn it! My favourite ensemble”!
Away from Helen it is Michael who has the only other really good line (due to context and deliver), uttered after a failed bit of macho fisticuffs that sees him come off worse against the leather clad Dom...”You ripped my sweater” he whines in fine fashion before a second tear in his precious jumper results in a truly divine moment of heartbroken whimpering from Derek Long; “My sweater…..” he wails pitifully.

What’s really surprising here though is the relative lack of strong sex or (really surprising) full-on nudity.
As a low-fi, SOV, Gay themed horror film it was surely not aimed at, or was ever going to catch, a mainstream audience or market, so why be so tame with the sexuality?
Aside form kissing there is only one actual (Homosexual) sex scene and no Lesbian sex scenes bar some kissing.
Plenty of opportunities for full frontal nudity are here, but instead we have underwear left on and towels wrapped around waists.
A rather strange scene with Gabby for example sees her smear body paint on herself and writhe around on the floor but again she is only topless, (so the orgasmic pleasure being acted seems not orgasmic enough to bother removing your panties for)
In the UK it’s an ‘18’, but that’s really only because of the addition of violence, because as far as just sex and nudity itself goes this would probably rate a ‘15‘.
Indeed the only penis on display (can you believe, in a film called “Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror”, have to write that!?) is attached to a blood covered dead body.

And talking of blood covered bodies…Where the film pretty much fails to deliver on the sex/nudity front it at least delivers on the horror front.
The murders are very bloody and pretty violent, with clever use of fast edits to hide the fact that there’s little gore appliance work despite the amount of blood sloshed around (although we get a pretty good ripped open stomach effect near the end).
Whether it’s Helen or Luelle and their crucifix-handled dagger or Manfred and his foul fangs (a great facial make-up, but spoilt by a dire body appliance) much blood is shed with lots of passionate shrieking to back it up.

The finale is wildly OTT and utterly chaotic and if it all seems a trifle forced and over-plotted at least the twist at the end is pretty amusing in concept, if strangely serious in much of its execution.
All of which results in a film that is sadly not as good as it should have been with such a set-up and a film that lacks much of the sex and nudity it should surely have had by default .

But despite all this (and the overly long running time) “The Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror” still manages to be fun, camp, passionate and ultimately entertaining thanks to the plentiful blood, some fun dialogue, the performances (especially Mari Marks as Helen and Georgia Jean as Luelle) and the general energy it gives off.
Next time though Mr Jaymes ‘assless leather chaps’ Thompson, pile in more damn sex and nudity please!