Riley Wade
Blumhouse and Peacock TV have released a first look at their next film, They/Them (pronounced “they slash them”), the film directorial debut of Penny Dreadful’s John Logan.
The film, also written by Logan, shows the abuses of an LGBTQ+ conversion camp, run by the kindly and subtly cruel Owen Whistler (Kevin Bacon). The queer “campers” must protect each other to survive, but “when a mysterious killer starts claiming victims, things become even more dangerous.”
If, like me, you’re a nonbinary trans person, safe to say there’s enough going on in the world that a slasher film about queer conversion therapy titled “They/Them”is more than a little tiring. Not shocking, but definitely tiring. But Logan’s history of making fantastically intimate and queer horror, and the predominantly LGBTQ+ cast — including Theo Germaine (The Politician) , who is nonbinary, and Quei Tann (Dear White People, How to Get Away with Murder) a trans woman — at least gives me some hope. Conversion therapy is, after all, a real thing—as things begin to get worse for queer people worldwide, it’s important we address it: in our journalism, in our fiction, in our horror.
A quote from Logan published on Bloody Disgusting reads “as [a] gay kid I felt a powerful sense of kinship with those characters who were different, outlawed, or forbidden […] I wanted to make a movie that celebrates queerness, with characters that I never saw when I was growing up. When people walk away from the movie, I hope they’re going to remember the incredible love that these kids have for each other and how that love needs to be protected and celebrated.”
If that’s anything to go by, then maybe — just maybe — this is something we need. I suppose we’ll have to see if the commentary doesn’t get washed away in all that blood.
They/Them comes to Peacock TV August 5th
