Scary Queer Classics: STRANGER BY THE LAKE (2013)

Summer may have ended, but this Halloween season, Queer Classics is going on a French cruise (of sorts). The heat is on in this unprecedented erotic thriller about an important truth: a good cruising spot is worth saving for many reasons that, like people, are complex.

This is our first foreign language film in the series, and one of the few films about gay eroticism that not only doesn’t shy away from showing male full-frontal nudity in same-sex intimacy, it garnered fame upon its release for the genuine realism of the sex that occurs onscreen. The actors are acting, but the closeups and the fluids (provided by body doubles) are real, playing with the minds of the viewer in unique ways. The effect is one of mingling intense sexual and psychological thrills that makes the line between them seem both painfully distinct and irrelevant at the same time.

This films manages to be many things at once; a reflection of how far you’ll go to find a safe space to be shamelessly gay and sexy without fear of discrimination or reproach; a curious exploration of what really makes the heart race (sex, danger or a combination of the two?); and it’s also a film about the deep human need for queer people to connect with each other, to feel and be loved in a lonely world.

Come to The New Parkway to experience all the feels for our Queer Classic this Halloween season!