Eroddity(s) 2 (VoD Review)

In 2014 director Steven Vasquez brought us the gay short film anthology film Eroddity(s) (as well as the Eroddity(s)-esque Angels With Tethered Wings). It was a big enough success that now we have Eroddity(s) 2, which present three more creepy tales. In case you’re wondering the title is a contraction of ‘erotic oddities’, which is quite apt as the film is what would result if you smashed a horror film, The Twilight Zone and gay porn together in a super-collider.

If your ears pricked up on reading the words ‘gay porn’, you’ll be pleased to hear that as with the first movie, hardly any of the actors get through the movie without stripping naked at least once, and on a few occasions you can tell they were quite enjoying what was going on. So if you want to, you can play spot the (semi-)boner with the movie.

The first of the three stories is The Private War of Joseph Sargent, where two soldiers are in South America on a mission to take out a drug lord. However, they are captured and told that this is their last night alive. One of them is gay and the other ostensibly straight, but with only a few hours left they decide that perhaps getting down and dirty would be a good plan. When their fate alters, the fallout from their liaison could be very dangerous.

As with most of the Eroddity(s) stories, The Private War of Joseph Sargent is a little bit messy, but it’s based on a pretty good idea. As with the other two stories, gay porn star Addison Graham plays the lead role. Here he does a pretty good job as the slightly uptight straight soldier who sleeps with his comrade while wondering when they’re both going to get a bullet in the skull.

The second, very short, story is Audition, where Graham’s character is in a hotel room when a young man knocks on the door to audition for an acting role. The actor thinks he’s just going to read his lines, but it quickly turns into a casting couch situation, with the man in charge telling the younger one that if he wants the role, he’d better strip down and get busy. However, there may be a sting in the sexual tail.

To be honest the film is so short it’s essentially a placeholder, which until the last few seconds plays out pretty much like a softcore porn scene. It’s only at the end where things change and, as with the other films, kind of make you wonder whether it’s taken things too far or not. If Eroddity(s) has one skill, it’s taking things to the edge between sick and sexy, not because it’s horrifically violent, but because it sexualises things you’d normally wouldn’t think should be sexualised. In this case it’s trying to make sexual coercion sexy, and then having a twist where the character’s comeuppance uses something as a punishment that is perhaps a little more problematic and verging on prejudice than the movie realises.

Click here to watch the Eroddity(s) 2 trailer

The tendency for merging the sick and sexy certainly continues with the final tale, The Caretaker of Cook County, a story of necrophilia, violence and sex. It’s also far longer than the other two, to the point where it’s nearly a feature-length movie in its own right.

Here Addison Graham is the titular cemetery caretaker, Garret, who always wears a mask over his face due to a facial disfigurement. As we quickly discover, he has more issues than just scars on his face, as he has a penchant for taking the dead bodies of good-looking young men and having sex with them.

Garret’s past returns in the form of Tyler, who’s now blind as a results of events that occurred during their troubled relationship. The masked caretaker wants the chance to talk to Tyler, but it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the strange predilections he now enjoys cause a few issues.

It’s certainly a strange and slightly disturbing film, which may not always feature the best acting, but is sometimes pretty sexy – even if you will feel a little dirty at the point the film is sexualising dead bodies.

Eroddity(s) 2 is by no means a masterpiece – not least because when you don’t have a massive budget and one of the key things you need from the actors is a willingness to show their penis, you’re not going to get many future Oscar-winners – but if you’re not demanding much and just want plenty of gay sex and some creepy shenanigans, it does the trick. There are times when it reaches the edge where you might wonder whether it’s gone a little too far, but mostly it’s entertaining enough that you’ll forgive its occasionally dodgy darkness and rough edges. You won’t come away thinking it’s a great film, but you may enjoy yourself – especially if you like a bit of gratuitous nudity.

Overall Verdict: With plenty of penises, sex and strange horror, Eroddity(s) 2 will keep you watching, even if you may feel it’s sometimes a little too unpleasantly pervy with its horror and might have done witha slightly tighter style.

Eroddity(s) 2 is available on VoD now, as well as DVD in the US

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Gay?
Exciting?
Dramatic?
Funny?
Romantic?
Scary?
Sexy?
Family Friendly?