Erik Clemensen | The Men's Room / 2019 || The Men's Room 2 / 2019

unsuspecting tearoom guests

by Douglas Messerli

 

Erik Clemensen (screenwriter and director) The Men’s Room / 2019 [2.44 minutes]

Erik Clemensen (screenwriter and director) The Men’s Room 2 / 2019 [4 minutes]

 

In April of 2019 Erik Clemensen posted, on YouTube two short films without any credits and still not listed in IMDb or other on-line informational sources, two short films entitled The Men’s Room and The Men’s Room 2.

     These two satiric shorts might almost be read as a reaction to Jane Pickett’s The Men’s Room, and if nothing else almost wipe the first one out by using the same title. However, the film also plays very nicely in relationship to the long heterosexual male phobia about using public bathrooms because of the quantity of gay action going on within. That was truly an issue back in the days (1970-1990) in the bathrooms of New York City’s Grand Central and Penn Station where there was such a long que of gay boys (and heterosexual men) ready to jack off in the urinals that it was nearly impossible for a disinterested man to find a place to urinate.

      But in this fantasy world, the director depicts the happenings in what appear to be a college or university library, also common well-known sites for gay encounters.

      In each of the two films a young, not particularly good-looking straight boys have to urinate or, in the second film, defecate badly and rush into the bathrooms to relieve themselves, whistling and singing as they do so.

      A very good looking shirtless gay man suddenly appears and starts moving toward the kid at the urinal, leering so heavily at what he observes that the pisser wonders whether or not he’s all right. Nothing is said and he moves in on his prey, making the young man feel most uncomfortable. He quickly begins zipping up, when suddenly four feet come pounding to the floor in the stalls behind him, the doors opening up to reveal two other fit young gay boys who now as a trio move in on the terrified boy, trying desperately to tell them that he’ll just leave or stay whatever they want.

      Suddenly out of the disabled stall comes a fully dressed gay boy, clapping his hands together as in a high-pitched voice he screams out “Boy!”

      He comes directly up to the kid, asking “You know what’s going to happen to you now?

      “I’m going to walk out of here lickety-split?”

      “Wrong answer. You’re in a world of trouble brother.”

      The screen goes black with a holler of pain and fear emanating from the dark screen.

 

*

 

In the second, slightly longer short, another young man, closing a strange “business deal” just outside the building, also has a sudden urge and runs to the bathroom, entering a stall and beginning his toilet as he sings “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” which he soon followed by someone whistling the jingle.

     He laughs, encouraging the sing along until he sees a shirtless hunk peering in through the crack into the toilet stall. And when he looks up, he suddenly perceives two other gay books looking down over the edge of adjacent stalls, the third having also scaled up the front of his door to peer in.

     He quickly finishes and pulls up his pants, trying to exit the bathroom and the three follow. As he moves toward to door, moreover, he suddenly spots another cute, shirtless boy whom he seems to recognize, querying his presence, “Dino?”

     As the four gay men stop his progress, the same individual as in the first part calls a halt to their actions, sniffing out the smell fresh bodies and he moves in on the prey. “You probably thought you could escape! Many have tried. None have succeeded.”

     He literally blows the boy to the wall, shouting out, “Relax. You won’t remember a thing.”

    “Please don’t do this. I don’t want this.”

    As the leader and his tribe move in on the boy, he spits out the words: “Yes you do!”

    Blackout. A scream.

    In both of these short films there is a sense of mind control being exerted against the unsuspecting heterosexual boys, almost a quality that one senses on the horror films such as in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers or the later Night of the Living Dead, with elements of the phalanx of vampirettes in Dracula. Surely bathrooms in the world which these films present are no longer safe for straight boys who if nothing else might be tempted to behave in a manner they never thought possible previously.

     I should mention, that I do not find rape to be a laughing matter, but here the film is not a realistic portrait, but a satiric vision of what a fevered heterosexual might ridiculously fear in such bathroom encounters.

 

Los Angeles, October 21, 20022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (October 2022).