Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Nora Dahle Borchgrevink and Lyndon Henley Hanrahan | I Hope He Doesn't Kill Me / 2024

imagining what’s behind the door

by Douglas Messerli

 

Lyndon Henley Hanrahan (screenplay), Nora Dahle Borchgrevink and Lyndon Henley Hanrahan (directors) I Hope He Doesn't Kill Me / 2024 [13 minutes]

 

A cute young man, Buzz (Lyndon Henley Hanrahan) pushes the buzzer to the door of his anonymous Grindr hookup, but just before anyone answers, he suffers, time and again, various scenarios that might play out within.


     In first the horrifying vision, he is tied up and bound in an S&M date with the man suggesting that he is going to skin him alive and eat him, a knife already put to the boy’s throat. The young man suggests that he has eczema.

     In the second fantasy he has met up with a handsome man who drugs him by offering him a glass of water. They also fight over language, the young man arguing the other’s words are so “not sexy.” But all of that doesn’t matter in the end, since our young hero simply passes out.

     Another is into pills, chemsex, “G,” “X,” and “MDMA.” Yet another believes in having sex they were “generationing,” he passing on HIV, convinced that he was the boy’s “gift giver,” and Buzz was his “bug chaser,” turning Buzz, as he describes it, into an HIV-positive sex prostitute.


      The next ring of the buzzer brings Buzz into contact with a man who simply likes to imagine others on the street wondering what might be happening with the flashing “speckles” in his bedroom, and has scheduled a uber to show up just after Buzz and he have retired into bed.

      Buzz’ imagination next calls up a young man who seems to be as terrified of the killer behind the door as he is, which young hero describes as a “miscommunication.” But in the very next moment the new encounter asks if he can piss on him.


    The next man has just come out since his “super homophobic” Dad passed away about a half-hour before, having been wrapped in a “Turkey bag” where in he evidently suffocated. The body still lies in the kitchen.

      Perhaps the wildest of Buzz’ imaginings is when he meets up with a young man whose mother is from Sheffield, but who father “fucked off back to Chicago.” It so happens that Chicago is also where Buzz’ family is from.

       Apparently this hookup and he have had good sex since Buzz would like to see this partner again sometime. Indeed, they play a short fantasy game of Buzz’ date meeting up with his Dad in Chicago, in the midst of the game the stranger calling out “Bartholomew,” the first name of his father, Bartholomew Huggins. That just happens to be Buzz’ last name as well, and suddenly the couple realize that they have just committed incest, even worse his half-brother calls out, “gay incest.”

    Why is that worse that “regular incest” queries his Buzz,” his bedmate suggesting that Buzz himself is now pejorating gay incest by describing the heterosexual version as “regular.” His Grindr date determines that they are going to have to kill themselves, holding up a looped rope.


     When the buzzer is actually answered, it turns out to be a nice guy with whom we can presume Buzz has had great sex. But yes, we are reminded that such killers and odd perverts (all performed, in this case, by Vincent Moisy) may just be out there waiting for a visit from an innocent blind Grindr date. These are the fears of the digital age.

      This comic work from the United Kingdom, performed without any British accents, is a beautifully lit and colorful comedy with excellent acting that has made it quite popular on the gay film circuits of 2024 and 2025.

 

Los Angeles, July 2, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2025).

 

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