Kevin Rios | Little Bill's Peep Show / 2017

true porno

by Douglas Messerli

 

Kevin Rios (screenwriter and director) Little Bill's Peep Show / 2017 [8 minutes]

 

Bradley Fitz (Vlad Chebo), a gay student, has hooked with a Grindr guy (Michael Wetherbee), and has asked his straight roommate, Bill—known by his family as Little Bill (John DiMino)—to be out of the room at the hours when he plans to meet up with his friend.

     Little Bill, however, thinks it might be fun to hook up a hidden camera to catch all the gay action, of which we see only a few seconds, mostly while Bradley fucks his partner under the sheets. But when Little Bill sends in out on the internet, it goes viral. Bullied, embarrassed, and belittled, Brad puts a gun to his head and kills himself.

     This nightmare tale, told by our midnight peep show story teller, happens far too often to young men who are bullied in this manner, a sad statistic that usually ends with the news of the young gay, lesbian, or trans figure’s death.

     But in this case director Rios, via his storyteller narrator decides to take it further, turning it into a story of awful revenge. Frankly, I find the continuation of this sad story cheapens and denigrates the reality of all those who really felt there was no way out, and were destroyed by an intolerant society.

     But, obviously there are many viewers who feel that it’s utterly justifiable to turn the dead boy into a vengeful zombie, who determines to visit Little Bill’s home and seek his revenge. “What would happen,” asks the narrator, “if homophobia were deadly,” like a kind of disease?

      The camera zooms in on Fitz’s roommate’s family domain. The denizens of that house, other than Little Bill, include his monstrous father, Big Bill (David Nash) and a drunken harridan of a mother, Greta Baby (Rew Star), who both argue that their son’s roommate deserved to die for his homosexual perversions. Little Bill is shocked by the entire series of incidents, tortured by the fact that his actions have led to Bradley’s death, and finds his own parents to be the true monsters. His very attitude gets a black eye from his father, who insists that his son should feel utterly no guilt.

     At that moment Bradley, fresh from the grave, shows up at their doorstep, eating through the mean fleshy football fan before he can even close door in his face. The mother, Greta Baby, yells for her son to get the gun, as she attacks the zombie by herself.

      By the time Little Bill reaches the porch with the gun and shoots off into the air to scare the monster off, the zombie is eating his mother’s heart as Billy stares in horror. He tries to explain to his now former roommate just how sorry he is for what he did, admitting that he was probably jealous, and revealing that he, himself, is actually gay.

      His confessions, however, have no effect, as the dead boy goes straight for a kiss, delivering up Little Bill’s mother’s tongue.

       This little gruesome moral homily, I argue, is not for those who truly care about the effects of homophobia. Rios simply uses the serious pain it has caused as a cheap narrative device.

 

Los Angeles, September 18, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2025).