Seamus O’Dare | Stung / 2016

just looking

by Douglas Messerli

 

Seamus O’Dare (screenwriter and director) Stung / 2016 [10 minutes]

 

Angus (Kieran Iyer) wakes up in a Dimitri’s (Adrian Osman) bed, quickly takes a shower, reminds his friend of their sex and despite Dimitri’s question, “fancy round two?” suggests he’s just “looking” and heads off.

     In the next frame we discover that he keeps records of everyone, but until he visits his transvestite friend, Poppy (Marcus Massey), we couldn’t have known that he’s now slept with every available gay man in a five- mile radius and he’s still single.

     Poppy jumps up, “What!?” He hands her his little book.

     “How many?”

     “62.”

     “I don’t know whether to shake you by the hand or disinfect you!”

     But she is amazed when she discovers that he has even been to bed with “One-armed Leo. Not “Pissy-Pete!”

     “What do you suggest then,” Angus asks.

      “How about a normal man.”

      “Well, that’s pretty rich coming from a Tranny psychic!”

      Together they decided to check out the one man left on Angus’ list.

      “Jason, 22,” wants “No beach walks or basic bitches,” but Angus says he’s never on line.

      But when Poppy checks him out on Stingr, she finds that he’s available at the local bar at that very moment. Poppy likes the look.

       The place is empty. But Jason is at the bar, and Poppy finds him “gorgeous!” Poppy demands that she will introduce him to Angus. Jason recognizes Poppy as having been in the bar previously, she stressing that obviously she might be “hard” to miss. Jason interrupts, pointing out to Poppy that she was supposed to introduce him.

      “Introduce yourself,” she insists. But Jason suggests he already knows Angus; “You sent me a dick pick back in May.”

       Jason explains that Angus is not his type—but Poppy most certainly is. A few minutes later we see Jason leaving with Poppy in hand.

       In the last frame, Dimitri shows up for a dinner with Angus. Was Angus the best of the 62 men, and might they hit it off as human beings out of bed as Dimitri recalls they did inside the covers? Or is Angus simply tracking back his conquests in reverse? There’s an old cliché somewhere haunting this silly film about burning bridges.

 

Los Angeles, August 6, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2023). (screenwriter and director)