Gus Reed | Free Bench Must Pick Up Today / 2023

a haunted bench

by Douglas Messerli

 

Gus Reed (screenwriter and director) Free Bench Must Pick Up Today / 2023 [6 minutes]

 

I guess this must be a “gay” film because the two boys who pick up the free bench advertised for free, actually a lovely small church-like bench, live together. There’s nothing more to the part of the story.

    Nor, actually to the so-called “horror” film that is very short work promises itself to be. One of the boys, Simon (Davi Santos) begins to see a man on the bench. He knows know one is there, but he sees the figure nonetheless, and his friend, George (Hunter Doohan) begins to worry about the fact that he keeps seeing this presumably ghost sitting on their bench beside their front door, where they’ve placed it. Eventually, in the middle of the night, George also visits the bench to discover the same ghost hovering about him.

      If you’ve seen even a half-dozen horror films, there is absolutely nothing so terrifying going on here. Frankly I see a ghost roaming our house every day. I don’t mean this literally, but after Howard goes to bed and I work late, I feel as if there is still someone in the room, who comes and goes. Obviously, it is just my imagination. Do I need to make a film about the tricky feeling of those who have left you behind, and there are now hundreds, creeping back into your imagination each night? Absolutely not. And there is, alas, no real reason for this short movie.

    Let’s just say, I would have kept the bench and been happy for the extra company.

   These young boys do the logical thing. Post an ad, just as the one which piqued their interest: “Free Bench Must Pick Up Today.”

    Nothing at all happens in this film even a little out of the ordinary, and absolutely nothing about this film is gay, except these cute actors. So please, don’t waste your time.

 

Los Angeles, May 23, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2026).