Brian Stemmler | Low / 2006

on the downlow

by Douglas Messerli

 

Philip Anthony Traylor (screenplay), Brian Stemmler (director) Low / 2006 [30 minutes]

 

This short film from 2006 features a larger than usual number of cast members as it traces the consequences of several selfish acts on the part of most of its characters.

     Moreover, the film features an almost entirely black cast and speaks of issues that are not often openly discussed in some of the black community.

     Alex (Tanjareen Martin), an attractive woman has found that her boyfriend has been cheating, and accordingly is determined to take her revenge upon all men.  

     Meanwhile, a happy heterosexual man, Miles (Philip Anthony Traylor) with a wife and children he loves, yet is so involved in his job he can’t even hear his wife’s complaints about his inability to spend more time with them. His wife, Mattie (Malia Dawkins) finally leaves him with his children, leaving a gaping hole in his life.

     Alex, as the film progresses, begins a process of picking up men in a local bar, taking them to bed and them scolding them for their behaviors and their lack of wearing a condom.

     Miles becomes so distracted from his work that his boss sends him home to rejuvenate himself for the next day, and, as often happens, the unhappy man who has lost everything that has meaning to him, gravitates to the bar to get drunk simply relieve his painful memories of happier times.

     Alex lures the drunken family man into her hotel room, but when she begins to make love, he pulls back, arguing that he has to go home. She pulls him back into bed, and again he tries to free himself, finally giving into her sexual allure.

     She awakens, fully dressed with Miles missing. However, soon after he shows up with flowers, handing to her before she can pronounce her usual warning to her male victims.

     Returning home, Miles discovers that his wife has returned, missing him and still wanting to reclaim and redeem their relationship.

      So why, I now wondered this late into the film, was this short movie listed on “Gay Films Matter?”

      We now see Alex explaining to her female confident Jordan (Laura Hayes) what actually happened to make her want to punish all the males she encounters. Her boyfriend Eric (Desmond Hardy) was not only unfaithful to her, but was having sex with another man and, most importantly, has made her HIV-positive.

      So now we realize her vengeance on the men around her has had terribly serious consequence, probably infecting them purposely as well. Our immediate question is what will happen to our truly devoted father and his wife?

       A quick flashback to the motel scene has her explaining to Miles that the two of them did not have sex since he was very drunk.

       Her previous boyfriend Eric, however, we now see on the phone to his gay lover, explaining to him not only that he is not gay, but he is more interested in women so that he cannot possibly move in with him. He spots Alex walking down the street and follows her in an attempt to perhaps make up. That is until he reads the sign on the door to the building she has just entered: “AIDS support group meeting today.” Presumably that is how he discovers his own condition.

       Former child-actor Stemmler’s production is far more confusing than it needs to be and lacking, at least in the Vimeo version in which I saw it, proper sound ambiance. But it has to be lauded for its attempt to show how duplicity, selfishness, and lies effect not just oneself about often entire communities.

     The title not only expresses the feelings of both Alex and Miles, but suggests those, particularly in the black community who identify as heterosexual and are often even married, but have regular sex with gay men as in, for example, Abagail Child’s 2007 film On the Downlow, released the year after this short work.

 

Los Angeles, July 25, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2026).