a world of no future
by
Douglas Messerli
Sam
Bowen and Paul Dower (screenplay), Paul Dower (director) Camp Horizons /
2018 [8 minutes]
Paul
Dower’s Camp Horizons is basically an insignificant film about a very
important issue, conversion therapy for gay men. Young Aiden (Matthew Hanish)
has entered the therapy of this so-called “camp,” to please his mother, and has
been assigned a room with, to his surprise, a former lover, Lucas (Griffith La
Victoire).
Lucas, so he explains, has been hooked up
with Aiden because he has returned, now for the third year, as a “redeemed”
individual whose life has changed since his “cure” from his homosexual
tendencies. But even on the first night of their sharing a room, he discusses their
former affair, Aiden’s fears, and before Aiden can even say anything attempts
to kiss him.
The
incident, even though Aiden has not responded, has led to the young man’s “punishment”
by camp directors.
In 8 minutes, it is difficult to explain
whatever hogwash the camp directors are trying to use to convince Aiden to “redeem”
him. But in the last minutes of this truly ineffectual film, Aiden—when Lucas apologizes
about the last evening while even insisting that Aiden needed to be punished
for his own relapse—finally confronts him, suggesting that, in fact, he hasn’t
at all changed. “How do you pretend. As if you are different? Lucas, you’re
living a lie. …Why can’t you just accept who you are?”
Lucas’s answer is quite devastating, if
entirely mistaken: “Because no one else will.”
What Lucas means, apparently, is that he
cannot accept himself against any one else’s vision of reality. I am
frightened that one day he will marry a woman with that view in mind and make
life miserable for everyone, including himself. This is a world of no possible
future as a full human being.
At least, it appears that Aiden is packing
up to leave.
This is not only a lame film, but the
answer is equally meaningless. I don’t know where these young men live, but
they ought to move out of town as soon as possible, leave their families behind
and discover a world of other possibilities.
And frankly I don’t believe in the myth
Dower has created. Certainly, even Oklahoma City where he grew up, must have
permitted other opportunities. He went on to work later on some major films. If
you’re going to deal with such a charged issue, you do have to produce
something beyond what gets said in this film.
The movie appears on IMDb, but has not
even posted to Letterboxd and other sources, and I can guess why. It now
appears on YouTube.
Los Angeles, July 24, 2026
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2026).
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