Tag: 1313

It’s possible to almost love GIANT KILLER BEES! for giving audiences one of the most epic plot lines of the entire 1313 series: a renegade researcher seeking to save the planet’s honey bee population sabotages his own illicit experiments in search of accelerated results. His dumbass efforts accidentally unleash the titular horrors, triggering a global eco-apocalypse (which of course we never see…). His unwitting team of lab rats – another identikit cast of twinks, hunks and jocks – falls prey to the mutant bees’ stings, turning them one by one into mindless killer drones (or ‘zombees’ if you will…).

The 5th entry in the 1313 series suffers from an extreme low budget / limited effort stasis that causes the film to seriously flatline. We’re used to “DeCoteau’s Boys” writhing around in their undies of course, but with one protracted bedroom sequence and two whole shower scenes stuffed into its meagre running time, there’s way too much exploitation padding in this one. This unevenness forces screenwriter Moses Rutegar to dump his load in an excess of premature exposition. Poor Lewis (Darren Anthony Thomas) gets to deliver the worst of this, boring the audience as much as he already has his onscreen girlfriend (Anna/Jillian Nelson).

Such shortcomings are further exposed by stationery store bee hives, face-palm appalling CGI that under-delivers on the title’s premise (we get one giant bee, max…), a kitchen counter lab that looks more like someone’s junior science kit, and swathes of exterior shots seemingly commissioned by the Puerto Rico tourist board (the 1313 mansion of the interiors is actually in Malibu). Your ears will feel mugged by what seems like an entire library of stock scores and scares being thrown at the soundtrack, the filmmakers dramatically over-compensating in the edit for the lack of any actual action.

Along the way we learn some valuable life lessons about the potential for corruption from big money investment in eco science, about not staffing your game-changing lab experiments with soccer playing grad students (who would rather take showers than save the world…), and about how treating your employees like the idiots they are can result in some unruly behaviour. As that swift roundup also suggests, it’s another of the 1313 titles with a mere glimmering of queer character and an obviously – bordering on obsessively! – queer lens.

Speaking of which, soon-to-be zombee Steve (Carey James) gets to star in surely one of the longest bedroom scenes in 1313 history. He writhes around on an ugly duvet for so long you will start to 1) join beecam in getting bored, 2) wonder if there is something actually wrong with him, and 3) marvel at how James rises to the acting challenge (there really isn’t much else the poor guy can do, apart from whip it out…). As is often the way when watching exploitation films, your eye will roam the frame for distracting entertainment. Watch carefully here and you will see Steve’s black socks come and go in the edit, a foot fetisher’s fan dance born of bodged continuity.

In its favour, the startling found footage that bookends everything would set up a much better exploitation film than we actually get and it’s possible to find DeCoteau’s roving beecam innovation strangely enchanting (imagine putting a plastic egg carton over the lens…). Many of the other pleasures are incidental… You’ll either enjoy this cast of twinks – not forgetting twinkette Anna, who magically remains fully clothed – or you won’t.

In brief: A renegade researcher seeking to save the planet’s honey bees accidentally triggers an eco-apocalypse.

In briefs: Despite the film’s promise of honey, DeCoteau’s zombees fail to buzz.

Watched late on DVD, 08 DEC 2019 .

The mothership… 1313: NIGHTMARE MANSION is where the series set in the modern Malibu cliff-top property – David DeCoteau’s self-styled “address of terror” – all started. It’s a neat little affair, but you wouldn’t guess it would kickstart a 14-strong film franchise, even if all of those films were, somewhat incredibly, released over a two year period.

DeCoteau – “the director, producer and all-around slave boy” on this franchise – explains in the DVD commentary that it was “a fever dream one morning… more like a fever nightmare…” that spawned the franchise. Overwhelmed by images of a “Calvin Klein cologne commercial…. guys in underwear, a supernatural, crazy, insane story…” DeCoteau promptly picked up the phone and called screenwriter Moses Rutegar. Despite this being the sprawling franchise’s rude awakening, it didn’t limit DeCoteau’s creativity, unleashing a total of 20 features in 2011/12 alone. This extensive slate includes such varied fare as CHRISTMAS SPIRIT (2011), 2: VOODOO ACADEMY (2012), and, under the guise of his regular pseudonym Mary Crawford, THE GREAT HALLOWEEN PUPPY ADVENTURE (2012).

Unlike others in the series, NIGHTMARE MANSION has decent character and avoids – or more accurately, delays – some of the padding that drugs later editions. You actually get the sense of something being created rather than churned out here. DeCoteau even boasts sweetly on the commentary about how his lighting and colour coding were attempts to ape the legendary Dario Argento (not quite David…). On the same chat track, he also talks about his micro dolly, a tool that reduces the need for extra crew and allows the camera to glide gracefully over the mansion’s marble floors in pursuit of the underclad cast. This DIY shooting style introduces scope for error – such as an entirely accidental shooting star and the many Speedo/rig reflections in the signature shower scene – but also polishes the film’s veneer. Despite being shot in three days (DeCoteau normally prefers four…), the appropriately episodic run time feels right, reminding us that he can direct – a fact that gets a little lost in the cotton-clad conveyor belt that follows.

The film is helped along by its eye-candy cast, particularly Stephan White as Saddler (aka Satan Jnr.), who communicates a queer malevolence as the reaper of souls. The plot involves Saddler inviting a series of twinks to a party so he can abduct them into a strange secondary world where their clothes disappear and sins harvested, all so that he can deal with his missing mommy / daddy issues. Given DeCoteau’s hands-on casting, all of the assembled sinners give good (enough) ‘twink in headlights’, including Myles Tufts who was apparently auditioned in a late night donut shop. In a strike for equality, there’s even a female victim (Sara Fletcher), who remains dressed in far more than any of the guys.

Overall, it’s a steamier than usual affair, putting paid to criticisms that DeCoteau’s twinks are always self-laceratingly asexual. In addition to DeCoteau’s usual “celebration of the male form”, we get a kinky kiss of a knife blade, a closeted guy finally strokes same-sex skin, and a bewitched hetero couple make-out in the pool as Saddler strokes himself on the sun lounger (not a euphemism…), before joining in.

Once the story is done, we can enjoy the extra padding with scenes that were originally intended to be earlier in the movie. We get the shower scene (from future SURVIVOR winner, Jud Birza) and a bedtime masturbatory fantasy that draws on DeCoteau’s early career porn skillset (“This is Cody [Matthew Blymire] going for it. God bless him.”). Of course, by saving the padding to the end, NIGHTMARE MANSION reminds you that for much of the 1313 franchise, padding becomes the entire movie.

1313: NIGHTMARE MANSION is an enjoyable if protein/plasma-light straight-to-streaming horror flick. Step over the threshold of its charms and let the delirium of the entire cast appearing in only their undies take hold. The minimalist wardrobe kinda, maybe makes sense and the hand drawn artwork in the party invitations given to each of the victims adds a nice tactile dimension to the myth-making. In a masterstroke of mise-en-scène, the tipped-over alter candles by the poolside – each one representing a sinner’s soul – convey something far more sexually sinister than anything in the rest of the series.

One of our favourites.

We’ll tackle the strapline A Supernatural Thriller For Girls! in a future sidebar… but the addition of some punctation around the word “Girls” just about fixes it.

In brief: The devil’s progeny harvests twinks’ sins in an attempt to get his mommy back.

In briefs: 5 out of 5. An arousing inaugural entry in the 1313 series.

Prone to losing garments, Cody Matthew Blymire went on to play ‘GoGo Boy’ in Caytha Jentis’ queer comedy THE ONE (2011). Jud Birza reappears in MY STEPBROTHER IS A VAMPIRE!?! (DeCoteau as Mary Crawford again, 2013) and then 90210 SHARK ATTACK (2014, also DeCoteau). Mak DeGennero appears in the title – if not film! – of our times, Craig Edwards & Samuel Morris’ FAKE NEWS (2017). Sarah Fletcher gives good TV for much of here career before appearing in something that sounds like a DeCoteau/Mary Crawford vehicle, but actually isn’t… PAWPARAZZI (by Ari Novak, 2018).

Moses Rutegar gets the screenplay credit.

Watched late on DVD, 26 MAY 2019 .