Coming Attractions: An Orgy of Gay Erotic Movie Trailers 🥱,
dir. Elizabeth Purchell, 2025, USA, 76 min.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025, 10:00 pm, Roxie Theater
🌐 World premiere
(preceded by the short 🙂 GANGBANG; see below)
🔞⚠️ content advisory: the main feature contains abundant explicit sex
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Coming Attractions: An Orgy of Gay Erotic Movie Trailers |
Once upon a time, a porno film wasn’t something you pulled up on your computer or smartphone, or even took home on VHS from the video rental place. You had to go in person to a brick-and-mortar movie theater and watch whatever they had scheduled. For a while in the 1970s, gay porn films began to have higher production values, with a story and characters, and so they also made movie trailers to entice you to come see what they had scheduled for next week. (Some years later, a magazine ad for VHS porn videos proudly proclaimed “No unnecessary plots or dialogue!!”) Unfortunately, today these previews feel a little like shopping for porn on QVC. However, director Elizabeth Purchell spliced together about 20 trailers from that era for you to see and maybe even enjoy.
You see a few familiar filmmakers from the VHS era, including Toby Ross and William Higgins, and even a couple of familiar titles, including Kansas City Trucking Company and 👎 Le beau mec (which played in a restored print at Frameline47 in 2023), along with a lot of works that are (mostly deservedly) long forgotten. It’s all very interesting in terms of the history of gay male erotic film, but of very little erotic interest. As the director said, after a few minutes, you get numb to the sensory overload of seeing so many sex acts on screen; even if you find some of the sex scenes erotic in isolation, the cumulative effect is much less than the sum of the (body) parts. Highly recommended for film historians, but otherwise only tepidly recommended as a curiosity.
• IMDb (director) • trailer • official website •
GANGBANG 🙂, dir. Christian Meola, 2023, USA, 6 min.
⚠️ content advisory: the short DOES NOT contain explicit sex, not even nudity
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| GANGBANG |
The filmmaker describes it as “Six gay porn actors stare back at you while you wait for their scene to start.” We see six men standing around, either fully clothed or shirtless, smiling at the camera, barely moving and not saying a word. Meola also says that GANGBANG was originally envisioned as a piece to play in the background at a gallery, but was re-edited to make this short film.
The guys are attractive, and have nice smiles (and dimples for days!), but to me it felt more like “six men stare at you while they wait for you to leave so they can start the orgy.” Recommended, especially if you think the guys are hot, but the film is not actively sexual.
• IMDb • trailer • official website: ChristianRMeola.com/gangbang • Instagram: @ChristianRMeola •
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