BOY!OH!BOY!
DO WE EVER FORGET OUR FIRST CRUSH!?
DIRECTOR CARTER SMITH BRINGS BACK ALL OF THE FEAR, HORROR, AND SEXUAL COMPULSION OF HIGH-SCHOOL LUST IN HIS SPOOKY CULT SHORT FILM BUGCRUSH
Bugcrush takes the cliché of the high school crush and pumps it with the actual terror that it is. In the dark, thirty-six-minute debut film by fashion photographer turned writer/director Carter Smith, the protagonist, Ben (effectively played by the delicate Josh Caras as a combination of shy and adventurous), is immediately drawn to the snarling new bad boy at school, Grant (rugged Ryan McGinley muse Donald Cumming). Ben stalks Grant, watching from his car in the school parking lot as Grant keeps sneaking into the woods with two other outcasts. Grant notices Ben’s flirty attention and doesn’t seem to mind. Who is hunting whom? Christopher Thomas
Ben (Josh Barclay Caras) is a shy loner in high school who becomes intrigued with the new kid in class -- dark, lanky, brooding, Grant (Donald Eric Cumming). Ben goes out of his way to befriend the new kid even though his friends fear the guy’s not gay/ is probably a druggie/ and will eventually beat him up. But Grant invites Ben to come over to his house one night after school. He lives way out in the country in a secluded house, and his mother is out of town getting a divorce. And Ben goes along for the ride accompanied by two weird friends of Grant, not knowing the creepy horror that awaits him. This is sexy and scary, something like what a collaboration between David Cronenberg and Gregg Araki might look like, and it really gets under your skin. It took me weeks to shake it off and I watch it repeatedly with friends marveling at the way it was shot -- and listening to the fascinating ambient sounds in the background. Carter Smith has just completed shooting the big budget film version of The Ruins, that terrifying novel by Scott Smith, which comes out next Spring and I can’t wait it see what he does with that horrific premise. He’s really a director to watch.
TO READ THE FULL STORY, CHECK OUT V44,
ON NEWSSTANDS EVERYWHERE NOVEMBER 15, 2006
Photography Darren Lew
For information: www.bugcrush.net
One of the best films I’ve seen is a long time is a 36-minute-long gay/horror short by Carter Smith called Bugcrush, and it’s finally available from
Strand Releasing on the new DVD release Boy’s Life 6, along with several other short films. Carter Smith was a fashion photographer who also directed commercials for Lancome and Tommy Hilfiger, but this macabre mini-masterpiece was based on a short story by Scott Treleaven and it’s dark and disturbing and just brilliant.
