Saint Drogo
The winter sun warms the overnight dew, turning it to mist over the scrubland above the beach, almost empty save for a barefoot white figure who watches as another man pulls a blade from the undergrowth and disembowels himself, a hell of a way to get slim for summer and another nightmare for artist Caleb of his absent ex.
Isaac working the summer season in Provincetown, Cape Cod, he has not returned or been in touch other than a strange delivery of a photograph and dried flowers; finding his boyfriend has had similar dreams, Caleb persuades Adrian to join him on a road trip to see if they can find Isaac, but the welcome from the locals is between indifferent and hostile, other than Eric who inveigles his way into their confidence and their bedroom then hangs around like a bad smell.
Written by Michael J Ahern and Brandon Perras-Sanchez who star as Adrian and Caleb and co-direct alongside Christopher Dalpe, the follow-up from the independent filmmaking team who served over the top slasher madness with Death Drop Gorgeous could not be more different, Saint Drogo as sparse and frosty as the off-season retreat where it is set and filmed, the obvious reference The Wicker Man but a closer comparison Unhappy Birthday.
Named for the patron saint of “coffee house owners, shepherds and unattractive people,” it is an unusual slow-burn horror film in that every character is a gay man, but contrary to what might be expected there is little sense of inclusion or belonging, Caleb and Adrian sleeping on either side of their bed, backs turned to each other, and P-Town a slumbering giant which has settled into comfortable clothes and hibernation and has no interest in intruders and their questions.
Frederic (Christian Matyi) teasing answers to what became of Isaac (Tradd Sanderson), there is a price, the expectation that Caleb will conform and allow himself to be assimilated into the bigwig’s group of friends and their parties, Adrian already having given himself to the easy drugs offered by the shifty Eric (Matthew Pidge) which Caleb has resisted, the outsider who remains uncompromised in his defiance of the way things are done, resisting the pull of the tide.
Generations of gay men conditioned to accept loneliness, isolated from family and losing friends to violence, suicide, drugs, AIDS or because they have been forced to relocate and reinvent themselves, Saint Drogo is about the supposed sanctity of the safe places they have invented which simply impose their own sense of order and obedience, demanding impossible standards on men who are always in competition when fresh meat is on the menu, debutantes offered up for the delectation of the ruling queens, a cult consuming youth and virility like any other.
Saint Drogo is available as a region free Blu-ray direct from Monster Makeup
