Scorch Marks: Chris Salvatore and Brandon Shypkowski
There is sex after the apocalypse, even for the last gay man on Earth, in Brendan Haley’s queer apocalyptic horror misfire Scorch Marks.
Hooking up actually isn’t what Beckett (Brandon Shypkowski) is worried about when he wakes up shirtless, alone, and nauseous on a bizarrely red-tinted morning. He’s more concerned about the apparent end of the world.
He might not be the last man on Earth, but he’s alone in this house, and, as he confirms after a quick run outside in the blood-red light, he’s seemingly the only living thing for miles.
He’s the only living thing onscreen for the film’s opening nine minutes, which is rough going, not just for the off-putting intensity of the red filter. Shypkowski’s solo act — as Beckett thinks aloud and rants to himself, and screams at the heavens in frustration, when not throwing up — amounts to a lot of wooden banging and heaving that might leave you begging for the other actors to clock in already.
Finally, once the red storm passes, another character enters the picture: Beckett’s dishy, if dastardly, partner Joel, played by Eating Out hunk Chris Salvatore, a more familiar face, if not any more convincing here than Shypkowski.
Joel first appears in a relatively intriguing flashback. Or is it a vision? Beckett is plagued throughout the film by nightmares and waking hallucinations, even, on occasion, violent visions. And he’s haunted by Joel, who’s actually dead but appears to Beckett in undead, physical form.
His undead look bears a strong resemblance to the monsters of Clive Barker’s 1988 cult classic Nightbreed (director Haley lists gay horror-meister Barker as an influence). But whatever advances have been made in make-up and prosthetics since Nightbreed haven’t been brought to bear here, where it looks like Joel’s demon contacts might fall out any moment.
Although that might be more entertaining than Beckett and Joel’s nonstop bickering. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and these two are stuck rehashing old arguments, volleying vague allusions to past events. Beckett’s accident — what accident? Joel’s dirt being snitched to the Feds — what dirt?
All answers will come in due time, right? Haley could use a firmer grip on balancing when to withhold and when to let the audience in on what the characters know.
The film continually tosses out crumbs of the couple’s backstory rather than diving into Beckett’s present predicament. A flashback takes us back to their first meeting at a bar. Beckett dances gaily and Joel joins in, as Joel, in voiceover, intones a labored spoken word about hooking up. “You were so young then. So breedable.”
A potentially cool, queer last-man-on-Earth story gets lost in dredging through the past. Instead of striking out to learn what happened and what’s left post-apocalypse, Beckett and undead Joel spend the movie re-litigating blame over gripes that no longer matter, like a business deal gone bad that helped bring down their relationship.
A running thread of flashbacks to a fateful launch party for their business at least affords a welcome opportunity to expand the cast. Fayna Sanchez offers warm support as Beckett’s understanding pal Petra, and Nicolas Zuluaga makes a memorable appearance as a company intern.
But all the corporate drama about who did what to whom at their company Trust Industries remains vague, uninvolving, and most importantly, absolutely immaterial under Beckett’s present circumstances. The whole world might be burning for all he knows. What about food and water, and finding help?
Better late than never, the film eventually snaps into focus on the present, following the introduction of another possible survivor of the apocalypse, Leith (Peter Stickles). He brings some urgency to the proceedings, though not enough, as the film never completely frees us from momentum-stalling flashbacks and visions.
Scorch Marks: Vander Von Odd
Occasionally, Beckett is stalked from the shadows by red-eyed wraiths, which, more or less, account for the movie’s few attempts at scares. He also experiences sharp headaches triggered by visions of an otherworldly creature, Tiamat (Boulet Brothers’ Dragula season one winner Vander Von Odd), who looks like a Star Wars bar patron and speaks in epigrams and riddles.
The creature heralds even more doom, or deliverance. Yet their identity and purpose, like so much else, also remain vague, while hinting at cosmic, sci-fi story possibilities that go unexplored.
Instead, this skeleton of a decent post-apocalyptic horror-fantasy stays draped in scraps of soapy drama about a defunct couple and their corporate dirt. After the end of the world, nobody’s gonna be sitting around pulling their hair out over insider trading.
Scorch Marks (★☆☆☆☆) is not rated, and is streaming on Dekkoo. Visit dekkoo.com/scorch-marks.
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