The only place you might find more half-naked men together in one room is either at Crunch Gym in Midtown Manhattan or between the pages of an International Male catalog. “Night Shadows” might be best described as an ultra low budget, homoerotic, short horror film. In response to the depression that accompanies turning 30, Matthew (Jerry G. Angelo) does what many desperate, oversexed Gen Xers would and turns to the Internet. He meets David (Brent Gorski) in a chat room and invites him over to his house in the middle of the night. David arrives and the two immediately hit it off despite Dave’s rather frightening (but apparently exciting) threats. David then decides to steal a crystal necklace off a table while Matthew isn’t looking (apparently something makes him think he can get more than $3 from an aging hippie for the useless article). The burglary unnoticed, the new friends have sex and after taking a nap, Matthew, sensing something is wrong, roams around the house. David is M.I.A, loud noises shutter and distant shadows skulk around every corner (hence the title) as Matthew tries to identify the source of his worries. The strongest areas of the film take a cue from “Halloween” (a figure visible only to the audience moves across the background, while Matthew, looking another way fills the foreground, for example) and are actually a bit creepy. Matthew continues to lurch around the house as strange events progress.
The short plays out a bit too much like a student film and the homoerotic angle is overdone. At times it even seems clumsy and, most unfortunately, it eventually gets in the way of the attempt at horror. The aesthetic composition in the film has its moments, the acting isn’t bad and while the sound design and music are anything but subtle, they’re fairly well done (other than a very phony cat meow). “Night Shadows” does give the world something new to fear, rabid Calvin Klein models.
