The family that gays together stays together...
Um, yeah. Whatever.
Out of fairness to everyone behind The Gays (sorry, couldn't resist), I am not the film's target audience with the possible exception being that I am a film critic and could actually help spread the word about the film.
While I frequently and enthusiastically review LGBT cinema, I am not gay and, as much as I hate to say it, there simply are certain films where it helps to really "get it" in order to fully appreciate it. I have a feeling that The Gays is one of those films. Written and directed by T.S. Slaughter, The Gays centers around two parents, Rod Gay (Frank Holliday) and Bob Gay-Paris (Chris Tanner), passing along anything but your typical parental advice to their two gay sons, Alex (Mike Russnak) and Tommy (Flip Jorgensen).
There is something to appreciate about a film that is relentless in its refusal to do anything politically correct. The Gays is naughty, bawdy, raunchy, and absolutely full-on committed to its pursuit of everything gay. It shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone that Rod Gay and Bob Gay-Paris, whose children were born through an anal pregnancy, are over-the-top in their advice that ranges from how to seduce their friends to parental tips on rimming.
If you don't know, don't look it up.
The Gays has its best moments when it feels a lot like "Saturday Night Live" on uppers, a feeling that doesn't arrive often enough yet when it does arrive is funny and even a little endearing. Unfortunately, it seems like the majority of The Gays is devoted to simply being rude for the sake of rude with humor that isn't particularly funny and scenes that almost as uncomfortably bad as A Haunted House 2.
In case you're wondering, that's bad.
The cast? Well, to be honest they're almost completely irrelevant here. The Gays isn't so much about acting as it is about being able to keep a, you guessed it, straight face while going much further than a good majority of even indie cinema these days.
Technical credits are generally functional and appropriate for what's going on here, but the only real point to The Gays is to see how far this could be pushed and, the end result, is sort of a Benny Hill meets John Waters.
That may not be to your taste, but if it sounds intriguing and you're looking for a little over an hour's worth of escapist fun then it may very well be worth checking out for you.
Me? I'm going to take a shower now. Alone.
Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
