This docuseries is a lively and personal look at what it’s like to be queer in New Zealand today. Hosted by the really charming Aniwa Whaiapu Koloamatangi, it feels like you're being invited into all these different parts of the rainbow community that usually don't get much time on TV. The first season is made up of six episodes, each about 30 minutes long, and they all dive into different topics like family, faith, and the specific experience of being Takatāpui, which is the Māori queer identity. It does a really nice job of balancing the tough history of the LGBTQ+ community with a lot of modern-day happiness and pride. The show starts with Aniwa traveling all over the place to meet folks from every walk of life to see how their background and identity mix together. In the first episode, Aniwa actually takes his first HIV test, works through some stuff from his childhood by playing rugby with the NZ Falcons—one of the country’s gay teams—and checks out what Rainbow Youth is d...
As a kid Remington runs around his village pointing "Homo! Homo!" to all gay folks in his town making fun of them. One day at a cemetery, he picks a wrong person to mess with. He is a grieving man, who curses Remington that he will be gay when he grows up. Circa 15 years later, the town is seeing murders of gay people. Remington is all grown up and meets a girl whom he starts fancying, but he dreams every day of a monster trying to hill him and over multiple nights, his machismo is being stripped turning him into a feminine gay. On the first night, his goatee and body hair vanish; after the second, he’s prone to speaking in effeminate slang; and so on. Struggling to understand the changes, his mother at the same time is trying to find the killer. Apparently the killer has been using a ray gun that identifies gays and zaps them with electric shock. Remington traces the guy who cursed him and the only cure is if a straight man would willing swap places with him. Eventually the killer's identity is revealed and Remington's prior homophobic father agrees to swap places with him because he has his whole life ahead of him.
Although touted as horror-comedy, the film clearly relies a lot more on comedy aspects. I must warn that this is a campy comedy, and as I mentioned before, a lot of dialogues and situations could be offensive to people with serious sensibilities, but personally I thoroughly enjoyed the camp and goofy and absurd plot of the film and quite enjoyed it without taking anything seriously. I thought rather than mocking gays in general, the film maker was taking a passive aggressive approach to mocking so called straight men who pick on gays. One thing to note is that such films usually end up replying on adult humor, but this film is total PG which relies mostly on acting and dialogues to provide the humor. The whole film replies of the lead actor playing Remington's shoulders and he does a swell job of it, particularly in the scenes where he begins to transform and reels in disgust at his feminine mannerisms and his newly adopted cute terminology. Other remaining actors have one note acting but they are all extremely good in providing humor quotient, especially the side kick constable in the police station. The zombie effects used are simple, low budget, but hey the idea of the film is to entertain, which it surely does. Thanks to the lead actor and his amazing acting, this whimsical zombie, campy comedy becomes a worth watch and a good use of your time. For a change, try to not take everything so seriously and enjoy a film. It might just surprise you. (6/10)
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