USA, 2023
Review:
JA Kerswell
Possibly the only film whose own press release declares a “cinematic masterpiece” that features a song about sharting. This has been tagged a Queer slasher, but that’s not entirely true. It looks great and has a creepy-looking masked villain and some effective acting—not to mention the welcome distinction of a gay Final Boy. A group of friends head to Fire Island in the off-season to cheer up their grieving friend, but a serial killer in a stag mask is killing off residents with an axe. Sadly, despite an exciting cat-and-mouse chase scene near the end and its fertile paranoia-inducing pandemic setting, FIRE ISLAND left me curiously cold.
Troy (Connor Paolo) is still in a fug and grieving since his boyfriend killed himself at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. His best friend Sam (Annie Fox) convinces him to come for a weekend to Fire Island with her girlfriend Maria (Arielle Diaz), their straight friend Zoe (Kahyun Kim), and her new boyfriend Matt (Liam Burke). Staying at Zoe’s uncle’s house, Troy begins to unwind and reconnect with his friends. However, he is spooked by the island’s resident Crazy COVID Ralph (Timothy V. Murphy), who grabs him and utters indecipherable warnings in a heavy Irish accent, telling him he should flee the island as it is not safe.
The group are not aware that a young woman, who had just FaceTimed her girlfriend in her sexy lingerie, was whacked in the face with an axe by someone in robes and wearing an oversized stag mask with antlers. They are also blissfully unaware that other murders are occurring where the killer is raping and murdering islanders (although not necessarily in that order), as the police are trying to keep it under wraps to avoid panic. Troy catches the eye of a man at a bar (Jonathan Bennett), who disappears before he can be introduced. Back home, the friends are perplexed when personal items and their phones disappear, and they keep finding the door to their house always left open …
FIRE ISLAND is a film fighting with itself. On the one hand, it is striving to be a touching dramedy about a diverse group of friends reawakening optimism in someone who has lost hope for the future. On the other hand, it wants to kill them all with an axe. Slasher movies are often criticised due to their lack of character development. The characters here are somewhat likeable, and there is a believable friendship between Troy and Sam. However, it is a thin line. Much of the first half of the movie follows the group hanging out, taking drugs, arguing and having sex (although tellingly, only of the straight kind). It would be fine if it fleshed the characters out, but we don’t really know anything more about them than when the movie started.
An irony is that they wanted to escape the virus and hostile politics to go to what should be a safe space—only to find something worse and more deadly. The group talks of being in their ‘pod’. Troy is terrified of being touched by strangers in case he gets the virus. Yet they think nothing of going to a crowded bar to catch a drag show and for Troy to break out a guitar to sing a maudlin song on stage. If anything, the pandemic provided a great opportunity to isolate a group of people for a slasher movie staging (which SICK (2022) did really well), but the film undoes that with that scene—yet, at other times, the island is all but deserted (despite at least three murders the police know about).
The film often shows the island’s deer but is ambiguous as to their meaning. Perhaps, given the killer’s stag mask, the prey have become the hunters. It always seems it is striving to say something more interesting than it ever fully realises. FIRE ISLAND also teases a back story for the mayhem where an older gay couple—Jason (Sal Rendino) and Wes (Brian Foyster)—talk amongst themselves about murders out at The Pines three years previously. Yet, this is never really developed. The identity of the killer isn’t a complete cheat, but it doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense, either.
Outside of the obvious masked maniac, the film flirts with ‘70s and ‘80s slashers. In one scene, Troy sees the killer watching him from a neighbouring yard—similar to the scene in HALLOWEEN (1978), where Laurie Strode sees Michael Myers observing her. The effective synth score (by Holly Amber Church) also recalls classic slashers, and the killer’s pre-murder calling card is the ‘80s power ballad I’ll Never Say Goodbye by Extreme Music.
Straight director Myles Clohessy also co-wrote the script. His father, fellow actor Robert Clohessy, plays both a detective in the film and a drag queen called Tammy Spanks (whose whole act seems to be about sharting). The director is quoted as saying: "The film is not just a murder mystery; it’s a love letter to Fire Island and the community that makes it so special," he said "We've worked tirelessly to ensure the film captures both the beauty of the location and the depth of the story.”
FIRE ISLAND predates the Margaret Cho comedy of the same name with its 2021 production date. Why it didn’t appear on HBO until 2023 suggests it too may have—somewhat ironically—been a victim of COVID.
Unfortunately, it is a film that I wanted to like more than I did.
BODY COUNT 9:
Female 4 / Male 5