Groupers: homophobia is so totally gay

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

21 APR 2019

Groupers is a funny and nasty film with the tagline "Homophobia is so totally gay!" It is also impossible to summarize without giving away the twists and surprises that the film uses to build suspense and comedy. Suffice it to say that it begins with Meg (Nicole Dambro) kidnapping two young frat boys Brad (Peter Mayer-Klepchick) and Dylan (Cameron Duckett). She lures into the back of a van with the prospect of sexual favours but instead drugs them and ties them up, quite elaborately, in an empty graffitied swimming pool.

They are there to help her with her graduate thesis - she stops using the word "experiment" as it makes them uncomfortable - which aims to determine whether or not "homosexuality is a choice."  From there things get weird as the experiment spirals out of control. 

The cat and mouse interplay between Meg and the boys is hilarious, disturbing and deliciously explicit. And contains a lot of discussion about sexual preferences, homophobia and bullying. Writer/director Andrew Cowan also introduces the audience to a Tarantino-esque structure where flashbacks fill in the story and end with a reveal - a gag or plot pint that has been carefully hidden by the way the shot that triggered the flashback was framed. It works satisfyingly every time, often to great comic effect. It also keeps all the proceedings off kilter so that every loopy character and plot twist becomes plausible.

It also, unfortunately, leads to repetitious dialogue that cries out for the pace of a '40s New York screwball noir instead of California mellow. Not that the dialogue isn't clever, funny and full of ideas, it just doesn't snap quite enough. Here too the Tarantino influence appears, Durant (Terrance Wentz) is a proponent of do it yourself gentrification and other erudite subjects. He is prone to monologue about all of them. He is also muscle bound, hunky and his swaggering explanation of sexual preferences, specifically his own, is a highlight.

Durant's henchmen, a pair of drug-addled petty criminals with grandiose delusions, and Talkie (Brian Ioakimedes) the mysterious mute man on a tricycle, are all sight gags, punchlines or plot escalators. Sometimes all three at once. More central is Orin the Hooded Homo (Jesse Pudles) who is a flamboyant gay boy with aspirations to be a super villain. It is complicated. But also integral as our loyalties and beliefs keep being supported, challenged and upended. As soon as we side with Orin, he goes off the rails and makes us cringe.

It is hard not to feel for the cute dumb blond Dylan, but he is also despicable and obviously under the sway of Brad, who is deplorable. They both have shortcomings or problems to explain, but not excuse, their bullying. And Meg who we initially cheer on in her queer revenge quest, is a bit of a sadistic bitch. Which of course just makes her more lovable. Her thesis is - SPOILER ALERT - not a success but we do learn, fairly definitively, that homosexuality is not a choice.