FANTASPOA 22 (2026)— LABYRINTH OF LOST BOYS (2025) / BAGWORM (2026) / THE KIRLIAN FREQUENCY (2025)

Fantaspoa’s regional premiere of Matheus Marchetti’s “erotic thriller” Labyrinth of Lost Boys (2025) suggests that a horror specific to gay subculture is how sexual desire and promiscuous curiosity cloud good judgment and threaten personal safety; a theme previously and famously explored by William Friedkin’s controversial Cruising (1980). On a shadowy night in a large city young men are lured through a door into a stranger’s apartment where, during anonymous sex, they are murdered. Despite this publicized danger, small-town resident Pedro (Lucas Bocalon) is drawn to the city where he takes great risks in seeking a soulmate. 

A subtle critique of how gay men are socialized at the same time that they are marginalized within their own subculture, Labyrinth negotiates the sad tension of anticipation, rejection, and the eventual frustration of romantic ideals. It’s admirable in its endeavor to characterize risky sexual behavior as internalized homophobia and self-loathing—not caring enough for oneself to watch out for one’s safety—but its “eroticism” caters to a narrow audience. It lacks the prurient charge of, let’s say, Heated Rivalry, and it is less “thriller” than a gloomy meditation on bad judgment’s gamble with bad luck as it hazards fate. 

Oliver Bernsen’s Bagworm (2026) opens with a rapid photocollage of an adorable tow-haired baby becoming a toddler, then a young boy resembling any young boy growing up in a suburban cul de sac, then a normal-looking tween, finally landing on a nebbish and socially awkward man named Carroll who’s just “a little bit off” with some peculiar ideas and a failure at every online date he sets up. What happened to that cute little blonde boy? Naturally, Carroll’s lonely and horny, sideswiping on Tinder and living in squalor, unable to hold down a job. 

And yet … Peter Falls cleverly pitches Carroll with a touch of R. Crumb, David Lynch and David Cronenberg all mixed up together, which is no small feat, especially since—despite his obvious faults—Carroll is oddly likeable. He lacks confidence, yes. His best friend stole his girlfriend and—even when he makes peace with that—Carroll continues to trip himself up in admittedly clumsy and stupid ways, especially when he steps on a nail, doesn’t tend to it, and begins to physically deteriorate before our very eyes. He’s a schmuck, no way around it, but you want his luck to turn around so things can go his way, even a little bit.  

Bagworm is an eccentric and unique film with a rambling narrative seemingly made up as it goes along, but never fails to intrigue and is strangely satisfying. Carroll is a loser to the end when the closing credits dissolve into alphabet soup. You kind of want to know what’s going to happen to him. Is his life a chrysalis and something better is morphing inside? Hard to predict. But my guess would be not.

  

Harbingers of doom, comets have traditionally been associated with disaster (i.e., “ill-starred”) leaving behind misfortune and calamity in their tail. Its role is no different in Cristian Ponce’s animation / live action hybrid The Kirlian Frequency (2025), based on Ponce’s web series of the same name. Structured as an anthology of loosely related events, a skull-masked disk jockey broadcasts his conversations with five visitors to his station live over the airwaves to a small Argentine town named Kirlian while a comet streaks overhead. The conversations are laced with macabre scenarios, noticeably invented, imagined; what might even be called “fake news.” Thus, The Kirlian Frequency comments on the role and influence of media and the way that rumors can veer into fact through fear and guilt, shame and aimed blame. 

The stories that are recounted through each on-air conversation—interrupted now and then with listeners phoning in—are stylistically visualized through animated sequences impressive for their subtle but beautiful palette. I’m presuming this falls under the strength of Hernán Bengoa’s art direction in collaboration with Marcelo Cataldo’s atmospherically lit cinematography. The Kirlian Frequency is an ambitious project, visually engaging, though a bit too talky in its storytelling. Still, talk radio is the point. I guess this is to be expected from a program that drones all night long with fantastic confabulations.