Anthony Auswat

"Hunting Matthew Nichols"

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:06:23 -0700

Hunting Matthew Nichols explicitly references The Blair Witch Project by name repeatedly throughout its 89-minute running time. However, the movie starts off by capturing the aesthetic and rhythms of true crime documentaries, specifically the ones that have become so popular and commonplace on Netflix and other streaming platforms.

The film is about the disappearance of two teen boys in Canada twenty years ago. And said boys may have had a wayward interest in the occult and perhaps even satanic rituals.

A true crime mockumentary is an interesting approach for a horror (or, actually, horror-adjacent) movie. But there's a huge challenge for the filmmakers here: those real true crime docs are often so compelling that a fictional true crime doc has to up the ante with some kind of crazy spin.

The spin here, I suppose, is that Hunting Matthew Nichols shifts into a found-footage horror movie in its last third. This is a welcome shift, because after a compelling start the movie unfortuntately sags in the middle.

The horror of it all is confined to the film's final minutes. And while that last sequence is creepy, scary, and delightfully unsettling, it doesn't quite make up for the slowly paced lead-up.

Pros: Great bloody climax, pretty good acting, unique mockumentary/found-footage mashup, and if you're into dudes then actor/director Markian Tarasiuk is very easy on the eyes.

Cons: Kind of boring in the middle.

Questions: Are there underlying themes about/metaphors for white/indigenous relations and history?

Final Note: Two boys are missing, so it should be titled Hunting Matthew Nichols and Jordan Reimer. Or Hunting Matthew and Jordan. #JusticeForJordan

"Keep My Soul Sealed Shut"

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 22:55:58 -0700

In Keep My Soul Sealed Shut, which is billed as a gay psychological thriller, Luca and Jax are taking their eight-month relationship to the next level. They ditch the big-city hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, and they move into Jax’s childhood home in a small Arizona town. But every time they visit a creepy storage facility in the middle of the desert, the flickering lights and unnerving noises chip away at their relationship. Both men have disturbing pasts that threaten their stability as a couple and their sanity as individuals.

The author, Patrick J. Kane, is adept at creating an atmosphere of dread, but his real talent is navigating the unspoken complexities of relationships—the way our unresolved childhood issues shape who we are and affect who we love. He's also skilled at drip-feeding the characters' backstories, until it all locks into place and the big picture becomes clear to the reader.

There are some real thrills here, all culminating in a f***ed up climax and ultimately settling on what seems like crazy, messy, real love. It’s a short, dark, twisted, exhilarating read.

"The Supersonic Phallus"

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 06:00:07 -0800

The thrill of discovering something as fantastic, as mysterious, and as possibly dangerous as UFOs serves as an apt metaphor for the way that parts of a person's sexuality, previously repressed, could emerge under the right circumstances, igniting a sense of both wonder and terror.

Sam, a young reporter with a pregnant wife and a kid, falls for a handsome colleague, Dean. Sam grapples with his unexpected attraction, all while he and Dean investigate UFO sightings in Colorado.

The great and cheeky title, The Supersonic Phallus, as well as its 1940s setting, suggests an homage or even an outright parody of the outrageous pulp science-fiction stories of the mid-twentieth century. But Steven Key Meyers's book feels more like gay literary fiction disguised as popular sci-fi. It's sharply observed and well-plotted.

It also feels authentically rooted in a very specific time and place. We're treated to wide-eyed newspapermen chasing a hot story, Cold War paranoia, long-forgotten cultural references, and a budding gay romance between two men trapped in a more conservative era. The amount of research that must've gone into writing this must have been tremendous.

But while the story is full of nostalgia and the real-world concerns of the past, its echoes can still be heard in our present day: we still deal with homophobia, fear of foreign powers, the question of journalistic integrity, the ongoing mysteries of UFOs, and many more themes that are packed in this novel.

Recommended for fans of:

- grounded science fiction

- real UFO history

- stories about gay awakening set in the distant past