Over-done and under-developed at the same time.

*spoilers*



The Christmas Turkey wasn't the only thing overstuffed in this movie!

Tackling abortion, adoption, aging in the gay community, coming-out, child abuse, death of a parent, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, incest, murder, prostitution, religion, stripping/burlesque, transgender issues and some more cliches I am likely forgetting in one film was a mistake!

Any or two of these topics is a fine one for a film but when you throw them all together in 2 hours with actors ranging from amazing (Steven Webb) to pretty bad (Benn Northover's Jake and the worst American accent I can remember in a recent film) it comes off as something an overly earnest middle-schooler cooked up for a parents night play.

It doesn't help that the movie plays with so many different genres at once! Gay sexploitation? Check! Romantic comedy? Check! Weepy AIDS drama? Double check!

It just plain didn't work. Starting a film with a boy running through a corn field and cartoon birds and ending it with a guy screaming on his knees in agony just doesn't compute.

I liked the movie for what it was in the first hour. A light romp about a boy coming of age stripping and learning lessons about life aet to an 80's beat. I kept thinking, "oh, this is kind of sad because these kids are coming of age and being wild and care-free in the time of AIDS". Then the second hour hit and I was like "Oh. I guess we get to live that horror now too.". Like there haven't been 100 other gay films about the same thing in the last 20 years. We should never forget the terrible legacy of the AIDS epidemic. But can't we tell stories where it doesn't have to show up like an unwanted relative in the third act all the time?

Oh and did I forget there was an under-developed plot about a boy aging out of stripping and murdering his dad that was never shown? Or the House of Boys den mother's adopted son coming home? How was any of this necessary?

House of Boys, from it's soft-core cover image to it's half-baked plot, was a flop for me. Pretty people will only bring a film so far.