Note: There are spoilers for the film below
I haven’t stopped thinking about Stephen Dunn’s CLOSET MONSTER since I first saw it last summer. The elemental body horror, which turns 10 this year, bills itself as a drama/fantasy/mystery, but those genre labels do it a disservice for its horrifying real-world implications and how it beautifully and tragically captures the coming-out experience. It’s perhaps the most important transformation for queer people – finally accepting yourself enough that you can’t help but scream at the top of your lungs from a mountaintop. It’s one of those “I feel so seen” movies that I desperately wish had been made when I was a kid.
The story revolves around Oscar (Connor Jessup) during his coming out. He’s best friends with Gemma (Sofia Banzhaf) and has a crush on his new work colleague Wilder (Aliocha Schneider). He has ambitions of going to a film makeup school in New York City and frequently works on his portfolio by taking elaborate shots of Gemma in full makeup, including as a sea monster. His relationship with his father, a low-key bigot, hangs by a thread. Ever since his mother Brin (Joanne Kelly) divorced Peter (Aaron Abrams), Oscar has been a mess, as he confesses to his mother late in the film.
One of Oscar’s most transformative memories was witnessing a gay teen being assaulted in a cemetery. Now, as a teen himself, that devastating moment sticks out in his brain to such an extent that whenever he experiences intense sexual attraction, a metal rod pokes from inside his stomach. It’s agonizing, as he attempts to reconcile his gay identity with how he was brought up. He also has a tendency to puke up metal bolts, which he does during a costume party after making out with another teen.
These troubling body-horror sequences fully resemble what it means to come to terms with one’s sexuality. I grew up in a Christian home, where I was taught that being gay was a sin. I knew I was different from all the other boys in gym class. I mean, I watched Will & Grace and felt a deep kinship with Jack and Will. They lived so openly and unapologetically. And I longed to feel what they felt – that being gay was no big deal and not a reason to be condemned for an eternity in the lake of fire. (I’ve since learned that “homosexual” never appeared in the Bible until 1946 but that’s for another day and another essay).
Much like Oscar, I struggled in high school with what I knew to be true in my heart. But to be fair, all the signs were there: I adored Britney Spears, performed dance moves in the front yard, played with barbies, enjoyed dressing up, and sought after gay porn on the home computer. It was all right there on the surface. I didn’t really try to hide it but did deny it, particularly when an online friend I’d met in an MSN chatroom told my best friend that I “wrote like a girl.” I was a zealous Christian; I read my Bible every single day, prayed at every meal, and “spread the Word,” as they say. I had no intention of coming out then, even though it was a daily tug-of-war to keep it all bottled up. It felt as though I had a metal rod in my stomach, too, that mixed up my insides and gave me the most terrible pain.
I didn’t come out until college, when I met gay men in the theater department and was surrounded by open minds and open hearts. I remember it all so clearly. In the spring semester of 2006, I starred in Bat Boy: The Musical. When that wrapped up, I went on a summer vacation to Clearwater, Florida, with my friends Brian and Aileen. I was secretly talking to a guy I’d met online, who wanted me to move out to Denver, Colorado – but I digress. Two weeks after we got back home, I decided to make the leap and finally come out to everyone in my life. I’d built it all up as some immense, life-altering moment, but really, it was a relief. I suppose it did alter my life’s trajectory, in a way. I could live free, untethered to the shackles of Christianity’s bogus rules.
Oscar’s plight hit very close to home. Another significant milestone in his story was attending a “faggoty” party, as his father put it. During a heated conversation, he knocked his father into his closet, grabbed a jacket and fur cap, and bolted out the front door. That night of drug-fueled dancing and making out with a stranger proved to be instrumental in his coming out. After waking him up when he passed out on the bathroom floor, Wilder took him home, where they crashed in Oscar’s treehouse. They confided in each other, growing increasingly intimate with one another, and Oscar was never the same afterward.
The moment he truly accepted himself came later that day. After visiting his mother, he came home to all of his belongings sitting in a giant heap on the curb. His hamster, Buffy (voiced by Isabella Rossellini), was dead, and his father in a blinding rage. As his parents engaged in a screaming match, Oscar pulled the rod from his stomach and smashed a birdhouse. Brin and Peter looked aghast before Oscar turned his attention to Peter and slowly approached him, eventually locking him in the house with the metal object. He trapped all those ill feelings and self-loathing with his father, never to be touched or able to escape ever again. It was a liberating moment he’ll remember for the rest of his life.
Years later, I came out as non-binary and legally changed my name, and it was equally monumental for me. I finally had the words to pinpoint exactly who I was. CLOSET MONSTER was an essential component of my coming-out story, which never really ends. I was never the same after that first viewing. The film perfectly captures my journey, and I’m forever grateful for Oscar and Connor Jessup’s layered performance. It changed me, and I hope for you, dear reader, that it has the same lasting impact. It’s that transcendent.
Tags: Aaron Abrams, Aliocha Schneider, Bee Delores, Bobby Shore, Body Horror, Bryan Atkinson, Canada, Connor Jessup, Drama, Elevation Pictures, Isabella Rossellini, Jack Fulton, Joanne Kelly, LGBT+ Horror, Mary Walsh, Maya Postepski, Mystery, Sofia Banzhaf, Stephen Dunn, Todor Kobakov
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