After work I was sitting in my room, eating a vanilla cake with rainbow sprinkles, when I received a digital screener of A Closer Walk With Thee. Produced under Altered Innocence, A Closer Walk With Thee seemed to be a coincidental viewing choice as the upcoming release is heavily influenced by a variety of queer topics. Religion and its stance on homosexuality is always a talking point, but this story from Brie Williams pushes the subject one step further by mixing these views with the horror genre. In the film, four Bible thumping young people are trying to bring the Lord into the lives of people in the ghetto when things get a little weird after one of parishioners is caught masturbating to the resident priest. Then, things go from bad to worse when goat heads and gang members infiltrate the house and the ‘perverted’ member of the group starts showing signs of demonic possession. Luckily, the young priest is a self proclaimed exorcist and he’s ready to do battle with the sinister entity residing inside his friend… but not even faith can protect him from the true evil found within. AJ Knight, Gregory Shelby, Kelsey Boze, Megan Hensley and Deborah Venegas star in this surprisingly clever, creepy and uncomfortable story with more blurred lines than any gay club in Los Angeles.
I haven’t been to church or service since I received my confirmation at 14-years-old. Religion just isn’t my thing and I tend to stray from movies that deal with this subject matter. A Closer Walk With Thee is the first red worship movie I’ve given a chance to in years and I’m happy to say it paid off. I was nervous that this film was going to introduce the ‘pray the gay away’ lie as a way to combat the supposed possession and that notion was horrific in itself. Instead, Brie Williams and John C. Clark went with a completely different approach and tackled the demonic take-over of a gay man much in the same way that it would occur with a straight man. This was invigorating as a viewer because it got the point across that horror is all encompassing and holds no biases and it plants the seed that God’s love can save all, if you believe. I wouldn’t say that A Closer Walk With Thee is preachy and overbearing with the religious aspect, but it is the main focus throughout the first half of the movie. I was waiting for a demon to bust down the door and break up all the bad singing and hymn reading, but alas… I had to wait. The only thing that kept me from hitting the fast forward button during certain scenes was the incredibly studly priest played by Gregory Shelby. If my priest looked like that, I’d be at church every damn day.
Though, I do feel like there was a missed opportunity here. Williams and Clark had the chance to invent a new character, a footnote in horror history, a notch in the bedpost of LGBT cinema viewers – the first gay exorcist. The priest/fledgling exorcist is straight (and extremely good looking, seriously) and that took away from the historical aspect of this movie while also adding a crucial competent – homo-eroticism. Good Lord, A Closer Walk With Thee was two steps and a little bit of twerking away from being the perfect horror porn parody of The Exorcist. Especially during the second exorcism with the young gay man spouting off all the innuendos. More than anything, this is what’s going to reel in the film’s key demographic – the LGBT crowd. A Closer Walk With Thee is filled with so much pining and lusting and fantasizing that it transfers onto the viewer and you’ll watch in slightly aroused anticipation, hoping that the priest and his devout follower get it on at some point. It’s like waiting for the other story to death-drop, but it never does. It’s a tease, a devilishly delightful tease that makes way for a deeper, scarier story. There’s a little give and take in terms of story content here, but this was still a very captivating experience.
A Closer Walk With Thee is tricky, at least in the way I interpreted it. It’s relate-able to some extent. As a gay man myself, there’s been a few times in my life when I’ve lusted after a straight man and thought of scenarios to get closer to them or have them touch me. That’s where I thought this film from producers Williams, Clark, A.R. Chapman, Todd Alcott and Monica Valdovinos was going. I thought that Jordan (AJ Knight) was faking his possession so that Eli (Gregory Shelby) would have a reason to be more involved with him. Or, I thought that Jordan was suffering from the power of persuasion and truly believed he was being leeched on by a demon. Or, I thought that he was so desperate to hide a part of himself, so desperate to gain respect back from his peers that something else was going on. Tragically, this happens a lot across the LGBT spectrum, thankfully without the part of a demon inhabiting people’s bodies. I will say, however, that A Closer Walk With Thee has a definite answer to these ideas and I’m pretty sure I was wrong in all my theories. I think. The machete hacking, blood soaked finale was pretty decisive, but – again – this movie is clever. And I’ll take the open ended road any day.
As I stated a few times above, A Closer Walk With Thee doesn’t follow the traditional story-telling formula. It’s filled with a few plot turns that I saw coming and a couple twists I wasn’t expecting at all. When it goes off the rails and into the realm of horror, it does so quickly and brutally and without lube. It’s a wild ride to the freaky side of homophobia and death. It also doesn’t follow the stereotypical depiction of possession and exorcisms that we see in modern movies. There’s no back-breaking and bug-eating and flying through the air. A Closer Walk With Thee takes a very old school approach to this with violence, speaking in tongues, fearing holy objects and looking ill and deranged. This could have been due to the independent budget that was accumulated, but it made the whole thing more homey. I enjoyed it being toned down in honor of a good story that highlighted extremely professional and realistic acting performances. Kera (Megan Hensley) was hands down my favorite character and not just because she carried around a pillow pet. OK, mostly because she carried around a pillow pet… I hear that A Closer Walk With Thee is coming to VOD and DVD in the very near future and I highly recommend it. It’s the perfect date night movie for LGBT horror fans.
Final Score: 8.5 out of 10.
