A Heaven for Queers

Matthew is an inexperienced gay teen, a byproduct of an evangelical Christian upbringing that instilled guilt and repression as a seeming fact of life for him. A hidden porn magazine is discovered by his best friend, Brandon who turns out to be gay as well. Unfortunately, they are discovered by Matthew's father, who informs Brandon's parents. Matthew is sent away, and the two of them reunite at an ex-gay conversion camp for teens, which they manage to survive and return home. Brandon refuses to lie to his mother about having been "converted" to heterosexuality, and is thrown out of his home. Matthew decides to leave with him, and they attempt to put together a life together. They have better luck than most gay teen runaways, but the film makes it clear the risks and perils they face.

This is one of the strangest gay films I have ever seen. It addresses the "gay and Christian" message on an extremely simplistic level, which I personally feel most viewers would consider a bit condescending. This ambitious film includes several unexpected animated and musical sequences, likely meant to teach as well as entertain ... but one can only deal with so many verses of songs like "Jesus Is In My Pants" or "The Dingleberry Song." The cute, twinkish couple (played by Aaron Judge and Alex "Bear City" DiDio) do a commendable job with dialog that invites a lot of eye-rolling on the part of the viewer. However, I did find the frequent explicit sexual dialog a bit off-putting in a supposed "message" film such as this. (There is no full nudity, and this unrated film would be a heavy R due to sexual content, dialog and simulated sex.) I got my DVD from Amazon, which is the only place I could find it for sale. Including an extra for the effort made, I'll give it five stars out of ten.

I wish I could give A Heaven For Queers a better rating than what I have. It's dental floss budget and lack of production values plus its amateur cast kind of forbid that. But there is a charming simplicity in this film and the two twink leads Aaron Judge and Alex Didio are so sincere in their performances.

Young Didio has been struggling with his unwanted gay feelings and one fine day his best friend Judge is over and finds a gay porn magazine sticking out underneath the bed. Turns out he's been struggling the same way and the two confess their feelings for each other. They're more than just pals.

Their fundamentalist families first send them to a Pray The Gay Away Camp and when that doesn't take the boys are thrown out of their respective homes. After that it's an all too familiar story of rejected gay kids trying to make it with little enough but their feelings for each other to sustain them.

Some years ago I was involved in the making of a short film about a bullied gay teen which was only a few minutes in length. To be sure it was amateurish, but it was also sincere and very effective. I kind of identify with producer Alexander Grigorenko and what he was trying to say.

I also know a young gay male couple who moved out of my area recently with about as much ties to family as Judge and Didio had. That is the way sometimes, we can only rely on each other and hope to find a friendly and supportive community. It's why so many young gay people if they are rural move to a city with a visible community.

A Heaven For Queers is a great film for young gay audiences and this review is dedicated to Andrew Randazzo the creative genius of the film we worked on.