I saw this at a gay and lesbian film festival in which "Weak Species" was a part of a group of off-beat short films that were light-hearted and awkward, and not produced very well. This short differed from them all. To cut to the chase, this definitely shocked the audience. I read that this was "utterly disturbing" and "dark," but I don't think glancing over some reviews for this will necessarily "prepare" you to expect what you think. Overall, it's produced and executed incredibly well; it looks very well financed in that the director was definitely uninhibited enough to cast excellent actors and create the short with stunning cinematography along with top-notch editing and a decent script. The dialogue creates a path for the audience to follow the two leading male characters: high-school students whose identities are not just at fault of their sexual orientation. That's the problem with the film is that I don't really think it should adhere specifically to "gay and lesbian film festivals." This short surpasses this genre because it explores horror and character-drama in an incredibly deep manner that makes it hard to categorize it at all.
As a 20ish gay male living in America, I'm familiar with films about gay teenagers desperately seeking identity and personal connections with other people. Here, we have things we've seen before: the incredibly cocky guy who is relatively promiscuous but feels secure, except this guy is really hard to analyze because you're not sure what he's after, and neither does he. The other character George is the character that is the most cohesive because he has so much depth and is fascinating to watch the actor perform this struggling individual. George dives into a world of degrading sex and inappropriate relations in order to satisfy a need for not only sex but personal connection. George's family is not resourceful, but we see he attends meetings with a school counselor who seems to want to help. George finds himself in an incredibly dangerous situation, while his co-star falls deeper in love with a sketchy but attractive football player. The degrading sex scenes are difficult to watch, and of course the climactic scene of violence is shocking and I would be surprised to see this distributed any more than it is now. The director's intentions are to go beyond censorship, but I left the theater and immediately had to go for a walk and think about it because I found myself wondering: "Was that just plain excessive and tasteless?" You'll probably be wondering the same thing as well. Overall, an excellent, brave, and challenging effort in the gay and lesbian film world.
