The horror genre is a vast and expansive one, one that allows filmmakers and audiences the opportunity to explore through themes than run the gamut of human experience. Horror can be used to explore trauma, personal fears, societal ills, and questions about the future. The genre is a perfect outlet for the marginalised too, for those more often unrepresented groups to tell their stories in ways that elevate the genre. The queer community is one that is often present in horror, though not always in the best ways, with expressions of sexuality and gender outside the accepted norm being given over to serial killers and monsters in ways that further other and dehumanise the queer community.
In more recent years, however, this community has been able to advocate for itself more, and has been gaining more of a positive voice in horror, with our stories slowly seeping into films. Even if the casual audience is unaware they're watching a queer narrative, gay, lesbian, trans, and other filmmakers have been making their voices hears; a recent example would be I Saw the TV Glow, a film that disturbed cisgender and heterosexual viewers for reasons they couldn't quite identify, but in which the trans community immediately saw themselves and their stories represented.
Shadows of Willow Cabin feels similar in this regard, a film that viewers outside the LGBTQ+ community will certainly get less from than it's queer viewers; but a film that is telling an important and very personal narrative.
The film centres on Albert (Bryan Bellomo), an older teacher who has travelled up to his old family cabin, affectionately named Willow Cabin despite the lack of willow trees, so that he can meet the much younger Devon (John Brodsky), who he met online and has been chatting with. Albert is still in the closet, and lacks any real experience with men, and so has turned to the openly gay, confident Devon to experience what it could be like to be his true self. Over the course of the next few days the two men drink, tell stories, lounge in the hot tub, and find a great deal of tenderness between the two of them. Albert gets to experience emotional and physical intimacy with a man, something that he's denied himself for decades.
However, we soon learn that Albert isn't only closeted, but also married with a son. He's snuck off to the cabin for the week under false pretence, and is cheating on his wife. This causes friction between the two men, and son the film also gets to explore some of the less savoury sides of intimacy. The film shows a rather truthful portrayal of a queer relationship, albeit in a very fast, condensed state as the two men experience attraction, lust, comfort, unease, anger, jealousy, and desperation over the course of their time together. But, Shadows of Willow Cabin is a horror film, and as such this slice of normalcy can't last forever.
When the two of them attempt to leave the cabin they find themselves unable to, with the forest around the building bringing them straight back no matter what they do. Not only that, but their food has gone rotten, the water is shut off, and the spectre of Albert's uncle is stalking them. As the two men desperately search for a way to escape this twisted nightmare they end up having to face their demons.
On the whole, despite the fact that ghosts and twisting reality exist within Shadows of Willow Cabin the film hardly felt like a horror film, and much of the movie is a very realistic, honest portrayal of a queer relationship involving two very different men. There's an age gap, one that comes into play as we see how childhood experiences and societal shifts resulted in very different experiences for them growing up gay. They have different positions in society, different expectations placed upon them because of their work and home lives. In some ways the film feels more like an examination of generational differences in the queer community than anything else.
As the film progresses and the paranormal elements are introduced it becomes clear that the titular 'shadows' deal with trauma, repression, and the fears that members of the queer community have, and even continue to go through. In a world where so many of us are forced into the closet, made to repress who we are and who we love, to live a live, it's not hard to see how such trauma can be present in so many of us. And whilst Shadows of Willow Cabin speaks to a more specific part of the LGBTQ+ community, the gay part, I think any one who is queer who watches it will be able to identify with it in some way.
The film, written and directed by Joe Fria, is decently made, and a good portion of it could be lifted out and presented as a drama about a closeted man dealing with his feelings and trying to figure out how to navigate his life. The shift into horror comes somewhat suddenly, and it jolts you into remembering that this is a horror film; yet manages to do so in a way that doesn't throw you out of the narrative. It's two leads, pretty much the only people in the film, bring a great deal of humanity to their roles, and despite the revelation that they're knowingly engaging in an affair that completely destroys the trust Albert's wife has put in him, you still manage to feel something for them even if you should hate them for this choice.
Shadows of Willow Cabin is a carefully crafted queer horror, one that may play a little too light on the horror elements for some, but will win others other thanks to its honesty and attempt to present a realistic representation of queer love and self discovery.
Shadows of Willow Cabin is available digitally in the UK from GrimmVision now.
