A Teenager Wrestles Temptation in Gay Thriller ‘Ganymede’
Ganymede manages to capture the bleak horror of having to listen to a frothing anti-gay rant from some amped-up street corner preacher, or loud-mouthed bully.
The kind of slur-filled noise that transmits fear and hate, and not a hint of Christian love.Too many queer and questioning teens — like the film’s protagonist, high school wrestler Lee Fletcher IV (Jordan Doww) — are subjected to that barrage every day, at home, at church, at school.
Lee’s small-town life is one long sermon on traditional values, ministered by his strict religious parents, and hellfire-spouting church pastor, all of whom are aware that the boy is battling certain so-called demons.Lee is battling those demons literally, not just internally.
In his nightmares, and in his waking life, he’s physically stalked by a hideous, skull-visaged creature that creeps out of his closet, or rises from the shadows in a corner of the room.Conjured by Lee’s fragile, tortured psyche, the Creature (performed, with the aid of prosthetics and makeup, by Lucas Turner) is his sexual confusion and “reprobate thoughts” given physical shape.
