The SXSW Gay Sex Rom-Com With a Crack-Smoking Necrophiliac
If there’s something good to say about Down Low—and there’s not much—it’s that it’s blessedly short.
But the sex comedy-cum-murder caper-cum-coming-out romp, which premiered Saturday at this year’s SXSW pushes right up against the seams of its 90-minute runtime. From star and co-writer Lukas Gage jacking off co-star Zachary Quinto in silhouette to an absurd reference to The Creation of Adam, you can’t call this movie unambitious. But you also cannot call Down Low’s veritable playground of incessant, incomplete ideas any good.
Lukas Gage is Cameron, a twentysomething, sexually confident masseuse, who makes his money giving guys happy endings. (At least, I assume that’s his job; like the rest of the movie, most of Cameron’s backstory is undefined.) His first interaction with Gary, a recently out, terminally ill divorcée, is on the massage table in Gary’s sweeping, empty mansion. Down Low taunts us with a raucously good time by having the pair’s entire meet cute involve a hand job, as Cameron asks Gary wild personal questions. (“Are your sons hot?”)