Closet Monster

Oscar is a high-school student in Newfoundland who wants to work in special-effects makeup. His parents have separated, he lives with his father, and his father does not hide his anger. As a boy Oscar saw two teenagers attack another in a park, and the image never left him; he cannot separate his own desire from that violence. The only one he talks to at home is his hamster, Buffy. That is the film's device: Buffy talks, in the voice of Isabella Rossellini. The hamster neither advises nor consoles; she only says out loud what Oscar cannot, and the choice gives the film its own register. Stephen Dunn wrote and directed, his first feature. Connor Jessup plays Oscar. The visual language is harsh, folding imagery from horror, makeup effects and real injury into each other. Internalised homophobia is presented not as a concept but as something bodily. It screened at the Toronto Film Festival on 13 September 2015. Who it is for: anyone who likes queer coming-of-age stories and drama that uses the tools of genre cinema. Who it is not for: anyone with no tolerance for hard images. The film shows its violence directly, the symbols are sometimes too explicit, and the father stays one-dimensional.