Cruising (1980) director William Friedkin
Doors open at 6pm, film 7pm - 9pm.
It’s not scary movie season just yet but we do love watching a horror flick every now and then, so we are moonlighting over at The Lord Clyde for this immersive screening during fetish week!
A police detective (Al Pacino) goes undercover in the underground S&M gay subculture of New York City to catch a serial killer who is preying on gay men. As a gritty New York cop/crime flick this film works, it’s like Taxi Driver meets The Warriors. Cruising depicts discrimination against gay people, and cops eager to close a case with someone who might almost fit.
Subversive in form and in meaning, Cruising aspires nonetheless to be a commercial film. Its commercial failure and the cult following that has since grown up around it would suggest that it was ahead of its time, or more accurately, behind it, it opened in the first year of Reagan's presidency when Hollywood was also turning back the clock after a decade of progress, American cultural revolutions happen fast and a film like Cruising, which might have garnered praise or at least close critical attention a few years before, flopped at the cinema on it's opening. Over the years, "Cruising" has gained a cult following, with some appreciating its depiction of subcultures and the intense performance by Al Pacino with epic scenes filmed in Mineshaft and The Anvil cruising bars in New York!
So join us in the dark basement at The Lord Clyde (a real cruising bar!) and we can be shocked, scared and amazed as we watch Al Pacino immerse himself in the gay leather scene on 1980’s New York, trying to catch a killer! 😱
PLEASE BRING A CUSHION FOR THE CHAIR IF YOU WANT A BIT OF COMFORT
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