Film haus

Monsters eat antigay predators in campy horror short “PYOTY495”

A still frame from the short film PYOTY495

Just in time for Halloween, a short gay horror film called PYOTY495 has been making the rounds and it’s the perfect blend of campy and terrifying.

The film is set in present day Moscow. 16-year-old Pyotr (played by Orphan Black’s Alex Ozerov) finds himself lured into a trap by a gang of violent Russian nationalists via a gay dating app. But as Pyotr’s captors soon realize, for them, the nightmare is only just beginning.

Related: Short film ‘Shower’ offers a darkly erotic and deeply horrifying portrait of repressed homosexuality

The 15-minute film was written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Blake Mawson, who tells Short of the Week he wanted to address the mounting antigay sentiment in Russia, including the country’s gay-propaganda ban and the antigay purge in Chechnya.

Related: New short film starring Craig Chester examines the generational divide between gay men

“If I can use genre film to put an audience in the shoes of the people who are experiencing this type of terror and hatred, make them uncomfortable and have them realize that this is actually not so make-believe in the end, that this type of horror is real—then we can begin to open people’s eyes and reach an audience in new and unexpected ways,” Mawson says.

Watch PYOTY495 below…

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