Started off well, this movie soon became one of those wannabe's bad bad thriller gay movies. The story is simple but then its the acting, execution and just about everything else which makes a huge huge difference.
Three friends are on a cross country road trip from LA to NYC. Johnny is the eldest of the group who does not miss any opportunity to hook up with a stranger on the road. Mikey owns the car and is dealing with a breakup. Apparently he just found out that he is positive too. The third friend is just coming out and wants to live life a little bit. When they are few hours away from the city, they decide to spend the night at a motel and Johnny drags all of them to a bar called 'Lion's Den' where he is meeting a trick from internet. Johnny gets into an argument with his friends who leave him and go back to the motel. It turns out the motel owner duo of husband-wife have some other plans. The husband likes men and the wife tortures the guys while the husband is having sex. AFter Johnny is tortured, he tries to run away but the wife kills him. They then call his other 2 friends and kills Mikey as well. The third friend is all who is left and he somehow manages to escape. Thats it!!
The so called 'thriller' scenes are so bad , childish and amateurish that I was giggling and laughing at those. I have nothing against independent and low budget cinema but common!! At least make those believable and not amateurish specially considering how much is available today in terms of technology, acting, directing etc. As if OTT Johnny wasn't enough, the husband-wife duo of Lion's den were horrible. Only saving grace was a restrained acting by Mikey. He has potential but he really needs a better director.
How I wish I could say that you should support independent cinema. Alas!! not this one.
Into the Lion's Den
2011
Drama / Thriller
Into the Lion's Den
2011
Drama / Thriller
Keywords: gaypsychopathtorturefriendsgay interest
Plot summary
When three gay men on a cross-country road trip enter a redneck bar, the culture clash has deadly results.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Bad !! Bad !!
Disgustingly Bad!!
This definitely rates as one of the worst movies of all time. There is absolutely no talent being showcased in this movie. The only horrifying thing about this movie is a combination of bad acting, bad directing and bad, bad, bad writing!!
Both writer Philip Malaczewski and director Dan Lantz should apply for a refund for their post graduate schooling because if this film is any indication of what they learned in school, it was all for not!
This film merits no further comment other than that it was an utter waste of time! Time you will never ever get back!!
I was just informed by IMDb that my review had to be a minimum of 10 lines to be accepted. This is the 11th.
Unpleasant and badly done
Three gay guys are driving from California to New York. They are Johnny (Jesse Archer) who will sleep with any guy he can get, Mikey (Ronnie Kroell) who's the serious sensitive type and Ted (Kristen-Alexzander Griffith) who seems to have no personality at all. They decide to spend the night at some small southern town and Johnny insists they go to a str8 bar called the Lions Den for drinks. Actually it's for Johnny to hook up with a man he met online. However things slowly (VERY slowly) go from bad to worse and all three are fighting to stay alive.
The basic plot is OK and you have to give the film credit for giving it to gay audiences quickly (there's full frontal male nudity and graphic simulated sex in the first 10 minutes!) but then it just falls apart. It moves VERY slowly (the film is half over before anything happens),Johnny is easily one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen and it's not scary or thrilling--just unpleasant. It's routinely directed and some of the acting (particularly by Jodie Shultz) is dreadful. On the upside the acting by Kroell is pretty good and he has a lengthy full frontal nude scene. Also the script itself is not bad and has some interesting lines. But, all in all, I was bored and couldn't care less.