"They/Them" - Film Review
Whistler Camp is a gay conversion camp run by Owen (Kevin Bacon) and Cora (Carrie Preston) Whistler. They oversee a weeklong program that Owen claims is not meant to force campers to stop being queer. Whistler Camp simply coaches teenagers on how to become who they really want to be. Jordan (Theo Germaine), Stu (Cooper Koch), Toby (Austin Crute), Kim (Anna Lore), Veronica (Monique Kim), Alexandra (Quei Tann), and Gabriel (Darwin del Fabro) are the newest victims of Whistler Camp. As the week goes on, the horrors of conversion therapy become the least of their troubles when a masked killer makes their presence known at camp.
They/Them prides itself on being a slasher for a modern generation. On the surface it appears to live up to that goal. The cast is filled with LGBTQ+ characters portrayed by actors who identify as members of the queer community, and the setting could have allowed for an interesting twist on the slasher genre. Many horror films use surviving a slasher as a way for characters to gain autonomy and reclaiming their sense of self. The act of survival isn’t just physical, but emotional and mental too. They/Them’s choice to give the narrative of survival to a cast of queer kids could have been an interesting rumination on who gets to be seen as the hero of the story.
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Writer/director John Logan said he wanted to create a slasher film where the queer kids are the heroes because of how many horror movies he watched as a kid that were not kind to LGBTQ+ people. There’s no time or space given to make any of these characters into something more than an exaggerated caricature. To an extent that’s expected in slasher films, where more time is spent on outrunning a murderer than on character development. However, They/Them has a transphobia problem that should not be ignored.
It’s one thing to watch the adult employees be transphobic. Despite their facade of acceptance, the adults are actively running a hateful conversion camp, so their lack of compassion is within the limits of their stereotyped characters. It’s another thing, though, to have one of the “good” teens, Stu, be outwardly transphobic toward Alexandra. Transphobia within the queer community is a huge problem, but They/Them doesn’t condemn Stu’s actions. By ignoring them, the film is perpetuating the otherness that is very real.
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The film ends in a way that’s antithetical to the genre. Slasher films have retained prominence over the years because of the catharsis of fighting back against evil and winning. It’s why we love the image of the Final Girls, bloody, triumphant, and, most importantly, alive. These teens have been through hell and lived only so that they can take the higher road.
The film’s purpose and tone are extremely muddled. It isn’t campy enough to reach the same snarky parody highs of But I’m a Cheerleader, nor is it serious enough to be on par with The Miseducation of Cameron Post. Is the purpose of They/Them to condemn these camps or turn them into a farce? Unfortunately, it does something even worse: the film fails to show the true extent of the horrors these teens are subjected to, and it doesn’t exaggerate the hypocrisies of the adults. It exists firmly in the middle of the road, terrified to rock the boat one way or another.
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There is also very little “slashing” in what is being marketed as a slasher movie. A masked figure appears in the background from time to time, but aside from the opening scene, no character meets their demise until close to the 45-minute mark. The adult characters have overt lines of dialogue about people either being the “predator” or “prey” that is an attempt to create tension among the campers, but it completely backfires. The audience is barely invested in any of these characters who, Jordan not included, have maybe twelve lines of dialogue. There are also about seven other kids at Whistler Camp who do not speak. It’s easy to forget they exist until the film needs to have a wide group shot and then they appear to fill in space.
There is little redeeming value to They/Them. It fails as an escapist slasher flick for queer kids to vicariously live through, and it doesn’t make a strong case for dismantling conversion camps. Maybe on its most basic level They/Them wants to be an angry response to the transgender sports bans, bathroom bills, and lack of LGBTQ+ history and sex education being taught in schools. It just got lost somewhere along the way.
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