Knife + Heart

I am exactly the right audience for Knife + Heart. It almost felt like this movie was made just for me. Knife + Heart is an homage to 70’s and 80’s exploitation films that are high on violence, aesthetic and sleaze. But while Knife + Heart maintains the aesthetic, violence and even the sleaze of these films, it’s a modern film with updated sensibilities. As such, the female and gay characters and even the movie’s murderer are all treated with a level of respect and humanity largely lacking in the movies that inspired it.

The film centres around a gay porn production company in the 1970’s. The lead character is Anne, a lesbian who works as the creator and director of narrative gay porn features. The company’s editor, Lois has recently broken up with Anne. Despite this breakup, Anne retains passionate feelings for Lois. Major problems for the company arise when a murderer begins targeting their actors and crew. The murderer in question is a mysterious masked figure who uses a knife disguised as a dildo.

Stylistically, Knife + Heart is most similar to giallos. But in terms of plot, the film kept reminding me of Cruising. Both are films about the gay community and a serial killer that terrorizes them. But Cruising is a deeply non-gay friendly film. By contrast, Knife + Heart is incredibly queer friendly and would probably be off-putting for straights. The difference between the two is Knife + Heart provides a balance by depicting positives of the queer community where Cruising doesn’t. Cruising depicts the entire gay community as seedy and dangerous. And while Knife + Heart has elements of that as well, it depicts the community as fun, welcoming and vibrant. It also shows a community that is home to people who aren’t white men. The depictions of sleaze and violence against the queer community are balanced by scenes showing the potential for community and creativity within the queer scene.

Please note that while the lead character is a lesbian, Knife + Heart may appeal more to queer men. That’s because of all the gay sex in it. If you are a lesbian with no interest in the male body, this might not be the film for you. Anne herself never has any major sex scenes or nudity, she’s just surrounded by gay men who constantly do. This might be off-putting for some viewers. Personally, I thought it was an unusual twist for a film to have its female characters remain clothed and generally dealing with plot while the male characters are in the background being naked, having sex and waiting around to be murdered.

My main problem with Knife + Heart is that it’s not that scary. It’s too beautiful to be scary. The film is so well-lit and so gorgeous to look at that it doesn’t really invoke a sense of fear. Especially as the films go on, the scenes of murder become increasingly stylistic and beautiful to look at. This makes the murder scenes more pleasing to look at than all the scenes of sleazy gay sex. There’s a way to juxtapose beauty and violence which can make it hit all the harder but Knife + Heart missed that mark. Instead, I just kept watching this movie, murder scenes and all, and enjoyed how it looked too much to ever be afraid.

I loved Knife + Heart. The film is a queer update of a genre I already loved. It’s kept all the staples of that genre while managing to make a film that’s gay-friendly instead of homophobic. It is a stylistic, beautifully shot film. It does lose some marks for not actually being scary despite being a horror movie. But the film more than makes up for that by being an entertaining, great looking and relentlessly queer piece of cinema.

Overall rating: 8.7/10

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