Closet Monster (2016) - Stephen Dunn

Stephen Dunn's Closet Monster is a coming-of-age LGBT story with a ton of bite, a film that dabbles in psychological horror and surrealism to deliver a powerful, one-of-a-kind story.  Closet Monster is centered on Oscar, a college senior who is still trying to find his place in the world.  Oscar's struggles are related to a rough childhood, one which has left him with psychological scars, thanks primarily to his father's masculine-based insecurities which in turn have led to Oscar's mother fleeing the household early in Oscar's childhood.  Keeping mostly to himself, Oscar devotes almost all his time to his passion for monster makeup, with his pet hamster, Buffy, who talks to him, serving as his only real companion.  That all changes when Oscar meets Wilder, a mysterious young man who seems to live by his own rules.  Oscar's interactions with Wilder are full of sexual tension and as they spend more time together, Oscar's complacent denial becomes shattered, forcing him down a path of true awakening, which ultimately involves him standing up to his father and accepting his path, one that has never been easy.  The first thing that jumps out about Closet Monster is the assured vision from first-time feature filmmaker Stephen Dunn.  Closet Monster is an impressionistic descent into the psyche of a character in Oscar who has been hiding in the shadows, with the filmmaking using lots of surrealistic touches to evoke the trouble mindset of the stories' main protagonist.  Closet Monster is fierce filmmaking, taking the rather generic sexual awakening storyline and injecting with a strong dose of psychological horror, a decision that both separates it and elevates it from other films of the genre.  Oscar's psychological torment includes visions but the most important one is simply the conversations he has with his hamster.  While it's clear initially that the hamster serves as a reminder of Oscar's feelings of solitude, given his somewhat repressed sexuality, it becomes increasingly clear towards the end of the film that the hamster itself was a symbol of his dependency, as Oscar himself was never capable of owning himself, or able to stand up to his father and be who he wants to be.  Oscar couldn't free himself from his father's embedded idea of what it means to be a man, which at least, in part, led to this dependency.  At its core, Closet Monster is a film about individuality, with Oscar eventually finding himself and embracing it.  His past only haunted his psyche, and the hamster's death serves as a symbolic representation of his ability to free himself from outside influences, whether parental or societal, and be himself, comfortable in his own skin.  Touching on the emotional struggle of coming out through the lens of psychological horror, Closet Monster is a singular vision from Stephen Dunn, without question making him a filmmaker to watch going forward. 

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