If nothing else, Into the Lion’s Den adds a new, gay twist to the torture horror genre, which I guess is something. How successfully it does so is another thing altogether.

The film follows three friends - Michael (Ronnie Kroell), Johnny (Jesse Archer) and Ted (Kristen Alexzander Griffith) – as they make a cross-country trip from LA to New York in search of a fresh start (and fresh meat). The early part of the film at least shows that a horror movie car full of gay men can be just as irritating as a car full of straight teens, as they engage in inane conversation and Johnny searches for hook-ups at every rest stop (resulting in a sex scene that’s as explicit as you can get outside hardcore in the first five minutes). Eventually, they wind up in a backwater town and are convinced to go to redneck bar The Lion’s Den after Johnny gets an invite from an anonymous poster on a gay sex site. It seems as though they’d bean led on though, as the date doesn’t show and a misunderstanding involving a shaven-headed redneck almost starts a fight. But as Michael and Ted leave Johnny at the bar, it seems that his would-be partner has been there all along – and that both he and his wife are into heavy sex games with random gay men. Unfortunately, it goes badly wrong this time, and soon all three of our heroes are in great danger.

There’s an interesting premise here, but it takes ages to get going (despite the film being only a little over 70 minutes long) and the characters are all remarkably annoying. Johnny is too cocky, Michael is a miserable bastard and Ted is just an embarrassing walking stereotype who seems to be trying way too hard. It’s a pity, because once the film gets to its point, the rape and torture scenes are genuinely brutal and unsettling, and the desperate efforts to escape have some real tension. The film doesn’t shy from uncomfortable images – if the thought of a needle in a cock distresses you, you might be advised to look away at one moment, and the rape of Johnny is seriously unpleasant to watch.

Unfortunately, this intensity is diminished by some rotten acting, bad pacing, a ridiculously incompetent villain (the sort of man who spends more time drinking from a whiskey bottle than digging the shallow grave he’s supposed to be burying a body in) and some crude production values. Improvements in these areas could’ve made this something memorable, rather than something average.

The DVD comes with copious extras – none of which are included on my screener, so I can’t say if they tip the balance for this as a package or not.

DAVID FLINT

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