The House of Adam

A sort of gay melodrama/thriller, The House of Adam tells the very tall tale of young diner worker Adam (Jared Cadwell), who toils loyally in some mountain town for a sick old man who begins to suspect Adam is stealing from the till. Gramps brings in his hunky son Anthony (John Shaw) to go undercover as a new diner worker and figure out what's going on, but as a bi-curious guy, he's distracted by Adam's sexual advances. Cue the sunset hand-holding on the dock.

Though Anthony is happily paired with a girlfriend whose pathological giggling would incite any normal boyfriend to homicide, his fascination with Adam increases. They take long walks in the woods, and the soundtrack flips from folksy-emo to classical whenever the emotions start to heat up. Unfortunately, the burgeoning affair is cut short when Adam's head is cut off by three local Bible-thumping homophobes (hey, it happens), and Anthony, now a graduate of "detective school," tries to solve the crime -- and find Adam's severed head -- so his would-be lover can rest in pieces. Ha! Couldn't resist.

Every single cast member is so wooden and amateurish that you're left wondering if perhaps this isn't all some sort of kitschy joke. It's hard work to act this badly. I kept thinking Carmen Electra might show up in a bikini cradling Adam's severed head to her bosom. Even worse, the production values are atrocious. The ambient sound completely changes when Ameer switches from close-ups to two-shots in conversational scenes. Come to think of it, this kind of flub could work pretty well as an SNL skit. And as other critics have noted (yes, other critics actually reviewed this thing), I've never seen a movie where the punches missed the faces by so many inches. Again, was this supposed to be a joke?

To summarize: don't rent this one.