I have been eagerly anticipating the fan-movie Spider-Man: Intro the Dark, directed by Timmons Flowers and Gemstone alum Jak Kristowski: no girl is mentioned in the trailer or in any of the comments by the showrunners. This is a big deal: the Spider-Man mythos is usually intensely heteronormative. ("Like all stories, this story is about a boy and a girl.").
Scene 1: After a news report about an explosion in Rosenberg Labs, we cut to a high school shot. Peter Parker (Joshua Morgan) enters his class and talks to his bud about asking "Ruby" out. Ok, so he's established as heterosexual at minute 0.30. Two other guys discuss meeting at Peter's house after school.
Scene 2: Home. Peter is greeted by his mom Cut to breakfast, where they all discuss the explosion. Dad says he's going to be gone three days to help with cleanup, and he'll be back tomorrow night. That's two days. Continuity?
Scene 3: Peter playing chess with his bud, who he calls Veon, but is listed as Eddie in the closing credits (played by Jaizier Mallett, called Ja in the closing credits). He says "checkmate," although the pieces on the board are random; no checkmate. Eddie/Veon leaves.
A Harvard recruiter calls, wanting to talk to Peter because of his excellent skills on the guitar.
Really? Does Harvard have a big guitar program? Could we see Peter playing the guitar? Later, Dad gets home and tells Peter that all of the animals in the lab died. Except for the spider crawling op his sleeve...which, the minute he leaves the room, bites Peter!
Scene 4: That night, Peter dreams of having super powers. He wakes up, goes to the kitchen, and eats a lot of pizza and chips. He goes back to bed, wakes up with a fever, and stays home from school.
Scene 5: Cut to Peters' femme friend Hunter (Tyler Inabinette, who is queer in real life) eating dinner with his dad -- pizza.
Is that all people eat in ths town? Dad upbraids him for just getting a B on the quiz. Dad, who owns Rosenberg Labs, gets a call that they lost something valuable, so he leaves.
Um..dude, the place was exploded. You lost everything valuable.Scene 6: Peter in the garage gym, doing lots of pushups and bench presses (fully clothed). He can attach himself to the ceiling! He calls Hunter to come over, and demonstrates. They deduce that he has developed superpowers from the bite of a genitically altered spider.
Scene 7: At school, Hunter wants to be Peter's lab partner, but he picks Ruby, the girl he likes, instead. Not cool, bro! Hunter has to pick someone else. He approaches Eddie/Veon, who is surprised: "Aren't you and Peter best friends?" "Yeah, but he likes this girl..." Eddie/Veon criticizes him: "Sound like you don't have the guts to ass it out." This phrase is not in the Urban Dictionary, but I imagine it means something like "fight for him."
Scene 8: Hunter and Eddie.Veon working on their project, a 3-d model of an atom (which we don't get to see). They decide to take a break and go fishing.
That's a break? Won't it take hours? Hunter reveals that he likes Ruby, but Peter already has her torn up.
Ugh! What happened to "just us guys?" On the way back from fishing, they discuss their interests. Hunter asks Eddie/Veon to see a movie with "me and Peter." He agrees, except "No Peter." Want him all to yourself, Eddie/Veon? Think of your answer carefully -- you're my last hope.
Scene 9: Cut to Peter testing his spidey powers by jumping off the roof. No problem. Mom and Dad are both out for the evening, so he cooks dinner -- not pizza. Whoops, some burglars break in! Peter clobbers them, but he's injured in the leg. The police arrive and help him limp out. Wait -- it was night, and now it's broad daylight!
Scene 10: Peter's bestie Hunter calls and invites him to participate in an underground fight thing. They wear masks so no one knows who they are, but his opponent, Flash (Ben Beauchamp), recognizes him anyway, calling him "Penis Parker." What's wrong with being named after your penis? He beats Flash, who goes home to get beat up by his dad.
Cut to Peter and Hunter going home, laughing and grabbing each other. The fight was at night, but now it's daylight. Dad is watching a news story about how strong spider webs are.
Scene 11: Peter and Hunter designing a spider-man costume, with special equipment so he can extrude webs from his wrists and stick to things.
They test the elasticity by holding hands.
Peter admits that he's kissed Ruby, and Hunter gives him effusive congratulations.
"You've proven that you're hetero, bro! Want to hold hands again?"Then Peter's spidey-senses kick in: his mom has been kidnapped by a katanga-wielding bad guy. Peter rushes to the rescue, but she sees him -- what if she recognizes him?! He rushes back to his room to hide -- and takes his shirt off and lies down on the floor. Beefcake alert!
Scene 12: He awakens, still shirtless. Mom wants to talk to him, so he slowly puts a shirt on -- beefcake alert!. Fortunately, they don't know that he's the spider-dude. They just want to know what's going on, with his late nights, fights, and girlfriend. He blows up and storms out.
That night, Peter's little brother Sam appears to yell at him: "You left me! You were the worst big brother ever, to let me die like that!" Why haven't we seen Sam or heard of this guilt before?
Scene 13: In the morning, Peter rebuffs Mom's attempts to connect. She asks "Did you hear what happened to Aunt May?" Another character not mentioned before, but maybe she was the kidnapped lady.
Peter walks for a really long time. Now it's night. He runs into Flash, the guy he beat at the fight earlier, being beat up by his Dad, I think, and intervenes. Flash thanks him.
Scene 14: Peter standing atop one of the pylons on the Ravenel Bridge in Charleston, flexing in his Spider-Man costume.
Cliffhanger: The Big Bad decides to lure him out by kidnapping someone he's close to. The end.
Beefcake: Peter with his shirt off for about 5 minutes.
Gay Characters: None specificed.
Gay Subtext: Hunter seems be interested in Parker, and Eddie/Veon is trying to woo him away. I wish they could have been more explicit, but the guys were probably worried about scaring away homophobic viewers.
Heterosexism: In spite of the four throwaway lines about liking girls, there is no hetero-romantic plot.
Continuity Errors: Lots. It's night, and then it's day. You think it's dinner time, but they're having breakfast. Characters are discussed without being introduced. Plotlines are introduced, then dropped.
My Grade: For a fan movie written and directed by two teenage dudebros, it has competent production values. The acting is a bit amateurish, but then, these are amateurs (except for Tyler), so you can't expect drama school graduates. The gay subtext and lack of excessive heterosexism push the grade up to a C+.
See: Jak and Kelton visit the Citadel: Beach Day, Dick Day, modeling, wrestling, and a tour of the campus
