Revival: The dead return in small-town Wisconsin, with zombies, a gay deputy, a lot of hunks, and four d*cks

 

Netflix just dropped a tv series called Revival, with an icon of a woman "under conviction," heading to the altar?  Sounds cool.

When I was growing up in the Nazarene Church, hearing the same preacher screaming about the same topics (the Second Coming, The Book of Jor-shua, Homa-Sekshuls) three times a week for month after month got a little tedious.  So twice a year we invited an evangelist in for a week-long "revival" to get us revved up again.

Scene 1: Christmastime at the crematorium of Wausau, Wisconsin.  Randy the Creepy Mortician (Graeme Barrett) wheels a cremation box past a dead girl while a female reporter sets up.   He explains the procedure, but wonders if anyone really cares about a story on cremation.  

"It's a piece on unusual jobs, so..."

Suddenly warning lights flash, and inside the dead guy starts yelling "Let me out!"   As the mortician tries to override the system, the door bursts open, and the dead guy jumps out, covered in flames. He runs around screaming.  The corpses in the other chambers are screaming and yelling to be let out, and someone in a body bag sits up. 

Wait -- this isn't about church revivals, it's about the dead coming back to life!  

Scene 2:  Sheriff Wayne (David James Elliot) is arguing with his grown daughter, Dana: "This ain't my fault!  You've been running ever since you fumbled the Black Deer case!"  

"I'm doing what's best for me and Cooper!  After all we've been through..."  

The Sheriff gets a phone call, but can't deal with it, because he's trying to guilt his daughter into not moving away.

But the phone starts ringing "off the hook." "You'll have to come back to work --- it's an emergency.  Go see Randy the Creepy Mortician." 

Left: David's dick.  He's busy during the clip, so it was hard to get a clear shot.

Scene 3: Dana drives through the rainy December night, listening to 10-33 (emergency) calls.  Suddenly she screeches to a stop, staring in horror.  A bunch of people in suits are walking through the cemetery toward her, asking what's going on.  A n*ked man rushes by (he was buried without clothes).    A little girl wants to know where her mommy is.

Scene 4: TV report: It's been about a month since Revival Day, December 18th, and Mayor Ken (Conrad Coates) is finally lifting the lockdown order, but the town is still under quarantine while the CDC investigates the 47 people who revived.  All of them died during the two week period before Revival Day.  I looked it up.  In a town the size of Wausau, Wisconsin, about ten people will die during any two-week period.  This is way too many.

Cut to the Mayor interviewing one of the Revivers.  He felt pain in his arm, collapsed, and then he was in the funeral home, as if no time passed.  

Cut to Dana taking a gross milky bath.  Her friend comes in and complains that: she was supposed to visit her brother at Northwestern, not get quarantined with zombies; a girl she hates was revived; Dana never cleans up; and the lockdown is over, so get out!

Time to send her son Cooper to school.  The mean, aggressive, barbaric boys make fun of the girl who revived, but Cooper thinks she's nice. (Heterosexual identity established at age 11).

Hudson Wurster (Cooper) has a femme affect, but he is surrounded by girls in most of his Instagram photos, so I'm going to identify him as straight.

Scene 5: Nellie's Bar.  Dana stumbles out, smooching with a guy (I can't find him in the cast list). They jump into her cop car and fumble around, trying to do it through heavy coats.  Then the Sheriff calls: she has to go investigate a dead horse.

"So, can I call you?" The hookup asks.  "Sure."  But she doesn't give her number.

Cut to the dead horse, on the property of a rich jerk who writes books about how to live to 100 (cut out red meat, and walk a lot).  There's also a dead coyote on his property, and some small objects that Dana finds disturbing.  I can't tell what they are.

Scene 6: Dana arrives at the sheriff's office, which is swamped by people wanted to know if their loved ones were revived. We meet several quirky small-town deputies, including McCray (Nathan Dales), a condescending jerk with bad breath; and her ally, Gunderson (Mark Little), "quirky, kind-hearted, the lead bowler of the Pinsconsin Pride."  

Dana wants the list of the Revived, but the Sheriff won't let anyone else see it.  In other news, she's been assigned a partner, and Gunderson thinks that he's "a cutie patootie."  Gay identity established instantly.

Left: Mark Little seems to be straight in real life, but he is inclusive in his comedy routine.  Among the phrases he suggests for "the nonchalant man" to say during his orgasm: "Whoa, buddy, that was awesome."

In his office, the Sheriff is arguing with the Mayor about bringing in a guy from the CDC to help investigate the Revived. Shouldn't they have done that weeks ago?  

 More after the break

Skyler Paulley: A Bible-quoting gay-positive Regal HOV gets a boyfriend in a "Hocus Pocus" reboot. With Dean's dick and a GIsondo bj

 

Instagram recommended someone named Skyler Paulley, who has an alphabet soup of acronyms in his tagline: SPH, 2x AFKA, 5 Star Ambassador, Regal HOV, JV, Christian, CPR.

It doesn't include much more information, just a lot of shirtless, sports, and hugging-buddies shots.

His Dad, Ronnie Paulley Jr. (Proverbs 3:6: "In everything you do, put God first."), translates on his Facebook page:

SPH is a casting studio.

AFKA: American Freestyle Karate Association. Two wins.

5 Star Ambassador: for martial arts.

Regal HOV: Induction in the Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

Junior Varsity in soccer, basketball, football, baseball, wakeboarding, and track.  When does the dude find the time to act?

And he knows CPR.

Skyler is also a model.  Here he poses for Dillard's, and tells us: "I truly believe that God gives us these journeys, and we only succeed when we let Him lead the way."

The teen idol website doesn't add any information.  More shirtless and sports photos, sometimes with cute companions.  

He posts two photos with his girlfriend (not hugging or kissing).

In June 2026, Dad Ronnie takes Skyler and his buddy to The Mandalorian and Grogu.  But if Skyler has a girlfriend, wouldn't he take her?  

Maybe they broke up? 

So, quoting Bible verses and saying that "God gives us these journeys" usually means homophobic, and "girlfriend" usually means straight  .I 'd give him a miss except for his role in Hocus Pocus: The Mini-Series (2025). 

The Sanderson Sisters, three wacky witches from Hocus Pocus (1993), are zapped into the modern world, where they bedevil teenage Kevin (Skyler) and his family. Winifred, the character made famous by Bette Midler, is played by director Nathan Lampone in drag.

In Episodes 1 and 2, a zombie named Billy (Clayton Parks) comes to his rescue.  In Episode 3, he gets a makeover to become "more handsome" in Kevin's eyes, and they are living together, and dancing together at a school dance.  In later episodes, they fight the witches together.

The romance doesn't last -- by the second season, Kevin has a girlfriend, and Billy has moved on to a guy named Noah (Connor Roden), who reveals a "secret" in Episode 12.  

These may be texts rather than subtexts.  According to the official website, the production company, Studio Lampone, is queer-friendly, with several queer members.  They perform at Pride events and in gay bars. 

Wait -- how did Bible-quoting Skyler get involved with a queer-friendly  group?

He's got ten acting credits listed on the IMDB.  In 2023 he appeared in Kelly Clarkson's music video I Dare You (to Love), which features a gay couple getting married, another with their baby, and several rainbow hearts. Everything else is from 2025 or 2026.

Shorts:

I F*king Hate Oranges: Brothers Skyler and David Hernandez hate oranges. Written and directed by students at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Left: David Hernandez.  Not the one who hates oranges.

Exterra: A young boy (Skyler) makes first contact with alien's (yes, they used an apostrophe as a plural). A local North Carolina production.

More after the break

The top 16 gay-positive science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal movies, plus two with egregious queerbaiting.

Who wants to spend two hours watching people falling in love, saving Christmas, facing injustice, or dying of cancer?  If I'm going to commit to a fictional world, it should have something you don't often see in everyday life: spaceships, aliens, ghosts, time travel, magic swords, werewolves, zombies...anything but endless conversations.  

There aren't a lot of gay characters in these movies, so most don't get reviewed here, or the review consists of  "yet another heteronormative mess."  I managed to find sixteen with gay characters and or strong subtexts from 2016-2026, and two that deserve inclusion as a warning: the queerbaiting was amazingly blatant.

Boys in the Trees. (2016).  Boy walks his ex-boyfriend home.  It's a long walk, with a downer ending, usually a turn-off for me.  But in this case I'll make an exception

The Little Vampire 3D,  (2017).  The vampire and human boys come within an inch of an open romance. All they left out was the kiss.

Get Out (2017).  A young black man meets the family of his white girlfriend, and uncovers a disturbing secret about white people.  And still manages a gay subtext.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (2018). The spineless producers came within an inch of having this spider-boy come out, but lost their nerve.  At least he doesn't get a girlfriend.

The Dead Don't Die (2019): Zombies invade a small town, with two guys who seem to be gay, but fail to actually come out due to the director's cowardice or homophobia.

Bill and Ted Face the Music (2020). The most excellent time-traveling duo, who started their career with blatant homophobia, atone for their past mistakes.  Not only are they involved in a four-way romance, they have a nonbinary daughter.

Onward (2020): A 16-year old Elf boy and his older brother, a Troll, never express any heterosexual interest.  Plus there's no bullying and a lesbian couple.  

Suicide Squad (2021). Supervillains are recruited to go on a "suicide" mission. No one actually says The Word, but there are two gay hints and only minimal heterosexual romance, and John Cena's Peacemaker would come out as bi on his tv spin-off.

The Eternals (2021).  The first open gay character in a Marvel movie, plus conversations in ancient Babylonian.  But Gilgamesh is portrayed as straight.  Sorry, Enkidu.

More after the break

Josh Fadem: From Tulsa to "Twin Peaks," with Groundlings, coffee, zombies, a glory hole, and his dick

 

We've been watching the 2017 sequel to Twin Peaks, the 1990s cult series about paranormal events in a quirky small town.  

The darn thing makes no f*king sense.  

The main plot, as far as I can figure out, involves the spirit of FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLaughlin), trapped in the Red Room 25 years ago with ghosts and demons who talk backwards and make cryptic statements.  Meanwhile, his body, named Dougie, took a job at an insurance agency in Las Vegas, had a wife and son, did something that got him targeted by the mob, and consorted with prostitutes.

After 25 years, Dale's spirit returns to Dougie's body, but can't perform everyday tasks, speak more than parroted words, or understand anything -- yet no one notices!  

In Episode 1.5, his wife dresses him in a ridiculous lime-green suit and drops him off at his office, where of course he just stands there until gopher Philip Bisby (Josh Fadem) notices, gives him a cup of coffee, and escorts him to his staff meeting, where he just stands there.  

Coffee guy Philip appears again in Episodes 1.6 and 1.7, luring Dougie with coffee and escorting him to the boss's office.  I found something homoerotic in the exchange: Philip sort of likes Dougie. 

He is cute -- and short, 5'9" to Kyle's 6'0" -- so I started looking for the other work of actor Josh Fadem, and maybe some n*de photos.

I thought he was a recent college graduate, new to Hollywood, on his first acting gig, it turns out that Josh Fadem was in his mid-30s in 2017.  He now has 159 acting credits, 40 writing credits, a wikipedia article, and a number of n*de photos.

He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1980, and  graduated from Booker T. Washington High School.  Imagine being Jewish in Bible Belt, Oral Roberts University Tulsa. 

He moved to Los Angeles in 2000, trained with the Uptight Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings, and appeared in countless comedy shows, including It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Whitest Kids U Know, UCB Comedy Originals, The Bank Room, The Midnight Show, Key and Peele, Superstore, Minx, and American Dad.

And a lot of heterosexist shorts, like The Do It Up Date and I Think She Likes You.

On the other hand, The Gory Hole sounds provocative.

He is best known as Simon Barrons, assistant to Tina Fey's Liz Lemons on three episodes of 30 Rock (2009-2012).

And as Marshall Dixon, also called Joey, a University of New Mexico film student/teacher hired by unethical lawyer Saul in 14 episodes of Better Call Saul (2015-22).  Marshall doesn't seem to get any plot arcs of his own, but according to the Google AI, he has a gay subtext.

More after the break. Caution: explicit.

Nick Stahl: A career of playing scarred, traumatized teens, with being gay as one of the traumas. Plus zombies, DeKay dick, and a glory hole

 In the summer of 2001, everybody in the East Village was talking about Bully, starring 22-year old Nick Stahl.  The South Florida teenager beats his friend Marty (Brad Renfro) until he is unconscious, sexually assaults him, and humiliates him by forcing him to become an entertainer in a gay bar. They even make a porn video to sell at adult bookstores.

 Bobby also rapes Marty's girlfriend Ali, while forcing her to watch gay porn, and when his own girlfriend Lisa announces that she is pregnant with Marty's child, watch out!  The three friends set out to murder him, with the help of Ali's new sex buddy (Michael Pitt).

It was not a pretty movie -- girl parts outnumber boy parts ten to one, and the gay world is portrayed as unfailingly sordid and decadent.  Nevertheless, every gay magazine -- In Touch, XY, The Advocate -- gave it a favorable review as a cautionary tale about the effects of internalized homophobia.  If only Bobby had the guts to come out...

Nick was born in Harlingen, Texas, in 1979 (Texas...ugh!), moved to L.A. in 1992, and was cast in a few small roles before his big break, playing opposite the then-famous Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face (1993).  The Man and the boy are both gay in the original novel by Isabelle Holland, but straight in the movie.

My Son is Innocent (1996), Eye of God (1997), Promised Land (1997), and Disturbing Behavior (1998) cast Nick as scarred, traumatized, victimized, violent teenagers, leading to Bully.  Afterwards he did a horror movie (Taboo, 2002) and a true crime (Bookies, 2003), but found himself being schtupped by manipulative older women ( In the Bedroom), having sex with men but denying being gay (Twist), or raping and murdering young girls (Sin City). Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) must have come as a welcome relief.

In the Terminator mythos, John Connor manages to save the human world after it is destroyed by a sentient internet, so Arnold Schwarzenegger is sent back in time (naked) to kill him.  In T3, he returns (naked) as an ally, to protect young adult John and his future wife Kate (who is unfortunately engaged to someone else). 

Nick was the second actor to play John Connor.  There have been several others, including Thomas Dekker (left) and Christian Bale.

Carnivale (2023-25) features paranormal beings working in a carnival during the Dust Bowl of Depression-era Oklahoma.  Nick plays Ben Hawkins, a farmer, chain gang fugitive, and healer who joins the carnival and eventually becomes an Avatar of Light.  He's heterosexual, but one of his girlfriends, Sofie, is a lesbian.

Tim DeKay (left) plays Jonesy, who runs the ferris wheel, and Michael J. Anderson, the backwards-talking dwarf on Twin Peaks, his boss, Samson.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

"28 Years Later: The Bone Temple": A cured zombie, the Devil's son, a Jimmy cult, musclemen, dongs, and 8 gay actors.

 

We just saw 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026), the sequel to 28 Years Later, with 14-year old Spike (Alfie Williams) swept away from his island haven into a mainland Scotland ravaged by a zombie apocalypse.  He unwillingly joins a cult run by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Josh O'Connor), who fancies himself the son of Old Nick.  His Satanic Majesty has given Sir Jimmy the task of roaming his countryside and eliminating the remaining humans.  After torturing them, of course.

Very graphic torture. He begins by forcing Spike into a fight-to-the-death with Jimmy Shite (all of the followers wear blond wigs and are named Jimmy, after early 2000s tv personality Jimmy Saville).  Spike wins by stabbing him in the thigh; the others laugh and jeer as blood spurts out like a fountain.

Then the Jimmies invade a farmhouse, string up the occupants in a barn, and skin them alive.  But a woman who escaped returns, sets the barn on fire, and we see people burning to death.

Meanwhile Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who is building the Bone Temple as a monument to the dead, pacifies the gigantic zombie Samson (Chi Parry-Lewis) with morphine and befriends him.  They even dance together.  The gay subtext is so overt that one suspects that it's intentional.  Finally Kelson figures a way to restore Samson to sentience with anti-psychotic drugs.

Spoiler Alert: The Jimmies stumble upon Dr. Kelson, and seeing him surrounded by bones, red in color, and dancing with a demon, assume that he is Old Nick.  Sir Jimmy soon discovers that he is not, but insists that he pretend to be, so he won't lose face with his followers.  So Kelson puts on a sound-and-fire show to Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast."  He's about to let them leave, but he sees Spike as a Jimmy hostage, and changes his mind: in the old order, God sacrificed his son, so Old Nick wants the same.  Sir Jimmy is crucified upside down.

Bone Temple was definitely made with an eye for masculine beauty.  There are several shirtless musclemen.  Chi-Lewis Parry's prosthetic penis is much more visible, and in some scenes his incredibly muscular body is not covered with muck.

We see some other penises, including Dr. Kelson's (but to be fair, name one of Ralph Fiennes's movies where he doesn't show his dick).

I was worried that Spike would get a girlfriend.  He bonds with a girl, but she is much older, and treats him as a little brother or son rather than a potential boyfriend.

In fact, there is no hetero-romance anywhere, among anyone, except when we get a close-up of a photo of Dr. Kelson's long-dead wife, to heterosexualize him.

And so many of the Jimmies are played by gay actors that one suspects a deliberate casting decision

The Jimmies:

Jack O'Connell as Sir Jimmy Crystal.  Straight, but has played gay men several times.

More after the break

Kayden Koshelev: Alkaio's Other Half plays a zombie, a drag boy, and a nonbinary firefighter. With Dornan and twink d*cks

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More Alfie Williams: In the pub, in the pool, on holiday. With gay friends, a disability advocate, some grown-up dicks, and Corey's backside

 

This is a collection of cute/cool photos of  Alfie Williams, star of the zombie apocalypse movies 28 Years Later (2025) and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026), and the upcoming thriller Banquet, with Corey Mylchreest.  Plus a few photos of some adult co-stars. 

1. Corey's butt.

2. Alfie looks contemplative on the green hills of home: Gateshead, just across the river from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

3. Milking a cow (for fun, not for a part).  But it's not a real cow, and I don't think that's milk coming out.

4. The Bone Temple features a post-Apocalyptic cult where everyone is named after and dresses like 2000s English media personality Jimmy Saville.  Here Alfie and his Dad are hanging out with his two favorite Jimmies.

Next to Alfie is Maura Bird (Jimmy Jones), a nonbinary, genderfluid actor who uses she/they pronouns.  

Next to them is Robert Rhodes (Jimmy Jimmy), who is gay in real life.

Alfie is always drawn to LGBTQ people and guys who have played gay characters.  I can't imagine why.

5.Robert Rhodes is also an advocate for people with visual differences.  When he was starring in House of the Dragon, he received some hostile and derogatory comments, and the fans who came to his defense "used very unpleasant language."  Call it a scar or a difference, not a deformity or disfigurement.

6. Sorry, I couldn't find any nude photos of Robert, so what about Sebastian Rhodes? 

More after the break

Chi Lewis-Parry: The "28 Years Later" zombie, kickboxer, gladiator, and Gelf has gay fans and a lot of inches.

 Now that 28 Years Later is streaming, we can get better screen shots of Samson, an Alpha: a bigger, stronger, more sentient, and well-nigh indestructable zombie, who strides across the ruins of Scotland with his semi-sentient pack,  tearing off survivors' heads, chasing Jamie and his son Spike (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams) and being studied by Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). 

Did you notice the homoerotic energy in the interactions between Samson and Dr. Kelson? A definite appreciation of the muscleman beneath the zombie.  Under other circumstances, they might have become boyfriends.

Samson caused a lot of pearl-clutching among skittish heterosexuals because he was naked, with his gigantic Samson penis swinging around. Um...he pulls people's heads right out of their bodies, and you're traumatized by a penis?

The gays loved it, of course.  Even Erik (Edvin Ryding) seems impressed.  Under other circumstances, he would be giving Samson head (so to speak). 

 

Left: Edvin getting head as Prince Wilhelm in Young Royals (2021-24).

Actor Chi Lewis-Parry notes that he used a prosthetc.  There's a British law that, when there are kids on the set, you can't show your real willie.  Besides, he's "always hugging people," and you can hardly do that "fully in the nip." 

But in real life he's "Six foot eight inches."

Funny, according to the biography on Tapology, Chi is only 6'7", not 6'8"...oh, right.  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more. 

Chi was born in 1983 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, and began his career as basketball player before moving on to kickboxing  and MMA (mixed martial arts).  Using the stage name Chopper,  he competed with the United Arab Emirates Warriors before signing on with the American UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).  Here he fights the Egyptian Hulk, Mahmoud Hassen, for an eight-second knockout.

In 2015, he posted "I am tenacious, I'm unanimous, I'm infamous, I'm superb, dashing, marvelous, gargantuan, heroic, furious, greatness, fearsome, a winner! Well, that's what my mum told me growing up, so it must be true."

More after the break