The Living End (1992)

Gentle film critic Jon (Craig Gilmore) hooks up with violent drifter Luke (Mike Dytri) in this HIV-positive road movie. Luke, a hunky gun-toting hitchhiker has just stolen a car from a pair lesbians and shot a trio of gay bashers. Jon lets Luke stay at his place and soon finds himself drawn into the stranger's world. Both are HIV-positive. Things get worse when Luke kills a homophobic policeman. The pair go on the lam, first to San Francisco, then all over the western United States. Their motto: "Fuck everything." Jon keeps his best friend, Darcy (Darcy Marta), apprised of his situation with infrequent collect calls. But as the road trip continues, Jon becomes increasingly disillusioned with Luke's belief that since they're doomed to die, they should lead consequence-free lives. The film ends on a Californian beach with the sun setting, and the two lovers lie down together. Luke ties up Jon, pulls down his pants and rapes him while holding a cocked gun in his mouth. The idea being, he’ll blow himself up as he climaxes.

Many references to rock bands and their members are made throughout the film. Joy Division's Ian Curtis is mentioned, along with Dead Can Dance, Echo and the Bunnymen and others. A Nine Inch Nails sticker is on the dashboard of Jon's car. The film's title comes from a song by The Jesus and Mary Chain, and a cover version of the song is performed by Braindead Soundmachine during the film's credits. In the movie, Luke is seen wearing a JAMC shirt. Braindead Soundmachine guitarist Cole Coonce is credited with scoring the film's original music. The many cameos include performance artist Johanna Went, director Paul Bartel, Warhol associate Mary Woronov, and Peter Grame, star of the obscure European film "Das Gluck Beim Haendewaschen". Gregg Araki wrote the script and directed.

Swoon (1992)

This film is the most homo-erotic version of the Leopold/Loeb case, a true story of gay lovers Richard Loeb (Daniel Schlachet) and Nathan Leopold Jr. (Craig Chester), who kidnapped and murdered a child in the early 1920s for kicks. Why did the two well-off 18-year-olds kill a 13 year-old boy by the name of Bobby Franks? "Swoon" answers that question in detail, using a style that is impressive but brings little emotion to the film's story. Shot in black and white, with some narration in the sequence of events, the movie provides us a look at the duo that is intriguing, but is tedious and dismal for some viewers. It starts out with a surrealistic reading of Leopold van Sacher-Masoch's "Venus in Furs." This sets the tone for the rest of the film. Told first through the journal entries of the two main characters and then with narration, "Swoon" presents the story of the murderers in a way that is accurate and cinematic. The film shows the relationship of Loeb and Leopold, whose sexual relationship serves as the drive for their crimes against others. Their murder of the Franks child was little more than a promise kept by Loeb to Leopold. In one scene, Leopold tells a psychiatrist of a slave/master fantasy, which describes his relationship with Loeb, who is a calculating intellectual. Leopold , an amateur ornithologist, is the emotional and weak one. In love with Loeb, Leopold is willing to do anything for him, and when Leob withholds sex, Leopold is even willing to commit murder to have sex. "Swoon" lacks energy. In the second half of the film, after their arrest and imprisonment, the movie loses what momentum it had and becomes somewhat boring. Leopold and Loebe escape execution due to a lack of understanding of homosexuality. They were declared mentally deficient according to phrenology and old Freudian neurosis theories. If the establishment of the 1920's understood homosexuality, Leopold and Loeb would surely have hanged, for they were certainly guilty. Scripted by Hilton Als and Tom Kalin, who also directed.