See Kevin Bacon Being Terrifying In Controversial They/Them Horror Movie
This should be interesting.
Kevin Bacon has always been fearless about the roles he accepts, and his latest part is no different. The Footloose star will soon appear in the upcoming slasher flick They/Them about both psychological and physical horrors that unfold at a gay conversion camp. The new trailer is here and Bacon has never been creepier.
The teaser trailer opens on a group of teenagers with luggage, none of them looking very happy. Kevin Bacon — playing presumably the Whistler Camp owner Owen Whistler — enters the scene from the front double doors of a cabin with a warm, welcoming smile. He assures the gathered teens, “This is a safe space. For everyone.” But what unfolds in the teaser suggests anything but safety. You can watch the teaser below.
According to the official description of the film as recounted by Comic Book, the Kevin Bacon character runs an LGBTQIA+ conversion camp. First the teens are subjected to the camp’s programming which gets more and more intense, and eventually the psychological torture is joined by the more physical threat of a killer on the loose.
They/Them is the feature directorial debut of John Logan, though he’s far from a newb to the film industry. Logan has been a professional screenwriter for decades, working on acclaimed projects such as Gladiator, The Aviator, Hugo, and Skyfall. Along with being in the director’s chair for They/Them, Logan is also writing the Kevin Bacon led slasher flick.
In a statement about how They/Them came to be, Logan said the story had been “germinating within” him for his “whole life.” He also said horror is one of his favorite genres, “because monsters represent ‘the other’ and as a gay kid I felt a powerful sense of kinship with those characters who were different, outlawed, or forbidden.” His hope for They/Them is that it “celebrates queerness, with characters that I never saw when I was growing up.”
They/Them won’t be the last slasher flick we see Kevin Bacon in this year. By the end of 2022, Bacon will star in the reboot of the slasher/superhero cult classic The Toxic Avenger in which Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) plays the eponymous hero. Bacon’s role has yet to be revealed. Sometime this year Bacon will also star in the action thriller One Way as the untrustworthy father of the young Freddy, played by Colson Baker aka Machine Gun Kelly.
Back in April it was announced Kevin Bacon had joined the cast of the upcoming thriller Leave the World Behind, based on the 2020 Runaam Alam novel of the same name. The film will be written and directed by Sam Esmail of Mr. Robot fame. The story follows two families as they’re forced to work together in the face of a coming disaster.
Along with Kevin Bacon, They/Them stars Anna Chlumsky (My Girl), Theo Germaine (The Politician), Carrie Preston (The Good Wife), Quei Tann (Dear White People), Austin Crute (Booksmart), Monique Kim (High Expectasians), Anna Lore (Doom Patrol), Cooper Koch (Less Than Zero), and Darwin del Fabro (Dangerous Liaisons). The slasher flick begins streaming on Peacock Friday, August 5.
