Frameline Film Festival Short Feature Review: ‘Spookable’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Alexandra Grey and Marval A. Rex as Tamina and Sean in Jonathan Andre Culliton’s SPOOKABLE.

It really is quite amazing what horror can teach us in this day and age. For now, it really is a medium for understanding the human condition, and the darkness we carry and, in some cases, how to combat it, and it makes sense as to why this is quickly becoming the norm. For we fear the darkness within, and we fear what we could become if we embrace it, and what better place to face those fears than within the framework of a scary story that lets us safely process those fears and/or express them through the character’s harrowing journey and what’s amazing… is that horror is continuing to expand into new frontiers when it comes to such explorations. 
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For now, it is even looking at the traumas we carry and how to heal from them, and it’s also taking the time now… to serve as an educational tool. To explore some of the fears that others carry through the scary experiences they go through in life. Such as the ups and downs that members of the LGBTQIA+ community experience on a daily basis. For there are undue pressures upon those individuals to conform to societal norms, and if they don’t… they face horrors untold, as is explored in a short horror feature that recently screened at the Frameline Film Festival, Spookable.

Which is a story that takes us on a camping/cabin journey with Sean and Tamina, a pair of transgender individuals that are split on whether or not this trip is a good idea. Mainly because Tamina is not about that camping and cabin lifestyle and her concerns only grow, when this duo encounters a strange individual that continually showcases wild behavior, wild characters, and is all around annoying. But there are bigger problems at play here than an annoying neighbor. For this camping site is also home to a creepy and uncomfortably gooey cave, one designed to claim victims to transform them into werewolves and if Sean and Tamina don’t head home soon, there is a fair chance they will become the cave’s next victims.

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Marval A. Rex as Werewolf Sean in in Jonathan Andre Culliton’s SPOOKABLE.

At first glance, that appears to be nothing more than a story that is a grandiose send up of horror films. Since clearly, Sean and Tamina’s journey has all the tenets of B-movie horror. Such as an isolated cabin in the woods, weird warning signs from weird people, and mysteries and horrors untold waiting within the woods, and well, you would be right to think that. Because of the fact that this is a horror comedy at heart, and it does poke at those old tropes, and how tired they’ve become and that allows for some lighthearted and fun moments to take place. The kind that are counterbalanced by the incredible commentary here.
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Because the journey that this duo goes upon, explores the prejudices that transgender individuals receive in the world since Tamina and Sean are consistently sized up and questioned with a glance. Not to mention, there are vignettes present here, that revolve around the pressures that LGBTQIA+ individuals face from a society that fears gender fluidity and truly, the werewolf subplot present here clearly serves as an allegory for the patriarchal, masculinity conformity that is expected of so many and is imparted upon so many, and that how that creates more than harm than good. Which makes this… a perfect horror comedy. Since it properly brings the laughs and harbors the genius commentary present within horror.

But what matters more, is that it really does offer us insight into experiences that so many do not know and do not understand, and that… is huge. Because understanding and learning is how we overcome our fears, and there is indeed fear out there about the LGBTQIA+ community, but there should not be. For as this story also showcases, members of that community aren’t monsters, they’re people, plain and simple. Who want what everyone else wants, and that what we really should be afraid of, are the real creatures of the night. The hate that hangs heavy over the air and the ignorance that lets it persist, and only great horror stories, such as this one… know how to properly point that out.

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