Before embarking on what became known as his Teenage
Apocalypse trilogy starting with Totally Fucked Up followed by The Doom Generation and Nowhere, New Queer Cinema provocateur and wholly
original film artist Gregg Araki in his third official feature as a director
and cinematographer The Living End established early on the filmmaker’s
penchant for themes of youthful alienation, dumb impulsive aggression and complicated
gay sexual content.
Though initially widely attacked by both gay and straight
filmgoers for his nihilistic abrasions and near pornographic transgressive
sexuality, in the years since thanks to the efforts of LGBTQ releasing label
Strand Releasing, his work has had a chance to be reassessed and reappraised
for the divisive yet confidently assured cinematic violations of our comfort
zones that they are.
--Andrew Kotwicki