'Passag' director nounc 'dangero' NC-17 ratg on a film pictg a gay love story

Contents:

• THE SERIAL KILLER WHO PREYED UPON GAY NEW YORKERS
• STREAM IT OR SKIP IT: ‘LAST CALL: WHEN A SERIAL KILLER STALKED QUEER NEW YORK’ ON HBO, A DOCERI THAT TAK A LOOK AT 1990S POLICE INDIFFERENCE IN THE FACE OF GAY MEN GETTG MURRED
• 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

THE SERIAL KILLER WHO PREYED UPON GAY NEW YORKERS

Directed by Anthony Caronna and executive produced by Howard Gertler om Elon Green’s 2021 nonfictn book, “Last Call” pulls back the curta on the killg spree of Richard Rogers, a male nurse who, as far back as the 1980s and until 2001 when he was eventually ught by thori, targeted gay men New York and New Jersey. (Prr, 1973, he was acquted of killg his llege hoemate what he alleged was a f of gay panic.

Beneath the grislier aspects tailed the seri — Rogers’ mod operandi volved dismemberment and strewg body parts around the Tri-State Area — is also an evotive snapshot of gay New York the early 1990s. Rogers also picked up and murred Thomas Richard Mulhy, a married father of four who lived an unrver gay life and whose dghter reunts touchg memori of him. There was also Michael Sakara, the mayor of Townhoe, who is warmly remembered by former employe of the bar and by his sister, who is also gay.

In the harrowg send episo of “Last Call, ” which is primarily foced on Marrero and the fallout wh the unrground gay muny of his murr, one of Rogers’ alleged attempted victims speaks anonymoly about his bsh wh someone whose MO sounds closely like the killer’s. The NYPD’s often futile pursu of him across the years turns the seri to a documentary thriller s fal stag — futile also bee of the police’s own seemgly homophobic refal to take the murrs more serly. In a timely harkeng to recent ntroversi surroundg The New York Tim’ verage of trans people, “Last Call” touch on the bias at the Tim and other New York media outlets that emed Rogers (before his inty was known) as the “gay-slay” killer obvly bee had a tchy, if--bleeds--leads rhyme to .

STREAM IT OR SKIP IT: ‘LAST CALL: WHEN A SERIAL KILLER STALKED QUEER NEW YORK’ ON HBO, A DOCERI THAT TAK A LOOK AT 1990S POLICE INDIFFERENCE IN THE FACE OF GAY MEN GETTG MURRED

However, the pellg hook of Anthony Caronna and Howard Gertler’s four-part HBO vtigatn (July 9) is that ’s both a whodun and a soclogil crique of the era and environment which s tale took place: early 1990s New York Cy, whose climate of homophobia facilated s villa’s homicis. Wh anti-gay and trans legislatn currently sweepg the natn, ’s an all-too-relevant story about persecutn and vlence, and the way which public rhetoric—and actn—fosters further hate. Otherwise, however, there was ltle eful physil evince procured om the ems, so ps shifted their attentn to Mulhy’s movements the days and hours leadg up to his they soon learned, Mulhy had last been seen on July 8, 1992, at midtown Manhattan’s Townhoe Bar, an upsle gay waterg hole where olr well-to-do gentlemen often met younger suors.

'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

Cops, meanwhile, found difficult to nvce people and around this tablishment to talk to them, sce 1992, the relatnship between the police and the gay muny was fed by distst, if not outright antipathy, much of born om the former’s history of prejudiced harassment and hostily. Like Mulhy, Anrson was a closeted gay man, and on the night of his disappearance on May 5, 1991, he too had vised The Townhoe.

Clearly, someone was killg gay men after meetg them at clubs, and bee of his mod operandi, the assailant was dubbed by The New York Daily News as the “Last Call Killer. Jt as ptivatg, though, ’s a vivid snapshot of s particular moment, narrated large part by two dividuals who were on the ontl of the fight for equal LGTBQ+ rights: The New York Gay & Lbian Anti-Vlence Project’s Bea Hanson and Matt Foreman.

Rellg a time when gay Amerins were both emergg om the shadows force (pecially NYC) and facg creased antagonism and threats (cludg om the ragg AIDS epimic), Hanson and Foreman offer timate and passnate first-hand acunts of the cultural and polil atmosphere of the early ’90s. In dog so, they help ntextualize the murrs as an outgrowth of the long-standg btaly that gay (and trans) men and women faced on a daily basis. Employg plentiful archival material, Last Call is a simultaneoly vibrant and sorrowful look backwards, s nostalgia for the burgeong gay movement lored by the fear that so many felt bee of homophobia and the mortal danger posed—as well as the anger that was a direct byproduct of beg ignored, slanred, and opprsed.