Frisk

Director: Todd Verow Todd Verow

Overview

A man pursues his sexual obsessions to their darkest and most dangerous extremes in this gay-themed drama based on a novel by Dennis Cooper. Dennis (Michael Gunther) is a gay man, who as a teenager developed a perverse attraction to violent pornography and simulated snuff photographs, which he describes in great detail in a series of letters to his former lover Julian (Jaie Laplante). As Dennis grows older, his fascination with the darker side of the sexual underground grows more intense, and in time he meets Henry (Craig Chester), a masochist who posed for some of the pictures that sparked his interest in S&M. When Dennis learns that Henry was murdered, he weaves the incident into an elaborate fantasy, in which Dennis suffers a painful death in a dungeon of erotic torture. In time, Dennis graduates from violent fantasies to sadistic interludes with a male prostitute (Michael Stock) and eventually plans a series of sexually-oriented murders, concluding with an episode in which Dennis and two collaborators (Parker Posey and James Lyons) drug a young punk (Alexis Arquette) into unconsciousness. After having group sex, Dennis and his cohorts murder the punk. As one might expect, Frisk proved to be highly controversial and received a sharply divided reaction in its screening as the closing night attraction at the 1996 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; some hailed it as a disturbing and iconoclastic masterpiece, while roughly half the audience angrily stormed out of the theater before the film's conclusion.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/16/2003
UPC:	0712267960125
Original Release:	1995
Source:	Strand Home Video
Presentation:	[Letterbox]
Language:	English
Time:	1:24:00

Special Features

Commentary by director Todd Verow; Special short film "Nob Hill Cinema," an actual shooting location for "Frisk"

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Michael Gunther	Dennis
Craig Chester	Henry
Jaie Laplante	Julian
Parker Posey	Ferguson
Raoul O'Connell	Kevin
Michael Stock	Uhrs
James Lyons	Gypsy Pete
Alyssa Wendt	Susan
Alexis Arquette	Punk (Victim No. 3)
Michael Waite	Gary
Mark Ewert	Young Dennis/Jan/Young Boy in Park
Eric Sapp	Sampson
Timothy Innes	Warren
David Webb	Married John
Peter Searls	Finn
Daniel Boyle	Boy on Train
Michael Now	Shopkeeper
Eric Dekker	John (Victim No. 2)
Joan Jett Black	Silver
Mark Finch	Newscaster
Todd Verow	Blond Man in Bathroom
Bonnie Dickenson	Blond Party Girl
Roberto Friedman	Bartender
Dustin Schell	Snuff Photographer
Dennis Cooper	Man in Hall
Frankie Payne	Uhrs' Porn Co-Star
Damian Roberts	Porn Crew Member
Lee Ranaldo	Composer

Technical Credits

Todd Verow

Jim Dwyer

George LaVoo

Todd Verow	Director,Screenwriter
Jim Dwyer	Screenwriter
George LaVoo	Screenwriter
Marcus Hu	Producer
Jon Gerrans	Producer

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Opening Credits [2:53]
2. The Beginning [3:26]
3. Wild [3:18]
4. Spaced [7:30]
5. Cliche [5:48]
6. San Francisco [8:20]
7. Whacking [7:09]
8. Numb [7:07]
9. Neat [12:48]
10. Wilder [15:05]
11. Very Dennis [11:42]
12. Closing Credits [2:35]

Menu

Side #1 --
   Play Feature
   Chapters
   Audio Commentary: On
   Audio Commentary: Off
   Short Film: Nob Hill
   Strand Trailers
      Beefcake
      Burnt Money
      Love Is the Devil
      The Cockettes