The Gift (2003) Review
By Jake Euker
Very Good
By comparison with the new Louise Hogarth documentary The Gift, the shenanigans of the best fictional horror films seem like child's play. About a subculture of gay men who actively seek to become infected with HIV - and those who are willing to give it to them - The Gift presents real-life horrors so complete and unfathomable that you can't get them out of your head.
The question is who on Earth would set out to contract this unbeatable foe, and why? By way of an answer, The Gift presents us with two very different individuals: Kenboy, a party automaton who responded to an ad inviting young men to apply at a Los Angeles "sex house," and thus relocated to southern California; and Doug, a demure blond kid who ended up in San Francisco somewhat more innocently, but once there found that he couldn't fit in. Peripherally we meet the members of a support group for the HIV-infected who suffer from heart problems brought about by the disease, and Bill, an amoral older man who runs a "dungeon" in which anonymous sex can be had and where condoms are discouraged.
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