Corpus

Intimacy and vulnerability take centre stage in Corrin Evans’s CORPUS, a sensual horror thriller set in the summer of 1998. Transgressive and sweaty, the film draws us into the peripheries of 1990s New York City and the life of nightlife photographer and drug dealer Sayo (Jeff Wahlberg), whose life is upended after he’s invited to a party upstate by his longtime crush and movie star on the rise, Vince Marlowe (Brodie Townsend). When he arrives, the party isn’t exactly bumping and he’s faced with three mysterious women, Billie (Lily Cowles, ANTEBELLUM), Wren (Nuha Jes Izman, YELLOWJACKETS), and Cata (Ching Valdes-Aran, THE EQUALIZER)—whose disturbing agenda draws the boys into a dark web of seduction and terror. Evocative of a different time and place, the film has echoes of Michael Almereyda’s NADJA and Tony Scott’s THE HUNGER as it captures a time and place ironed out by corporate policies. Charlie Cole’s cinematography is dreamy, colourful, and smokey. The film’s unique way of incorporating Sayo’s photography drives the pulsing rhythms of music and drugs. Driven by intense desire, the film is all sex and discovery, as it explores underground queer culture and one character’s descent into self-destruction.