Last year, we heard that original Friday the 13th cast member Kevin Bacon was returning to the world of camp-set horror films by signing on to a project that was at the time known as Whistler Camp. Whistler Camp has since been re-titled They/Them (we’re meant to pronounce that “They-slash-Them”) and is heading for an August 5th release through the Peacock streaming service. Just in time for this year’s Friday the 13th, a batch of first look images from They/Them have arrived online, and you can look them over at the bottom of this article.
The feature directorial debut of Penny Dreadful creator John Logan, They/Them finds Bacon in the role of
Owen Whistler, the director of a conversion therapy camp named Whistler Camp, which attempts to “turn” LGBTQ+ teenagers straight and cisgender. Set over a week-long session at the camp, the film focuses on the various campers, led by trans and nonbinary Jordan (Theo Germaine), as they undergo psychological torment from the camp’s programming. When an unidentified killer begins claiming victims, the kids must team up to protect each other, both from the killer and from the camp staff.
Bacon and Theo Germaine are joined in the cast by Anna Chlumsky and Carrie Preston as Camp Whistler staff members, plus Quei Tann, Austin Crute, Monique Kim, Anna Lore, Cooper Koch, and Darwin del Fabro as Jordan’s friends and fellow campers.
Logan says They/Them has been
germinating within me my whole life. I’ve loved horror movies as long as I can remember, I think because monsters represent ‘the other’ and as gay kid I felt a powerful sense of kinship with those characters who were different, outlawed, or forbidden. I wanted to make a movie that celebrates queerness, with characters that I never saw when I was growing up. When people walk away from the movie, I hope they’re going to remember the incredible love that these kids have for each other and how that love needs to be protected and celebrated.”
Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Michael Aguilar produced They/Them. Logan and Bacon serve as executive producers alongside Scott Turner Schofield, Howie Young, and Jon Romano.
Now, here’s your first look at They/Them. Let us know if you’re interested in this movie by leaving a comment below.