A DeCoteau Disappointment

I know I'm not the only one whose experience disappointment at the hands of director David DeCoteau.   Throughout the late 1990's and early 2000's, I far too often found myself renting, watching, then returning one of his films with less than satisfying results.

I think like many, I discovered the directors work by accident.  I saw some shirtless hottie on a movie's box cover at Blockbuster, and rented it with the hopes of seeing a little skin.  At the time, still in the closet, the films seemed like 'safe rentals', but looking back, I'm sure the employee's all knew what his movies were all about.

The Bold & The Beautiful

They seemed safe, as they were packaged to appear to straight, mainstream audiences, there was usually a hot girl on the video's cover, along with her two or three shirtless male co-stars.  She was the straight bait.  As soon as you got a few minutes in however, you knew that wasn't the intended audience.   Although the films were mostly bad, it's not that I didn't enjoy some of the scenes and some of the moments.  There were some pretty hot scenes of beautiful men in tight boxer briefs.

Teasing can only go on for so long though, and eventually DeCoteau to add some mild nudity.  Sadly... not in 2011's  1313: Giant Killer Bees!  Given the year it was made, I would have thought for at least a quick butt flash.  Why then would I buy, yes buy 1313: Giant Killer Bees! Well, actor Tanner Novlan of course!

Novlan (r) in 1313: Giant Killer Bees!

This past December, I posted a 12 Days piece featuring Tanner's work on Hallmark. (HERE:)  While doing the research, I was noticed Tanner had actually appeared in DeCoteau's 1313: Giant Killer Bees!. I tried without luck to find a digital copy to download or buy, but without success.  So, I headed to Amazon and bought one.  What a mistake!  I should have known had there been any decent moments with Novlan, they would be already on-line.

The movie was low budget, campy and badly acted, but those weren't it's biggest crime.  DeCoteau had Novlan in the cast and not only didn't get him in his tighy whities, but didn't even get him shirtless.  That truly is a crime.  Novlan would have been modeling at the time and given all the underwear he modeled, it's more than a crime there wasn't even a second of skin from the actor in the film.  He only appeared for a few minutes, and I believe was the only male member of the cast to keep his clothes on.

Given I purchased it though, I had to at least do a few caps of Tanner's co-stars who did strip down to their white boxer briefs.  For some reason, after getting bitten by the bees, yes, bitten, not stung, they went into a hypnotic trance, causing them to strip down to identical undies and chase after their clothed counterparts.