Jump to the good stuff: The Story | Some Thoughts | The Final Verdict
The Story:
Ganymede is about a high school student from a devoutly religious family who becomes attracted to a fellow male student, then is stalked by an otherworldly creature.
The film opens in 1989 with a man sitting on a dock, calmly smoking a cigarette while looking out at the water. After flicking the cigarette, he gets up and we see that he has two cinder blocks chained to his waist. He walks off the dock and drowns himself.
It’s present day and high school student Lee Fletcher (Jordan Doww) is running through the streets at night. He approaches a small pond, jumps in and sees something lurking in the water. He wakes up the next day sleeping near the pond, then goes home to have breakfast with his parents (Robyn Lively and Joe Chrest).
Kyle (Pablo Castelblanco), a gay student who is out to his classmates, has a crush on Lee. He finds out that Lee volunteers to clean up trash on the school grounds, so he signs up to join him. They start hanging out together, which makes Lee’s parents nervous. Lee’s father brings in Pastor Royer (David Koechner), who believes gay people are influenced by a demon named Ganymede. He then begins to have sessions with Lee to free him of the demon.
And as the sessions begin, Lee starts to see the demon Ganymede and things begin to spin out of control.
Some Thoughts:
Ganymede is a horror movie about the effects of being forced to live in the closet. The production values and the acting make it feel like a made for TV movie. And although the monster looks good, the story lacks tension, and the connection between the monster and Lee isn’t well established.
As Pastor Royer, Koechner makes a good villain, but he’s not worked into the story well enough to be anything more than a plot device. He goes to the Fletcher house and talks about Ganymede, then takes Lee into his clutches, but that’s about it. If the interactions between him and Lee were better, that would be enough, but they’re very surface. He never instills in Lee the amount of self-loathing necessary to cause him to conjure up the awful creature lurking around him.
It’s obvious that Lee is troubled prior to Pastor Royer showing up, but how troubled and why isn’t clear. Also, Ganymede shows up a bit too soon. And although the creature is stalking Lee, his purpose is a bit murky.
Some of the best parts of the movie are with Castelblanco and Doww. However, these scenes are often clunky and unbelievable, but the actors do connect well with each other.
Also, the Fletcher family dynamic is weird. Both parents suspect that Lee is gay, but since Lee doesn’t read as gay, and he does a good job hiding it, we never know why. On top of that, the father is a one note character. All we ever know about him is that he’s a homophobe and that he’s an important figure in the town. Lee’s mother has a similar issue, but at least she has a backstory about her brother being gay, even if it’s barely explored.
The Final Verdict:
Ganymede is a gay horror movie that lacks scares. Its heart is in the right place, but that doesn’t make up for the poorly handled story.