Wilder’s sexuality is left undefined, and Oscar is content not to inquire, as either option might lead to a rejection. What he does subtly shade is the friendship that develops between Oscar and Wilder ( Aliocha Schneider), a handsome co-worker at a Home Depot-ish hardware store. There’s no doubt in Oscar’s mind that he’s gay, and writer/director Stephen Dunn never makes this ambiguous. It might be above my pay grade to say that pole is a coming out metaphor, but based on the film’s gory climax, that’s the way I interpreted it. Oscar’s psyche adopts the weapon used in the attack as a symbol for his own concerns about his burgeoning sexuality. This image is rooted in Oscar’s traumatic childhood discovery of the victim of a heinous, homophobic hate crime.
In addition to chatting with Buffy, Oscar has constant visions of being impaled on a large iron pole, which juts from his stomach like a bloody, phallic object. Both films use imagery and camerawork as a means of evoking the protagonist’s feelings of uncertainty, but “Closet Monster” resides in a more surrealistic universe. Like the superior “ Moonlight,” “Closet Monster” tells the story of queer youth navigating the rocky waters of self-acceptance.
