“How can anyone get away with something like that?”
Based on the book Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green, the new HBO documentary Last call describes an era of queer people finding solace in bars before having that security robbed by a killer and a system that didn’t care about being killed. The trailer promises a stunning, detail-oriented project that goes beyond the killings to examine systemic marginalization at a time when a significant portion of the country didn’t care much about AIDS because of who it was killing.
Here is the official synopsis:
“In the early 1990s, as homophobia and hate crimes increased as the AIDS crisis worsened, a serial killer preyed on New York’s gay people, infiltrating queer nightlife to track down his victims. A captivating and investigative crime story, Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York also delves deeply into the biases and attitudes of the time, when deep-rooted biases in the criminal justice system and the media’s distorted public perception of victims undermined the investigation and allowed a brutal killer to come to grips to a marginalized population. The complexities of the closet combined with a longstanding distrust of law enforcement further complicated the case. It also highlights the heroic efforts of activists, including the NYC Anti-Violence Project, to force law enforcement to recognize and protect the queer community.
Directed by Anthony Caronna (Pride) and executive produced by Howard Gertler (How to survive a plague), the docuseries debuts July 9 on HBO and Max.