Prolific queer film and DV pioneer Todd Verow is back. His latest documentary, Behind the Open Door (2025), takes us inside a hotel room to show us a form of radical sexual freedom. The film is a follow up of sorts to his earlier documentary, Bottom (2012), which followed a man in his attempt to have raw sex with as many men as possible. The subject of Behind the Open Door, Corey Huddson (the American sounding pseudonym of the anonymous Englishman), inspired by Bottom, is on a similar journey, inviting large numbers of men to his Manhattan hotel room (where he has taped the door open) in order to take as many loads as possible. For Corey, the sheer number of partners—“12, 14 hours of endless dick”—and the endless sex creates a uniquely hot, yet physically challenging experience.
Quality is always welcome—”good dick comes from everywhere,” Corey tells us—but quantity is his goal. In pursuit of it, there are a lot of ground level practicalities: setting up the room (he hangs LED lights for atmosphere and to keep it dark enough so as to not scare DL guys), finding partners, cleaning up, and keeping it under the radar to avoid getting kicked out of the hotel. There are expenses as well, including lube, hotel rooms, and Ubers. But, Corey makes money as a “cum dump” by filming some of his sessions. With youth as the ultimate currency in the world of sex though, particularly gay sex according to Corey, he knows it won’t last forever.
Verow’s film gives us insights into Corey’s life and his pursuit using digitally pitched down voice-over as we watch a tremendous amount of unprotected anal sex, perhaps the most in the history of documentary film (Robert Flaherty, eat your heart out). Nearly all of the film’s dialogue is heard in voice-over or in the moans of men engaged in sex with Corey, often as they ejaculate. There are no faces, just torsos, penises, buttocks, legs, and Corey’s anus as a penis enters and as semen slowly leaks from it. It’s a simple visual language, punctuated from time to time by a notebook on the bed being filled with tallymarks counting the session's participants. But, beyond the framing necessary to maintain anonymity, these visual choices create a formal impression of the event itself; imagine Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude (2025) but replace Andrés Roca Rey’s face with Corey’s anus.
Behind the Open Door confronts sexual taboo head on, putting us right there in the middle of the action, giving us entrée into the reality of a highly niche sexual practice in a way very few films do. Currently, HIV transmission is dramatically down, but unprotected anal sex is still taboo and there is still risk of transmitting STIs. But, the risk is perhaps part of the reward, with transgression feeding into Corey’s desire. We come (pun intended) to understand the role of the “cum dump” intimately in the film’s hour and ten-minute runtime, living in Corey’s head space, sometimes sharing in his hypnotic “state of zen,” one in which his penis is no longer his sexual organ. In his words, “It’s all about my hole.” Brilliant in its chosen, limited scope, this daring new work allows viewers to focus without distraction on both the nakedly sexual and the nakedly human.
Behind the Open Door screens this evening, April 24, at Anthology Film Archives as part of the series “Narrow Rooms.”
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