The Picture of Dorian Gray is a perfectly Victorian novel. And it’s not impossible to imagine it retold in the present or even the distant future. That’s the obvious choice when it comes to revamping classics. But what about the past? The distant past? The Flintstones past?
That’s what Denver film impresario Kim Shively is trying to do in her new, quirky short movie The Horror of the Cave Painting. She drags Dorian Gray by the hair back into prehistory.
Shively’s short features handsome, stylishly scruffy hipsters playing out Wilde’s tale of narcissism, artistic obsession and gay desire – caveman style.
While Wilde’s characters jab each other with witty barbs, Shively’s prefer boulder-chucking, grunting and food-scavenging brutality graced with a little bit of portraiture and a whole lot of drama.
The movie’s brutal, it’s funny and it’s horrifying, kind of like Dorian Gray.
The Horror of the Cave Painting will have its world premiere at Glob, 3551 Brighton Blvd., tonight, at 8 o’clock. It will show in a free program with works by other local filmmakers.
