Anything That Moves is a wonderfully horny sex-positive celebration with a delightful Giallo 35mm tinge to it. Writer-director Alex Phillips delivers a fascinating film that is far more vulnerable than you might imagine.

Sex worker Liam (Hal Baum) spends his days riding through Chicago delivering snacks and heaven-sent orgasms for his clients. Unluckily for him, there is a serial killer one step behind him who is specifically targeting his clients, leaving them with gaping holes in their skulls. Can Liam find out who is carrying out the murders before the police try to pin it on him?

Alex Phillips’ Anything That Moves evokes many aspects of 1970s exploitation films, with intense bursts of Giallo filtered throughout. In addition to the film’s meaning, its aesthetics are one of its major highlights. While they occasionally overload the film, the look and feel of it have you fully engaged. Even if you are not a fan of constant nudity and sex scenes, how they are shot brings you into the film.

One thing he continually keeps as a central theme is the struggles of authority figures like police officers and fathers to be open-minded about sexuality. Some characters are resolutely trapped in the closet and are becoming increasingly rare as openness and positivity shine through more and more. We even have a lovely older woman describe Liam and his partner, Thea, as lovely young people, although she clearly knows what they were up to.

Sexuality in this version of Chicago is open and free. Despite that division within the society, there is a need for human connection, even if it’s through sex that strikes through. To amplify that, throughout all of the fantastic, horny shenanigans that Liam and Thea get up to, there is one scene that sticks around more than the others. Liam is hired to help a married woman who is a few months post-partum. There is a clear sexual distance between husband and wife, so Liam has been brought in to please her. However, almost like a sex therapist, he slowly brings the husband in on the sexual encounter to the point that he becomes the one pleasuring his wife and not Liam.

In a film filled with people getting their rocks off or being gruesomely murdered, it is a beautiful little scene. Even one of the early scenes shows us how carefully Phillips handles certain aspects of his story. Anything That Moves could easily be a film about people just having sex and getting paid while still being positive to sex workers. However, it broaches the topic from a far deeper and more insightful viewpoint. Everyone loves differently, and Liam is the conduit for ensuring they are going to get what they need.

The trouble with Anything That Moves is that the middle act is partially spinning its wheels as we run through the film, speedrunning through the murders instead of finding ways to return to those characters with Liam, so that they can then be murdered on screen. By limiting it to just a quick look through Polaroids, we are robbed of the film being a great Giallo. There is also a great deal of vulnerability here that is not fully realised, which is a shame, as it would have truly elevated the film to one that you had to discuss with others. It is as if Phillips got a little stuck on how to progress his story, happily though, the third act arrives and keeps the film on its fantastically filthy rails.

It is difficult to call a film that has more nude scenes than you can shake a stick at and gore charming and a delight, yet Anything That Moves is precisely that. A wonderfully open film that perhaps needed a bit more focus within its story to fully be a home run. Still, it is definitely worth a watch.

★★★

Anything That Moves is showing on Friday 24th October at Brooklyn Horror Fest

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