4/5 A bad movie I highly recommend
  by J. Martin (Upstate New York USA)
I'm going to do something I've never done before--give a good rating to a movie that's so bad I could hardly watch 95% of it. That's because there are three very peripheral things about this movie that I like so much they go a long way toward compensating for the mess it is in general.

Just about every negative comment about this movie in other reviews is true. It's a muddled mess that doesn't know what it wants to be, trying at various times to be funny, touching, topical, sexy, tragic and transcendent, and succeeding at none of them. It doesn't even know what its title is. In the opening credits, it's called Heaven's a Drag; in the end credits and on the DVD, it's called To Die For. (It was released the year before Gus Van Sant's much more famous and completely unrelated To Die For, starring Nicole Kidman, so the title wasn't stolen; the same title had been used for a Dracula movie several years before either of these movies was made anyway.) Ordinarily this movie wouldn't deserve more than a couple of stars at most. But now for the good stuff, the three things that together move me to praise it despite its very serious flaws.

First of all, this movie has a huge heart. Practically nobody involved seems to have any talent at all. Everything a good movie needs--competent screenplay, direction, cinematography, acting, etc--is lacking. But its good intentions are as pure and true and clear as its execution is muddled. A lot of people cared a lot about this movie, and it shows. I don't know HOW it shows, but it does. I've never before rewarded good intentions alone in reviewing a movie, and I might not in this case either if the next two factors weren't working in its favor too.

Second, there's something very appealing and attractive about Ian Williams, who plays the drag performer Mark. His performance in this movie isn't much better than anything else about it, but the man himself is unusual and unusually interesting. His speaking voice, for one thing, is lovely.

Third (and I've saved the best for last) is Ruth Wallis's fabulous song "Queer Things (are happening to me)." The song plays during the opening credits and carries into the first two scenes, where Mark is preparing for and then doing his drag performance to it. (Another reviewer ridiculed the fact that this evidently is the only song Mark knows, but it's good enough to carry several whole drag careers single-handed, if you ask me).

I'd never heard this song before, and I'd never heard of Ruth Wallis, but it and she are a joy, and Williams's act accompanying it is superb. I must have watched the first two and a half minutes of the movie 20 or 30 times just for the delight of hearing the song and watching his act, and I haven't come close to being tired of it yet.

So for its big heart, for Ian Williams's personal charm, and most of all for "Queer Things," I heartily recommend watching the first two and a half minutes of this movie. That's not much, but it's well worth it.

1/5 To Die For/Heaven's a Drag
  by LeviDevi "Bubman" (Frankfort, KY USA)
Having just subscribed to NetFlix, I have found a wonderful genre of movies, a/k/a "Gay and Lesbian," so this is another one I checked out.

Completely unbelievable, horribly acted, and paced as if the director were on uppers or suffered from schizophrenia, this big old mess of a movie was released in 2002 under the title "Heaven's A Drag." It suffered a name change to "To Die For," which should alert us all. One character is as morose as they come; his favorite movie is the documentary "Stories from the Quilt." In between his gig as a drag queen (he knows ONE song--how believable is that?) he watches this documentary; he sews, he cries, he BORED the crap out of me--but I digress.

His companion is one of those "I'm in an OPEN relationship" kinda' guys, who is so shallow you can see through him like used Neutrogena. When his lover passes away, he does the "mourning thing" for about, oh, 20 seconds, and he's ready to move on. But his dead lover comes back to be with him because, according to him, Heaven is dark and lonely. Isn't that sweet??!! No.

This movie suffers from many problems: it doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy, a drama, a serious story, or one of those T & A deals. Whatever it wanted to be, it never became. With characters no one cares about--each one boring, self-centered, and cold--, horrible acting, and a "partner" who didn't even take the time to let his lover's corpse get cold before he was cruising again, this movie was awful.

4/5 A haunting love story
  by Darien Wells (Tulsa, Oklahoma USA)
TO DIE FOR: a.k.a. Heaven's a Drag. This is a strange little film but very entertaining. It has a lot of emotion. Tears of sadness, laughter, boredom, and so on. You never know what the next minute is going to contain. Simon, played by a very beautiful Thomas Arklie, loses his lover to AIDS, but gets him back in a very haunting way. Marc (Ian Williams) doesn't want to let go of his gorgeous lover even though he is supposed to be dead and gone. He comes back to haunt Simon who is trying to go on with his life with a series of one night stands. His dates are in for a surprising time when the jealous ghost of Marc play tricks on them and Simon. A very different theme than you will see in any other gay film. Arklie's acting is superb, but not a match for his looks. Williams' role spans a wide range from drag queen to mean ghost, jealousy, practical joker, victim, obnoxious queen, undying love, defender and more. His acting is good but not a character I really liked. The sound quality on this film is not real good. I had it turned all the way up and the only thing that didn't need more volume was the musical score which was way too loud and overshadowing. Don't expect a world class production from this movie, but don't let bad reviews keep you from seeing it. I recommend this one but would certainly recommend others much higher. If you're in a mood to see something crazy, funny, and totally unusual, but gay based, this one is a good change of pace.

2/5 An uneven film about AIDS, love and ghosts
  by gac1003
Simon and Mark, a gay couple living in London, have an open relationship. Mark is a drag performer living with AIDS; Simon his his lover who sleeps around. When Mark passes away, Simon quickly removes every aspect of Simon from his life, tossing his clothes, boxing up their photographs and hiding Mark's AIDS quilt piece in the closet. This does not sit well with the spirit of Simon who returns to wreak havoc on Mark's string of one-night stands.

The film as a whole is uneven. It kept jumping from being a movie about AIDS to a ghost story to a comedy to a drama to a soap opera, and was never quite able to hold my interest. The acting is marginal and sometimes overly melodramatic so I never really liked the characters. Add to that poor sound quality (I had the volume almost at full tilt but could still barely hear much of what was said) and a graininess to the film, and the movie veers away from its potential.

3/5 Not great, but kind of cute.
  by Edward Chinevere (Saginaw, MI United States)
Though the movie did have trouble sort of picking a genre - It was sometimes funny but not very effectively so - it was still entertaining, in my opinion. It was very adorable at times and the music was done well. Very quirky concept - Lover dies of AIDS and comes back as a ghost to help his former lover come to terms with his inability to confront his emotions, not just about his lover's death but about a multitude of events in his life. Watch it if you're bored.