Asian-American director Gregg Araki's first "heterosexual movie" (as the opening credits declare) is a lurid, drug-fueled romp about teen angst, sex, voyeurism, murder, consumerism and homophobia. It's also a lot of fun, in an ironically kitsch, acquired-taste sort of way.

At the time of its 1995 release The Doom Generation was firmly entrenched as part of the 'new queer cinema' (a movement which sought to break down notions of 'normal' heterosexuality through transgression and subversion rather than through polemic statements). The film sets out to explore a sexual dynamic that lies well outside the traditional boy-meets-girl (or even boy-meets-boy) structure of 99% of American movies, but it does do with its tongue firmly planted in (between) cheek(s).

The plot is extraordinarily simple. Teen couple Amy White (Rose McGowan, best known as small screen witch Paige Matthews from Charmed) and Jordan White (James Duval, more recently seen as Frank in cult film Donnie Darko) accidentally save the seductive, psychotic bisexual Xavier Red (Jonathon Schaech) from a violent gang of homophobes (played by members of industrial band Skinny Puppy) before throwing him out of their car a short time later. The trio meets again later that night at the scene of an accidental convenience store murder, forcing them into an uncomfortable intimacy as they flee the scene of the crime. Before long this intimacy develops significantly, in scenes which display a truly erotic frisson.

The film is deliberately trashy, satirizing western culture's love of consumption and surface beauty while simultaneously commenting on the homophobia underlying traditional macho braggadocio. It's also influenced by such classic genres as the road movie and the horror film, in particular taking the horror movie's obsession with bodily penetration and perverse sexuality (as typified by the likes of Alien and The Fly) to occasionally shocking extremes.

With its garish, adolescent energy and deft ear for teen culture's dialog and self-obsessed behavior, not to mention a too-cool-for-school soundtrack of mid-90's alternative bands (as well as a cameo by Janes's Addiction's Perry Farrell among others), Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation is an occasionally infuriating but wildly entertaining sex-murder romp whose ending is all the more powerful for the light tone the film has previously employed.

RICHARD WATTS