At long last, the original theatrical cut of Martin Donavan and David Koepp's wonderfully strange psychological thriller Apartment Zero is making its way to DVD this Tuesday. It's great to see the film as it was originally intended both in terms of technical specs (it's a nice widescreen transfer, if a bit grainy) and content – this 124-minute cut doesn't skimp on the homoerotic elements of the story, many of which were deleted from previous releases both in the States and overseas.

Up until this point it was virtually impossible to see the complete film as it was originally intended, and distributor Anchor Bay has outdone themselves in giving the odd little thriller its due.

Colin Firth stars as Adrian LeDuc, a timid, fussy, and likely sociopath who owns an apartment building and cinema in Buenos Aires, circa 1988. Although he was raised mostly in Britain, Adrian is a born Argentine – but he uses his British accent to maintain fair distance from his neighbors, even going so far as to pretend not to understand Spanish. Adrian 's only real friend is his mother who unfortunately is slowly losing her mind leading to commitment in a sanitarium.

In order to liven up his life and compensate for the poor attendance at the theatre (a repertory house that shows old gems to audiences of two or three patrons), Adrian decides to rent out his mother's room.

After a series of wacky applicants visit the place, a dark and handsome American stranger named Jack (Hart Bochner) arrives to see the room. Adrian immediately offers him the place, and thus is born a strange relationship based on deceit, attraction, and intense, co-dependent need. Adrian is obviously attracted to Jack, and Jack isn't blind to this, but is he attracted himself, or merely using his natural appeal to get something from his new landlord?

The idea of the pansexual lothario who works his looks to get something from a timid gay admirer is nothing new But in Apartment Zero it is deconstructed to its fullest, and given a dark, deadly undercurrent. We learn from news reports that Buenos Aires has been struck with a rash of brutal murders that apparently are the work of a former military “kill-squad” member – a mercenary trained to kill by the government and then released into the streets unmonitored and without rehabilitation. The question soon becomes whether mysterious Jack is the killer in question.

Gay audiences will of course find much to love about Apartment Zero, even beyond the considerable assets of its hunky and handsome leads. It's almost unheard of to see an emotional relationship between two men explored so deeply, and the fact that this is a genre piece with a dark streak does not discount the central relationship or make it exploitation.

This is not a movie about self-destructive or dangerous gay men. It is about conflicted characters who happen to form a bond because of a mutual attraction and the focus is not on their sexualities, which are incidental to their other character traits. Jack's ability to switch hit depending on his company is clearly not intended to be an indictment of bisexuality. After all, he actually does quite a bit of good in his community by reaching out to his neighbors and standing in for their needs. His sexuality is one aspect of his personality that is independent of his darker impulses, and while the two do intertwine, there is not a cause-effect relationship to be drawn from them.

Some gay viewers might find the fact that these two sociopaths are also gay or bisexual to be unsavory, but it's a psychological thriller, after all – a genre that benefits from the most complicated characters possible. This is a film where gay sex and gay relationships aren't coded strictly with destruction. Take Jack's scene with the upstairs neighbor, for example, or the touching speech that Vanessa the cross-dresser gives to Jack after he comes to her rescue. Given the unhealthy core relationship at the heart of the film there is of course going to be some negative fallout.

Nonetheless, the variety of gay characters and overall fluidity of sexuality presented prevents the story from turning into a cautionary tale about gay attraction.

Apartment Zero operates inside a claustrophobic sort of microcosm, in which Adrian 's apartment complex (he and Jack share the titular unit) stands in for an entire community. There are a few gossipy British biddies on the main floor, a feuding but passionate couple on the next, a rakish young Romeo, a fussy old couple, and even the soft-spoken transsexual. While Adrian distances himself from his tenants (to the point of near-agoraphobia),

Jack readily works his way into their lives – and in doing so becomes the “perfect man” for each of them. He plays “gentleman caller” to the biddies, father figure to the lonely girl next door, protector to the transsexual, and even stands in for an unrequited schoolboy crush for the young man upstairs (to rather titillating result).

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