Essay by Elizabeth Purchell: The Scene of the Crime

March 7, 2026

Film still by The Scene of the Crime: The Films and Videos of Ken Camp and James Robert Baker

Editor’s Note: As part of the 25th anniversary of Out Night at the 64th Ann Arbor Film Festival, we present The Scene of the Crime: The Films and Videos of Ken Camp and James Robert Baker, a special restoration program spotlighting long-unseen works from Los Angeles’ queer experimental underground of the 1970s and 1980s. Originally written for the 64th AAFF program book, Elizabeth Purchell’s essay offers historical context for films that, for decades, existed only as rumor, controversy, and archival fragments—and that now return to the screen.

The Scene of the Crime: The Films and Videos of Ken Camp and James Robert Baker

by Elizabeth Purchell

Ken Camp met James Robert Baker in the Gay Student Union at California State University, Long Beach, in the early 1970s. Bonding over a love of movies and music, distaste for mainstream gay culture, and shared warped humor, they soon began seeing each other. Though the relationship was short-lived, they remained on-and-off best friends—mostly on—and partners-in-crime for nearly two decades. Since it was first shown, Camp’s film work has been completely unseen. Baker later gained some degree of infamy for controversial novels like Tim & Pete before taking his life in 1997.

In 1976, Camp received a letter laying out Baker’s plans for Mouse Klub Konfidential, to be made for a UCLA film class assignment. Baker pleaded with Camp to star, with the ominous caveat, “Naturally, all this is highly libelous but I don't give a shit.” The resulting film drew outrage, including from one of Baker’s classmates, the future conservative radio host and Golden Turkey Awards co-author Michael Medved. Two years later, when MKK screened at the second San Francisco Gay Film Festival, a festival co-founder threatened violence, while other filmmakers stated that they would’ve pulled their own work from the festival had they known about MKK. That same year, Baker became a finalist in the prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards, attempting to launch a Hollywood screenwriting career. MKK was never shown publicly again during Baker’s lifetime.

While Baker was working on MKK, Camp was knee-deep in After the Comet, a feature-length experimental gay horror Super 8 feature. Camp’s story had gay urban guerrillas plotting the murders of various political figures, along with several other unrelated murders. Alien lifeforms and at least one medical conspiracy are mixed in too. With flicker sequences, rephotography, intricate cross-cutting, and a dense soundscape, the project was wildly ambitious—and ultimately shelved. Years later, Camp returned to the material for Shock Video (1985), a digest version screened at DJ and promoter Jim Van Tyne’s legendary Theoretical parties at gay punk clubs in Los Angeles.  

In the early 80s, both Baker and Camp became involved in EZTV, a West Hollywood video collective and screening space founded by their mutual friend John Dorr. When Camp mentioned to Dorr that he and his boyfriend Leonard Lumpkin were planning a road trip to Las Vegas, Dorr insisted that they take one of EZTV’s video cameras with them. Camp captured footage he used for his first completed feature, Highway Hypnosis (1984). Inspired by his fascination with the Freeway Killer—actually three unrelated gay serial murderers who prowled California for decades—this dark, meditative work stood in contrast to the rest of EZTV’s output, including Baker’s much more conventional narrative video feature, Blonde Death (1983). Though the shooting for Highway Hypnosis came together quickly, editing took over a year, with Camp spending three eight-hour days to assemble a minute-long flicker sequence, two frames of video at a time. Although shortlisted for a potential EZTV showcase at the Cinémathèque française in 1986 and included in the TranceSex group show at the Hotel Mondrian in Los Angeles in 1993, Highway Hypnosis has never widely screened outside of its initial run at EZTV.

This program offers an alternative view of the queer cinema and culture of the gay liberation and AIDS eras. At a time when positive representation was seen as a primary responsibility of queer art, Baker and Camp’s work found few supporters in the community. For decades, the existence of these films and videos was relegated to mere ephemeral traces: Mouse Klub Konfidential’s inclusion on the printed program for the 1978 San Francisco Gay Film Festival, listings for Highway Hypnosis in the LA Weekly. In 2025, Alex Gootter, of the nonprofit screening collective Hollywood Entertainment, and I began working with Camp to assemble both his and Baker’s archives, locating and restoring much of their moving image work. Mouse Klub Konfidential and Shock Video have been scanned and restored in 4K from their original Super 8 edited reversal positives, with soundtracks sourced from their 16mm and Super 8 magnetic tracks (Mouse Klub Konfidential) and a telecine made in the 80s (Shock Video). The feature and both shorts have recently been restored by Muscle Distribution, Art Label, and TAPE from original film and video elements found in Baker and Camp’s archives. 

Out Night at 25: Reclaiming Queer Film History

The Scene of the Crime is presented as part of the 25th anniversary of Out Night at the 64th Ann Arbor Film Festival—a milestone celebration honoring queer cinema past and present.

Founded in 2001, Out Night has become a cornerstone of AAFF’s programming, spotlighting LGBTQ+ films that challenge form, expand representation, and preserve cultural memory. This year’s expanded programming includes feature-length works in competition, a 25th Anniversary retrospective program, and a new lineup of shorts in Films in Competition 5: Out Night.

Through the restoration efforts of Elizabeth Purchell, Alex Gootter, and their collaborators, these films return to the screen—and AAFF is honored to share them with audiences as part of Out Night’s 25th anniversary.

Read more about Out Night’s 25th Anniversary programming here → Celebrating 25 Years of Out Night at the 64th Ann Arbor Film Festival. And join us March 24–29, 2026 at the Michigan Theater.

64 AAFF Schedule and Tickets