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EPISODE 110: DRAG IS TERRIFYING
914 Plays11 months ago
‘We’re born, and the rest is drag’, as the saying goes. But when the world where drag exists becomes horrific, it gets terrifying quickly. Matty and Andrew are joined by special guest PEACHES CHRIST in this episode that explores the art, tells some amazing stories, and engenders hope for the days ahead.
HORROR IN THE MOVIES
PSYCHO BEACH PARTY and ALL ABOUT EVIL add the perfect ambiance for this episode hennny, mmkay?!
WHATCHA BEEN WATCHIN’, BITCH?!
Listen in to hear what we’ve been watchin’... bitch!
SLICE LEFT, SLICE RIGHT
In this terrifying game of Tinder, who will the boys choose?!
–
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Support FRIGAY THE 13TH: www.frigay13.com/support
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Transcript
Introduction: The World of Frage the 13th
00:00:00
Speaker
Frage the 13th Horror Podcast is a proud, independent podcast. To learn more about the show, visit frage13.com.
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome back to America's favorite reality program, Frage's Drag Relay.
Meet the Participants: Humor on the Main Stage
00:00:16
Speaker
Category is Podcast Realness. Please welcome to the main stage, Tori Anis. Anis may be my name, but ass is surely my game. And second to the stage, Suffy Bummers.
00:00:32
Speaker
There may be vampires out there, but I'll be doing this laying tonight. You know, I really like Safi, but what is with that wig? Tori is just as much of a fake person as that ass padding is. Slain, girl, is just plain. Hope she can sing because that mug is not serving much. Hey, wait, why are we talking like we can't hear each other?
00:00:56
Speaker
Oh, is this not a confessional? Uh, oops.
Satirical Politics: Life, Death, and Justice
00:01:00
Speaker
It's episode 110. Drag is terrifying. I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom. I'm Marjorie Greene, and I approve this message to save America, stop socialism, and stop China. Say goodbye, we honor thee from life to death.
00:01:25
Speaker
in real life. Doubters, the Doomsters, the Gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong. They're up in the movies. Where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna run? Where are you gonna hide? Nowhere. Because there's no one like you left. What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! Let's go! What are you waiting for, huh?
Social Tensions: Disruption at Drag Event
00:01:56
Speaker
I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning. Sometimes that is better. What was supposed to be a quiet reading time with drag queen Panda Dulce ended like this. Did you guys call the cops? It was stormed by any proud boys who disrupted the event.
00:02:17
Speaker
The incident occurred Saturday and witnesses who wanted to stay anonymous say the group that disrupted the event was acting aggressively and yelling offensive slurs against the LGBTQ plus community. You know, they came in and they were screaming about like pedophilia and saying things like, we have to save the children. And I mean, they were terrifying the children.
Horror from an LGBT Perspective
00:02:37
Speaker
Welcome to Frigate the 13th Horror Podcast. My name is Matty. And I'm Andrew. And if this is your first time joining us at Frigate the 13th Horror Podcast, we are the podcast that talks about horror. Horror in real life and in the movies from an LGBT perspective. This is our 110th episode. It's all about drag, something that Andrew and I both have a lot of fun with and love.
00:03:00
Speaker
And we're looking forward to bringing you through this episode like we always do. We've got a couple of really great films lined up, sort of obscure things that we don't normally cover. And I'm really glad that we are. And Andrew, this is going to be a good one. You ready? Yeah, I'm excited. But before we talk about the wonderful world of drag queens and drag kings, let's take a slight turn or a screech over to the certified terrifying corner.
American Politics: Challenges and Controversies
00:03:30
Speaker
Sure, so two items for you today. So first one is this. And you know, folks too, you're gonna be listening to this just after Thanksgiving. And so, you know, look where the news is kind of here and there. So I also wanna say like, you know, whether you're traveling for Thanksgiving or whether you're in Europe and you don't even celebrate Thanksgiving, be safe and have fun. Eat a turkey, it's gonna be good. Or eat some kind of tofu or something. Anywho, first one here is this.
00:03:57
Speaker
The Democrats of America are going to have a pretty tough time keeping the Senate. And the reason why is that that fucking weirdo Joe Manchin has decided that he's not going to run for the Senate again. Now, that sounds like fun. Sounds cool because we don't like him anyway. But guess what? He's a Democrat in West Virginia and the only Democrat that can really win. So this means that it will be incredibly unlikely that another Democrat will pick up that seat. It's likely going to be a Republican and the Democrats will lose the Senate.
00:04:27
Speaker
Not a lot of fun considering everything that's going on right now. But that's just the reality. This is American politics.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, I had not heard this until you put it on our worksheet and then I kind of looked it up. But I honestly didn't even know West Virginia had a Democrat for. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. I mean, look, he hasn't acted like a Democrat for a long time. So it's not a surprise if anyone thought that he wasn't. But unfortunately, not not good stuff.
00:04:59
Speaker
So there's that one. The next one here is that Mike Johnson, a Republican, is the new Speaker of the House. This dude is a fucking weirdo. I forget where he's from. Louisiana, I believe. He's from Louisiana. Doesn't that make sense? He is like full on like big time, kooky, evangelical Christian.
00:05:21
Speaker
And he believes in some wacky shit. One of the fun things that that's come out about this dude is that like he and his he and his son have some kind of app that like tracks their porn usage. What? Yeah, no, this is and this is a real story. I'm not making this up. He actually talked about this like him and his son and like his son is like, I don't know, a teenager older than that. I'm not really sure. But like they keep each other accountable on not watching porn.
00:05:51
Speaker
and there's some kind of app that looks at your computer and looks at your phone and tells your accountability partner if you've watched porn. Now look, that's fucked up enough as it is, right? But here's the thing, the speaker of the house
00:06:07
Speaker
is the third person in line to the presidency. So if the president dies, VP comes in. If the VP dies, the Speaker of the House
The Israel-Palestine Complex Situation
00:06:16
Speaker
becomes president. I just want to point that out to people, right? This is a position that holds an incredible amount of power in the country. So there is a man who has a cell phone with some wacky third party app that is constantly looking at everything that he does.
00:06:33
Speaker
That's not good, dude. That's not good for safety and security and for privacy. So I mean, just on so many levels fucked up, but on that level, too. Also, I don't know if you knew this about him, but he did an interview when he was elected Speaker of the House, him and his wife. And they basically said that this was told by the Bible and ordained by God that he would become Speaker of the House.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think so. There's nothing also about that. Just to give you a little bit of history on Mike fucking Johnson. This is the guy who tried to criminalize gay sex in Louisiana. So fuck you. Yeah, he's a real piece of shit. But, you know, look, it's they get what they ask for. And this is this is the one that that America is going to have to deal with that they that the Republicans unanimously brought in. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:30
Speaker
And look, you know, the last thing that I'll say here is this and you know, look that this will this will be released in about, you know, 10 days or whatever. So, you know, hopefully things change. But of course, the war in Israel and Palestine rages on and Israel and Hamas are at each other's throats. And it's it's so terrible. You know, the one thing that I would just say about this.
00:07:50
Speaker
is this. This is a complex situation. It's more complex than TikTok will have you believe. And I think that if you're engaging in protest or in this or that or whatever, I think it's a good thing. You should go out and make your voice heard.
00:08:07
Speaker
But for the love of God, go do some research. Go read books. Go look into the history. Don't believe everything that you're hearing. And I mean this on both sides. I really do. This is so awful what's going on. And I'm seeing it tear people apart.
00:08:23
Speaker
all over the place. I'm seeing friends that are no longer friends. I'm seeing family members not talking to each other anymore. I'm seeing my Jewish friends in a lot of anguish and in a lot of fear. I'm seeing friends of mine that are, I don't have any Palestinian friends, but I mean folks that are Muslims or folks that have an Arabic background that they're afraid to. There's so much fear, there's so much death, there's so much destruction. Don't add to that.
00:08:53
Speaker
You know, don't add to that. Let's try to make peace happen. And in a real world, guess what? Palestine will still be there and Israel will still be there. That's what's gonna happen. And it's gonna have to be two groups of people that get together and fucking figure it out. You know what I mean? Like, we need peace. We don't need more fucking drama all over the place. That's my thought on that.
A Light Transition: From Politics to Entertainment
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's a real shame that we can't see the humanistic part in war and what it does and just cut it out, you weirdos. It's really terrible shit. And I'm just I'm so tired of everyone thinking that they're the expert and everyone saying that, you know, no, you're completely wrong. You know what? You don't fucking know. How about that? You don't fucking know. So like fucking I don't know. Go read some books.
00:09:46
Speaker
Put TikTok away. I am very, very tired of TikTok. Anyways, Andrew, that's it for the Certified Terrifying Corner. Let's get on with the show.
Drag Royalty: Peaches Christ and Horror Films
00:09:54
Speaker
Yes, on with the show, we shall go. And with this being an all-drag conversation, we felt like we would be doing a disservice to our audience without bringing on someone that had
00:10:08
Speaker
some drag royalty if we do say so ourselves. So here on the show today, we have director, writer, performer, all around great person, Peaches Christ. Peaches, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you. I'm glad to be here. I love your show.
00:10:29
Speaker
Thank you. Oh, that's so nice. Peaches, you know, we've had you folks on before talking about Midnight Mass. And, you know, we love you. We love Michael Virati, of course. And it's just incredible stuff that you've done. And looking at your career, like the stuff that you have made happen is is just so
00:10:48
Speaker
you know the word i'm looking for is admirable that's the word i'm looking for and um you know we later in the show our listeners will will hear more about about your film all about evil um which was really really incredible and just so much fucking fun to watch um i mean i will watch mink stole fucking do anything you know
00:11:09
Speaker
And just so much fun. But Peaches, being with us on this drag is terrifying episode, it's so special for us and for our listeners. And I think what would be really great to start with is just literally start at the beginning. And can you tell folks about, what was the very first kernel in your head that said, hmm, this is something that I need to explore?
00:11:38
Speaker
Well, of course, I think about this a lot because I get asked this question a lot. And my answer has changed over the years because you sort of unlock different memories or think about things differently as you grow older. And I can really trace things back to like my first real, probably, you know, inspiration came from
00:12:00
Speaker
Elvira and peewee herman now i didn't know or connect that they were drag performers in the in the way that i think about drag until much later in life so that's what i mean about my answer changing but i was very drawn to the idea that you could kind of.
00:12:17
Speaker
be a character who exists in different forms of media like television you could go on johnny karson you could you could be in your own movie you could have your own children's tv show you could host a movie you know whatever all the things they did but i also knew i understood that they were.
00:12:36
Speaker
you know, that they were performers, they were actors who lived as these characters to some degree. But it wasn't until later, until I was older, that the concept of drag in the more traditional sense was introduced to me in the form of divine.
00:12:52
Speaker
Really pretty simultaneously with Frank and further I Discovered I grew up in Maryland I discovered John Waters and and his movies when I was in junior high school and that was around the same time that I attended the first of many many rocky horror picture show screenings and I think that's why so specifically You know John
00:13:14
Speaker
divine Tim Curry, the entire Rocky Horror family, and Elvira, and Paul Rubens. When I really think about all the ingredients that get made for Peach's Christ, that's really what it all is. Wow. So when was the very first time that Peach's Christ came out?
00:13:36
Speaker
Well, I was a film student at Penn State and I, you know, I didn't want to go too far from Maryland, but there was no film program in Maryland. So I went to Penn State and I was making my senior thesis film, Jiz Moper, a love story.
00:13:52
Speaker
And the faculty at Penn State were not thrilled about me. Most of the students were, you know, Martin Scorsese wannabes. And, you know, they were they just was a very straight white male film, you know, program. And excuse me, I was
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was I was obviously very, very inspired by my idol, John Waters. And I had written this part. I co-wrote the script and the guy I was writing it with had written this part for the manager of the adult store where the movie took place to be played by. It was kind of like an Appu, like an Indian stereotype. Yes. And even back then, like in the mid 90s, I kind of knew that that was tired and not
00:14:44
Speaker
Correct. In a way, you know, I'm not going to pat myself on the back too much, but I did know that that wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. So I asked if we could turn the character into a drag queen. And his pushback was like, why would a drag queen manage, you know, an adult bookstore video? You know, it was a strip strip club bookstore. These things existed all over Pennsylvania at the time, even though the movie took place in Manhattan and Times Square.
00:15:14
Speaker
Anyway, get this. We do, he agrees to it. We do the movie.
00:15:20
Speaker
the manager of adult world in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where we shot the movie a drag queen. And so it was like it was, you know, a great moment for me when I was able to turn to him and say, I see, I told you. But I digress. The actor we'd hired to play the drag performer, he was just very flaky. And remember, drag was not popular. Actually, drag was kind of hated at the time. And, you know, it just it was it was 1995. And so I became
00:15:51
Speaker
peaches in front of the camera in that movie. And I would have been Peaches Christ, but the Christian cinematographer who was already so uncomfortable doing the movie begged me when he heard the name Peaches Christ. He begged me. So if you see the movie, I'm Peaches Nevada.
00:16:10
Speaker
But deep down inside, I was always Peaches Christ. And I graduated from Penn State. And when I got on the plane to San Francisco, two weeks later with no money, no place to live, no job. The one thing I had was the name Christ, you know, and I got to San Francisco in 96. And yeah, and I just I was Peaches Christ from then on.
00:16:32
Speaker
No, no, Peaches, you mentioned something really interesting there that in 95 drag was hated. Yeah. And, you know, and now we're, we're in this, this, uh, you know, however many years later, what eight 18, um, you know, 28 years later, whatever. Um, I'm not good at math. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's a long time. It's 20, I think. Yeah, you're right. 2828. The one with two in front of it.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Twenty eight. So, you know, twenty eight years later, here we are. And, you know, we're at this really interesting juncture with drag where, you know, like drag is both like maybe more popular than it's ever been. For sure. There's there's there's all over TV with RuPaul or with Dragula. You know, drag queen story hours are popular. There's drag brunches all over the fucking place. I mean, come on. But at the same time, there's also this incredible hatred for it. Yeah. So, you know, I wonder
00:17:22
Speaker
for you looking at this over the span of those years, are you seeing common themes today that you saw back then in 95? Kind of. I mean, I think that the thing in 95 was that drag queens
00:17:41
Speaker
I don't think we were. In fact, I was drawn to drag because it was punk rock and underground and divine sense and, you know, problematic. I mean, I was I was inspired by of course, but there's always been drag drag has been around forever. But there was this sort of like, you know, in the 40s, 50s, even 60s and beyond still today, there was always this sort of socially acceptable
00:18:10
Speaker
drag that was performed for straight people, which usually was, um, look at the illusion. Can you believe this person is doing Barbara Streisand, you know, that kind of thing? Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's fine. In fact, I love that. Um, but it's not what inspired me. I was inspired by the notion that divine eight dog shit, you know, like that Frankenfurter was
00:18:35
Speaker
So sexy while also being so kind of ugly, you know, and that's what drew me to drag, you know, all of that. So I guess I guess it's the difference then was that.
00:18:51
Speaker
We didn't look for acceptance from the wider straight community. You know, we were basically performing in a way for each other. It was sort of hurtful at the time. When I talk about drag not being celebrated, there was this movement in the queer community who before, you know, had had lauded drag performers
00:19:13
Speaker
to some degree, there was a bigger movement to kind of erase us, especially from things like pride parades and being part of the movement. The HRC definitely had a hand in that. Good old HRC.
00:19:33
Speaker
The game, you know, I say I won't use the word queer because it was really like the gay rights move. I think you're right. I think I agree with you on this. Yeah, they were fighting for marriage equality and drag queens just didn't fit into their agenda. Now, as a more mature person later in life, I can look back and go, OK, as a political move, I get where they were coming from.
00:19:58
Speaker
As a queer person, I could give a shit, you know, so it's like, you know, it's why my identity is sort of always been more queer first, you know, rather than gay. I mean, of course, I'm I'm all those things, but I'm a weirdo before I'm a gay man. I love that. That's so good. So, you know, I mean, thinking about taking this a little bit further and this will be my last question, Andrew, I've been talking the whole time, I'm sorry.
00:20:27
Speaker
Thinking about today then right now, because I agree with you, it's less of a common thread. I think that the threat today is a lot more pernicious. I mean, look, the queer community has always faced violence. The drag community has always faced violence. Transgender folks have always faced violence. And altogether as a community, it's nothing new to us.
00:20:50
Speaker
But I mean, I think that maybe the ferocity of it these days might be. I'm taken back to the terrible shooting that happened in Colorado, in Colorado Springs. I forget the name of the bar now, but while drag performers were performing,
00:21:08
Speaker
I mean, the things that are in people's heads now about getting rid of us, it's just something so odd, so evil to use the word for it. It really is. I'm wondering, for you, you've been in the community for such a good long while and such an important part of it, quite frankly, how are you and your friends in the community
00:21:31
Speaker
How are you dealing with this? Like, I mean, like, I know you're keeping yourself safe. I know all of that. But I mean, internally for you, how do you how do you deal with that? I think part of what's happening now
00:21:47
Speaker
For me, I'll speak as a Gen X queen who's been around a long time. It's not as perhaps terrifying as people might think it would be. Sadly, we've built up a lot of strong armor. I would imagine for a younger generation who's grown up with drag queens on television,
00:22:14
Speaker
Some of this might be really shocking and jarring and eye-opening, but I think for some of us older people, it's disgusting, but it's also something we've seen play out. This is no different than the rise of Donald Trump or MAGA. Anytime there's progress, and you can look at this throughout history.
00:22:37
Speaker
the election of a black president. Incredible, amazing, genius moment. We're so fortunate to have seen that, but there was going to be a response. And I feel like with the popularity of drag race and the internet and social media, you've got all these sort of frightened,
00:23:00
Speaker
you know, assholes out there in the world who are watching their kids not not be as easily indoctrinated by their bullshit. So what do they do? Oh, my God, it's the drag queens that are grooming my children. It's the drag queens that are making it harder for me to teach them to hate people. You know, so they're freaking out and they want to ban us. But I actually don't look at all of this as sort of problematic. I look at it as like, oh, wow, Jesus, it's working.
00:23:28
Speaker
We really are having an effect on their communities and their their kids, you know, and they're going to call us groomers. But what it really is is they're just not as able to instill the sort of hate that they normally would be, you know. And so they're watching their kids, you know, be exposed to this stuff. And the kids are going, wait, you want me to hate Trixie Mattel? What? Sure.
00:23:52
Speaker
Why? I don't get it. She's going to hell for what reason? So it is a really interesting thing. I will say that there's the actual scary part of just someone, because we live in a country where there's no gun control and there's a lot of mental illness.
00:24:11
Speaker
I'm not minimizing those fears, but that's across the board. Whether you're a drag queen or any minority group in our country, we should all be afraid of some lunatic shooting us. Sadly, it's just a normal part of our American reality.
00:24:30
Speaker
Wise words. Yeah, I had a theory kind of a little while back and like why all of a sudden this is like so up in like the the news cycle and everything is that in my theory was it's because drag queens are actually becoming successful. It's because they're not necessarily, you know, in the back of a dark bar anymore. Like they're on your television. They're like they're actually making a living for once.
00:24:58
Speaker
You're totally right because that's where I've gotten the most pushback. I mean, I still kind of exist in an underground type of way. And even though like my terror of alt show, you know, it's at the old San Francisco mint building and it's a big show. We just finished and we had 10,000 people come through that show.
00:25:19
Speaker
acceptable for me to do a horror show. However, when I went to do a show at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, there was a lot of pushback. And I think it's because, oh, yeah, same thing when I did the Giants game in San Francisco, you know, at the I forget what it's called. Is it Oracle Park? You'd think I would know. But, you know, the big the big baseball stadium here, you know, but they featured peaches at that
00:25:46
Speaker
Pride game or whatever and it's like that's where they freak out so i think you hit the nail on its head it's like you're fine to exist in your dark horrific little corners where we don't have to deal with you but how dare you know they come onto our stages in our stadiums you know our places and that's where.
00:26:08
Speaker
whenever I do an event like that, my social media is flooded to the degree where I think it's calculated. I actually think they must be robots because it's literally someone decides and pushes a button because all of a sudden after weeks of nothing, I will get, you know, hang yourself, go to hell, kill your all that stuff. But it's so it's so I wish someone would dig into it more because I'm like, this has got to be just some
00:26:37
Speaker
computer program. It's just almost too ridiculous.
00:26:42
Speaker
As soon as you pop up in the news, it's like the AI bot is like, well, now it's time to threaten. Yes, yes, exactly. And the reality of that is I am not that I've been on big stages forever, obviously, but I've been performing in places like that for a while. You know, like I was, you know, John Waters calls it crossing over, you know, I kind of crossed over from from the underground into the
00:27:08
Speaker
into the sort of being respected by the institutions. You know, a while ago, you know, I made a movie, I've done different things. So it's not like I haven't been in these places before. It's new, this level of reaction. This is a new thing. And, you know, I'm not convinced that it's not a lot of it's not computer generated.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. We've talked a lot about external things happening to the drag community and that angle of it, but I would also like to explore something that we like to talk about on the show as being two gay men and experiencing hatred within our own community is the
00:27:51
Speaker
The exploitation of drag being a kind of snippy, evil, like, take each other down, like, place. Whereas, like, when I see it in real life, not for dramatics on the screen, everyone is so, like, welcoming and want everyone, they want to lift everybody up. They want everyone to have time on the stage. Where do you think that comes from as far as, like, the personification of, like, a drag queen just being, like, a mean, nasty,
00:28:20
Speaker
Snippy community, you know what I mean? Well, I think that's rooted in misogyny a lot of that, you know, I think and I think unfortunately whether we want to admit it or not We have to admit that there's still a ridiculous amount of misogyny in the gay community I think you know a lot of
00:28:42
Speaker
gay men are drawn to entertainment like the housewives, maybe for misogynistic reasons. I know that I'm probably going to piss off some of your listeners.
00:28:58
Speaker
I see a connection there with this sort of idea of strong, um, outspoken, loud women or drag performers. Well, they let's have them battle each other. Let's have them tear each other's wigs off. Let's have them, you know, steal from each other and all this stuff. Now do drag queens fight with each other? Of course they do. But is that the, the, the experience
00:29:22
Speaker
you know i've had in the community i'm buying large no in fact that's the that's the least of it you know i feel like in my experience and. I'm also lucky enough to have traveled a lot and i've been able to experience drag communities in different cities around the world my experience overwhelmingly.
00:29:43
Speaker
Like if we were to do a reality TV comparison, you know, obviously you've got, you know, things like the housewives and, and drag race and especially Dragula, surprisingly fits more in the, um, in the realm of, of that, as far as the way the drag, each other. Okay. Um,
00:30:04
Speaker
My experience would be that drag performers are more like the great British Bake Off. They tend to be less focused on the competition and seeing everyone do their thing. And if someone needs help, they're going to help each other. It's a community of people who want to lift each other up. The one thing about Bake Off that you don't have is that we're
00:30:32
Speaker
We're damaged because of the way we grew up. And so we have an inherent connection to each other. If you're drawn to drag, it's often because you were bullied. You were told you shouldn't do this thing. You shouldn't be like this. And maybe that's a generational thing. Maybe I'm speaking as a person who grew up in a different era. But we tend to see
00:30:58
Speaker
a real benefit to being with our people, you know, that we do not take for granted. You know, we didn't grow up in classrooms full of drag queens. It is a privilege and a luxury every time I get to do a show.
00:31:14
Speaker
with a group of queer people. I never will take that for granted. It is such a gift. And I also realize that I live in a place where I'm afforded that gift. A lot of people around the world are not. I don't like that portrayal and I don't find it to be true of our experience at all. Now,
00:31:36
Speaker
Do drag queens fight with each other? Of course they do, you know, but so I'm not saying it's all, you know, it's it's not all a bed of roses, but my experience overwhelmingly has not been that catty, snippy, you know, the thing, the thing that we see in TV and movies.
00:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's so interesting to see the arc of entertainment and where we're at as a culture and things like Bravo. And listen, do I indulge in some of those Bravo shows? Absolutely. Do I get sucked up into some of that stuff? Of course. But like it's when you really think about why these things are popular, it's because of like
00:32:16
Speaker
tragedy and you're like, whoa, what are we, what are we thinking about here as like a culture? It's just so interesting to think about. Um, and the drag world is, is, is part of that too. And in a lot of ways, but, um, yeah, I just thought that that was something that kind of think about as far as like, Hey, when we're thinking about audiences, it isn't always what's, um, it's not always what's pressing us down. It's sometimes what we need to look at as what's lifting us up, you know? Yeah.
00:32:44
Speaker
All right. Well, Peaches, you know, obviously you are synonymous in the horror world. You know, you made all about evil. You had parody after parody. I can't even name all of them at this point that all are kind of rooted in the in the horror genre. Is that something you grew up with? Is something is horror like inherent in your life or is that something that came later?
00:33:06
Speaker
No, I apparently it's something that's always been there because that's another question I've been asked a lot and I'm like, I don't even really know the answer to it. So I've asked my parents, I've gone to the source and they say, you know, according to them that I was always attracted to.
00:33:27
Speaker
the macabre and Halloween and spooky stuff and horror. And, you know, if, you know, like any normal kid, I was given a bunch of things. I don't know, action figures or, you know, I was more into Darth Vader than anything else, you know. So I guess it's just the way I was or the way I am. Now, I have a nephew who's turning five in December.
00:33:53
Speaker
If ever I could be accused of being a groomer it's with him because he is so into horror but I can tell you for a fact I've had no ability to groom him like there's no there's no you can't teach a kid what to like they like what they like.
00:34:11
Speaker
And I've barely even shared anything with him. He just loves spooky stuff. He loves horror. He loves Halloween. And so my sister keeps saying like, God, maybe it's maybe it's genetic. He is totally like you. So I don't know. I guess some kids you just born liking what you like, you know.
00:34:30
Speaker
I mean, you're you're surrounded by your fellow constituents here. I don't know if you're like me, but I grew up thinking I was the only queer horror fan because in the 80s, I think you guys are younger than me, but in the 80s,
00:34:45
Speaker
you know, going to Fangoria conventions or subscribing to Fangoria. It was very much a white straight man's world. And I was okay with that because that was the world. Right. But I mean, as a queer person, it really felt like, oh, I'm really weird. You know, I didn't know at the time, I didn't know that Don Mancy near Clive Barker. You know, now, of course, I'm like, oh, hello. Yeah, it's nice to grow up and realize there's so many of us.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, totally. I remember growing up and basically feeling like I had to sneak horror movies because I was the only weirdo doing this. You know what I mean? It was it was just and I grew up in a very small town. My graduating class was 50 people. So it's like a very small little thing. But yeah, I can remember thinking like, you know, not only with the queer part, but also with like the horror part of just being like,
00:35:42
Speaker
I don't belong here. Like the people that were showing me these movies were like my straight older uncles, you know what I mean? You didn't feel like you belonged. Yeah, I was. So I kind of had a different reaction, which was to be very in your face about it.
00:35:58
Speaker
So my locker, I remember my sophomore year of high school, my locker, you know, all the boys had pictures of, I don't know, whoever, Cindy Crawford or whatever, but I had, you know, Penhead and Freddy Krueger and the principal called my parents and my parents were like, well, yeah, that's his bedroom also, you know, it's, it's, uh,
00:36:21
Speaker
covered in all those posters and all that stuff. And we feel like if we tell him not to, we're going to get pushback. My parents also stood by my side when I decided not to be confirmed at my Catholic school. And they stood by my side when I got double ear piercings and the school freaked out. And when I look back on that, I'm like, wow, for a closeted kid, I was pretty in your face.
00:36:46
Speaker
But what I didn't know is, secretly behind my back, my parents had a priest come and bless my bedroom.
00:37:03
Speaker
That's so funny. So I guess when we look at the film all about evil, a lot of Steven is is you. Yes, I you know, it was it was actually Thomas Decker who at one point pointed out to me, I think was probably why we were making the movie or maybe it was after I think it was after the movie came out. Thomas Decker said, well, I mean, you know, I didn't realize that when I first read the script, but it's pretty obvious, like Steven is Joshua and Deborah is Peaches.
00:37:31
Speaker
I was like, oh my God, I think you're right. You know, so yes. Yeah, very much. Steven is Steven is obviously Joshua, whether Deborah speeches. I don't know. Maybe. Yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
Well, we can we can all take a little bit of, you know, a little bit of grace with that one peaches. Would you like to hear Andrew and my are our drag names? Would you like? Yes. Andrew, do you want to go? So mine is Sufi Bummer's based off of Buffy Summers, obviously. Perfect. Love it. Yes.
00:38:07
Speaker
And and mine, which was granted to me by Andrew, he did think this one up, but it is one that I truly, truly love. Mine is Tori Anis. Oh, my God. OK, so not not to steal your thunder, but I did a show once where I I called one of the characters Torney Anis. And the thing about Sufi bombers that's so brilliant is
00:38:35
Speaker
And obviously you guys know this because you're, um, well, I'm going to be lives in Ireland, but you know, bombing or to bum is, is a gay slur. Exactly. Yeah. And I just needed to educate your audience on that. I just, if they didn't already get it, they didn't.
00:38:57
Speaker
So obviously, Peaches, you are still doing Midnight Mass but in podcast form with Michael Virati. I know you guys just did TerraVision, which is a crazy-ass film when you really watch it with modern eyes. But what's next for Midnight Mass? What's next for Peaches Christ?
00:39:15
Speaker
Well, we we just did actually after Taravision, we had an episode come out and it might seem like I always say this, but I don't, I don't. But we interviewed William Lustig, the creator of Maniac, Maniac Cop, you know, all those movies. And he's a grind house legend. And it was one of those interviews that I went in pretty intimidated thinking like, you know, this is going to be a seasoned vet, a straight guy.
00:39:45
Speaker
in this brutal genre world. And he was so lovely and told the best stories. And I felt so connected to him by the end of that interview. I just loved him so much. Like the way he grew up in New York and went to Grindhouse Cinemas, it reminded me so much of me growing up in Maryland and experiencing John Waters. So I actually would recommend if you haven't listened to our podcast and you're a cult movie fan, like, you know, you could start there with our most recent episode.
00:40:14
Speaker
I'm and let's see what you want me to tell you what's coming up for midnight mass. If you're able to. OK, let's see.
00:40:23
Speaker
You would think I would know. Oh, I'll say this. Our next episode, which might be out by the time this comes out, is we're doing a John Waters film, which we do every season. But this was one where we basically had our Patreon subscribers vote. And the idea was, what's the most underrated John Waters film that you would like to see us cover? So you couldn't choose, you know, Pink Flamingos. You couldn't choose Air Spray because they're not underrated.
00:40:53
Speaker
So I'll say that it's a movie about a renegade group of filmmakers who kidnap a Hollywood movie star. But I don't want to give it away, but it's a movie whose plot is very similar to the Patty Hearst story. And I really enjoy that episode as well, and that's coming soon.
00:41:13
Speaker
Nice. Love it. Yeah, that that particular movie, and I won't say what it is, but was very was very under seen at the time. And we talked we talk about this in our later discussion around both movies we watched today. But there were these movies that just like if you were in a small town, you had to go and order them like you had to like seek them out. And I think that you're right. That's kind of one of those ones that maybe people don't necessarily remember, but should go back.
00:41:43
Speaker
and and take a peek so oh god yeah it's so good and peaches you have a show coming up in england yeah yeah so i i i go from halloween right into christmas um so uh i'm currently getting ready to do three christmas shows and as surreal as it is i do these shows now with symphonies
00:42:04
Speaker
I partnered with Conductor Edwin Outwater a few years ago. We do three shows. One is a Christmas show we do with symphonies. One is, or a holiday show, but in England they insist on calling it Christmas. Which I think is hilarious. They don't go for the holiday word at all. But, you know, so in the US it's holiday gaiety and in England it's Christmas gaiety. And we do a horror one. It's called Symphony of Terror.
00:42:31
Speaker
And in 2024, we're introducing a new one called Symphonic Pride, which is like a pride show. But our Christmas shows this year are in San Francisco on the 15th, at the Royal Albert Hall in London on the 12th, and at Gateshead Glass House, which is near Newcastle, England on the 13th.
00:42:54
Speaker
Glass House is fucking cool. That's that's amazing. Folks in London, you just may see me there for that show on the 12th. So hopefully you can come and say hi. Hi. Hello there, too. Peaches, this is incredible. Thank you so much for being with us today. We really, really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. We will take our first break and be right back with what you've been watching, bitch.
00:43:20
Speaker
Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat. Welcome back. It's time for everyone's favorite segment. What you been watching, bitch? What you been watching? You drag good person. You lovely good person in drag. What's going on?
00:43:43
Speaker
If you've never been to Friday the 13th or our podcast, this is the segment of the show where we talk about everything we've been watching, we've been reading, we've been listening to. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're bad. Sometimes they're in between. But we're going to talk about what we've been watching. So Maddie, tell me what you've been watching, bitch.
00:44:02
Speaker
You know what, Andrew? I'm glad that you said the reading part because I am honestly trying to be better about reading these days. And I promise you this, Andrew. And maybe, you know what? Maybe this would be a good thing for us to think about. I will have a book for the next one of these. Cool. I will. I will finish. It's so hard to finish a book when you're old. You know what I mean? Reading becomes very difficult as you
00:44:25
Speaker
as you clock up the years. Anyways, my first one for what you've been watching, bitch. I'll start with the old ones first. I watched a film that is certainly not new. And it's a film from Steven Spielberg came out in 2005. I'm sure a lot of you saw this. I'm not, Andrew, I'm not sure if you've seen this before or not, but it's called Munich. Munich is the story of the
00:44:50
Speaker
part of me of the the special team from the Mossad in Israel that went around the world finding the people who put together the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics. So if you don't remember the 1972 Olympics, I don't because I wasn't there. I was negative 10 years old. But at the 1972 Olympics, Palestinian terrorists took over a floor of a hotel where where the teams were staying in the Olympic Village.
00:45:20
Speaker
They kidnapped all of the Israeli team and held them hostage. It was an absolutely terrible rotten story. And this is the story of the team that went out and found all the people responsible for it. This is Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Kiran Heinz. I mean, just an incredible cast. Once again, you know, directed by Steven Spielberg. So it's incredible movie making.
00:45:43
Speaker
I liked this film a lot when it first came out and with everything going on, I wasn't really thinking about it, but Netflix just happened to have it featured and I thought, you know what? Why not watch it again? This is a great fucking movie and it deals with things in a real way. It's not as black and white as you might think.
00:46:02
Speaker
and the acting is incredible. Eric Bana in particular is so fucking good in this movie as you should have been. I was just thinking like where has he gone? I feel like I haven't seen him in forever. You know what? Good point. I honestly don't remember the last thing that Eric Bana was in. But not only that, Daniel Craig was fantastic in it. Kieran Hines was so good in this movie.
00:46:22
Speaker
So, you know, look, you know, if you're the kind of person that likes to lean in to, you know, the issues that are happening around you today, this is one that you might want to pick back up. I hadn't watched it in years. I really, you know, quote unquote, enjoyed watching it because it's a really great piece of filmmaking. So I commend that to you, Munich. It's on Netflix and it probably should be for you, too.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think given the timeframe, what did you say, 2005? 2005. Yeah, I was in college, so I definitely missed this. I had a solid four years where all I did was college and working, so I missed a lot. Makes sense. Give it a watch, see if you like it. Sounds interesting. My first one is echoing back to one that Maddie brought up, I think two episodes ago. I think it was two ago, yeah.
00:47:09
Speaker
is I finally finished Fall of the House of Usher, the Mike Flanagan miniseries. Once again, I know we said this when you brought it up, but can this guy do any wrong at this point? Andrew, the answer is no, he can't. The only thing that he can do wrong is not come on our show soon. That's the only thing that he can do wrong.
00:47:34
Speaker
Um, I really loved this. I was not sold on it right away. Just the way that, um, the way that it's set up and I don't, I don't want to spoil it for anybody. Um, but you're, you're kind of led, you're led to like what the story is like very early on. And then it kind of just, you watch it play out like through the rest of the episodes. And like at first I was like, well, I'm kind of mad that they did that, but then kind of once you understand what the story is and the story is not about what
00:48:02
Speaker
what happens at the beginning it's more about what happens at the end and i'm dancing around but i don't want to spoil but i really liked it i would put this
00:48:12
Speaker
I said on X on Twitter or whatever you want to call it. I put this right behind Midnight Club. I like Midnight Club just a little bit more. I love Midnight Club. Just because of like, I don't know, the Midnight Club, there was like a certain emotion that just got me really in that show. This one definitely had a ton of emotion, but like I think that because of the capitalist nihilist society that they set up, I was like, oh, I want it. I don't want to like this, but I do.
00:48:41
Speaker
I will say there was one death sequence very early on in the show that had me almost throwing up and it was so disgusting and not even the visual of it all but the sound design. I don't eat during that first, I think it's the first episode if not the first two episodes.
00:49:03
Speaker
But yeah, I really liked it. Mike Flanagan, keep doing your thing. And I hope you do great things over at Amazon now that you have closed out your negotiations with Netflix. So yeah, excellent stuff. Good. I'm glad you liked it. My next one is one that I had not even heard of. It's called Sandcastle. This is another one that I watched on Netflix. Sandcastle, the reason why I watched it is because Nicholas Holt is in it and I'm obsessed with Nicholas Holt because he's so cute. He has never.
00:49:33
Speaker
not been cute. That is the truth. And there's enough in here with him sort of half naked, which really helps. Sandcastle is about the US war in Iraq. So bring your mind way back when to that awful war that we fought for absolutely no reason. And this is a movie that explores that. It came out in 2017.
00:49:57
Speaker
And it deals specifically with a troop or a group or battalion, I don't know, whatever you call those teams of soldiers, near Bakuba in Iraq. And they are ordered to go and help this village figure out their water system. Because I guess the army, they were bombing some quote unquote enemies and they accidentally hit this water tank and the water tank was ruined for the community.
00:50:26
Speaker
So as a sort of like a PR thing, these soldiers were going there to go figure it out. And this movie... I'll leave it at that. But the movie is actually pretty good. I was surprised. And it deals with the... What's the word I'm looking for?
00:50:46
Speaker
It deals with the uselessness of war about how war has no winners. War is pretty much always a losing game. And while there are certainly sometimes that force has to be used to protect people or to rid the world of very particular evils like Nazism, for example.
00:51:07
Speaker
In the end, it usually ends up just being a really terrible gamble for humanity. And so this is a film that really explores that. And I think it does it in a very different way than other movies about the Iraq war have done. So I thought it was really well done. It's not just Nicholas Holt, Henry Cavill was in this too, so that's nice to see. And some other good people, Glenn Powell, Tommy Flanagan.
00:51:29
Speaker
It was worth the watch. It wasn't that long. If you've got nothing else to watch and you just happen to see it on your Netflix, I would recommend it. Give it a watch. Sam Castle. Henry Cabell is always a good to see if you know what I mean. Yeah. And wait till you see the sex scene of him and Nicholas Holt. Get ready. Ooh.
00:51:48
Speaker
OK, you now sold me on the movie. No, unfortunately, I'm joking, but it happened in my head. All right. Well, my next one is on who currently on Hulu. It is a haunting in Venice. This is the continued efforts of our our classic detective from Murder on the Orient Express. And was it Murder on the Nile? I think that was what it was. Murder death on the Nile.
00:52:12
Speaker
Death on the Nile. Thank you. I. OK, so here's my history with those movies. I thought Murder on the Orient Express was a huge letdown. I did not really like that movie very much. And I'm talking about the new ones, not the old movies. I really like Death on the Nile. I thought that that was a huge improvement.
00:52:29
Speaker
And so going into Haunting in Venice, I'm, you know, I'm kind of split both ways. Like what am I going to like this? You know, we get a huge cast once again. You know, we have Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh. Like there's just like a ton of people in this movie. And it's all about our detective and he has. Yeah.
00:52:49
Speaker
Uh, and he has retired in Venice and doesn't want to do any more of these investigations. He's just kind of over it at this point. And Tina Fey is an author who kind of, um, tells him, you know, I encountered this, uh, medium the other night and I would really like to like refer you to come and like,
00:53:07
Speaker
help me. Is she faking it? Is this real? What is going on with this clairvoyant?" And he finally agrees and they go to an all-child... It's kind of like an old school.
00:53:24
Speaker
um where they're having a Halloween party and then the clairvoyant stays after and they do a seance and things happen and then the rest of the movie is just kind of like playing out as why are all these people here together what do they have in common and is all of this real like a ghost or is it all being staged in some way shape or form so it's it plays out the rest of the movie but um
00:53:46
Speaker
Gotta say I really liked this. I didn't hear really anybody talk about it when it came out. And now that it's on Hulu, I hope more people get their eyes on it because really fun in the same way that the other two movies are. But horror lovers are gonna love this because there's like the ghostly angle.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, so I really liked it. I would encourage people to check it out. It's under two hours. So I think some of the other movies in this category would go over two hours, but this one manages to stay under two hours, which is great. And I had a good time with it. It has a really nice little payoff. There's a couple of twists at the end that you don't see coming. And I would encourage people to go out and seek this one out.
00:54:25
Speaker
Nice. I'm looking forward to watching it. Um, I haven't seen it yet. I will though. Also Sunday evening movie. You know, I also, I really love Venice. Venice is one of my favorite places I've ever been. It's just, it's an incredible, incredible place. If you ever get a chance to go there, folks, go to Venice. It's wonderful. Um, my final one is a movie that's getting an awful lot of buzz right now and for very good reason.
00:54:49
Speaker
This is the film called Anatomy of a Fall. I saw this at the Lighthouse Cinema on Friday, which was the opening night here in Ireland. It's open in America too, so go see it in a cinema. I think you should. This is a film from Justine Triet. It is in English and in French.
00:55:13
Speaker
And it is a really incredible film. I'm not gonna give you a whole lot of it, but what I'll tell you is something that I'm not gonna give anything away here because the poster literally shows you what's occurred, right? Basically, there is a very small family living in the French Alps, and it's a husband, it's a wife, and it's their son, right? So it's a mother, a father, and their child. The son is blind, yeah?
00:55:41
Speaker
And the mother and the father are both writers, and they live sort of in the middle of nowhere in the Alps. So there's nothing really close to them, all of that. One day, the dad, he is found dead in front of their house. And no one knows why. No one knows how it happened.
00:56:07
Speaker
and the movie is spent trying to figure it out. So it's a mix of things, right? It is a thriller. It is a family. It's a dissection of a family. It's a courtroom procedural movie kind of thing. It's a crime movie. There's so much to it. And I think that the film, it is a little bit long. It's 152 minutes, so it's about two and a half hours long.
00:56:33
Speaker
But in those two and a half hours, it keeps it tight, it keeps it clean, it gets you to where you need to go by the end of it, and the end of it is incredible. So I really, really highly recommend watching this. It's gonna be, the buzz about this will only go up because the main character who's played by Sandra Huler, she's just incredible. She's really, really incredible. And the boy is pretty fucking awesome too.
00:56:57
Speaker
So I do recommend going to see this in a cinema. Make it a little cinema day for yourself so you can really focus on it. Your phone will be away. You won't be looking around your house and shit. You'll just have the big screen in front of you and watch it. It's so well done. I love this movie, Anatomy of a Fall. Cool. I never even heard of this. I don't know how that got past me, but it sounds really interesting. So good. So good.
00:57:20
Speaker
All right. My last one is, uh, currently on, oh, peacock, I believe, or paramount plus. Sorry. It's on paramount. Plus, uh, in Europe, there's none of that anyway. Well, the only reason I say that is because it's, it's labeled as a paramount plus exclusive. So whatever that means these days, I'm not really sure. Uh, but this is pet cemetery bloodlines. Uh,
00:57:45
Speaker
This is a prequel to Pet Sematary. I from what? From what? Wait, wait, wait, Andrew, really quick. This is not a it's not a series. It's a movie. It's a movie. OK, I was right there with you when this first was being advertised to me. I thought it was a show.
00:58:02
Speaker
I thought so, too. But so this is actually good to hear because I honestly I didn't want to watch a show. Yeah, it's it's a clean little 90 minute movie. It's got it's got David Duchovny in it. It's got Henry Thomas is in it. A lot of people familiar faces that are in this movie. And this is all about Judd, you know, our friendly neighbor across the street when he was a kid.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah, when he was a kid. And it's kind of about him trying to leave Ludlow as a kid to go join the Peace Corps with his girlfriend. And there's something about the town that doesn't want to let him leave. And
00:58:43
Speaker
It's all about like so, you know, in the original movie, they don't highlight it as much in the in the the newer one. But if you remember correctly, in the the one from the 90s, they kind of show you some flashbacks of like other people that have either buried their dog or buried their brother or like and people have come back.
00:59:05
Speaker
And this one is all about the Badermans, who is played by David Duchovny. His son was off at war and he this is a minor, minor spoilers, but it's it's it's happens in the first like two minutes of the movie. So sure. But he is killed in war, but comes back and his his dad buries him in the pet cemetery. And so things start to happen around Ludlow.
00:59:32
Speaker
And it's kind of just all about the history of Ludlow and a little bit about kind of like why the town is the way it is. It concentrates a little bit more on the Mi'kmaq Indians and like what they did. Cool.
00:59:48
Speaker
I saw a lot of people online saying that this movie was boring and that it wasn't good. I liked it a lot. So I don't know if I'm missing something or something, but I really enjoyed getting a little bit more history on kind of like the pet cemetery and what it means and the Indians and
01:00:05
Speaker
what they were trying to do to protect the town at the time. I would be very into hearing more about that. It was really cool. I really liked it quite a bit. The cast was really good. It was really weird. It's so weird to see Henry Thomas showing up in so much stuff now because really for the longest time, he was so absent and now he's literally everywhere. I mean, the horror con that we went to, he was there.
01:00:29
Speaker
It's just yeah, sure. It's good to see him have like a later on career renaissance, which is really cool. The kid who plays Judd is really good and really sexy. Oh, bring it on, maybe. But yeah, I really enjoyed it. I don't know what people are complaining about. I think that there is a little bit of a stumble in the third act that I don't want to give away. People want to watch it. But it kind of I kind of just had like a moment where I was like, wait, what just happened? But this is this is really good to hear.
01:00:57
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully you'll get it on some sort of, you know, whatever stream. It is. It's on something over here because I saw it on. I don't remember what it was, but I know that I can definitely get it for sure. And listen, anytime you put David Duchovny on my screen, I'm going to be happy about it. David Duchovny, why won't you love me? Andrew, that's wonderful. I'm glad to hear that you liked it. And also, Andrew.
01:01:19
Speaker
What a great little addition of what you've been watching, bitch. Now, folks, you might see that we only have three this time. You want to know why? Because we literally just recorded another episode before. So we usually we usually have four. But honestly, we didn't have time to watch anything else. So listen, you guys, this is our third week in a row of recording. We just we got to get by. OK, that and that is how much we love you. Got it. So look, a wonderful what you've been watching, bitch. Andrew brought us Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix.
01:01:48
Speaker
A Haunting in Venice on Hulu, and Pet Sematary Bloodlines on Paramount+. And Maddie brought us Munich on Netflix, Sandcastle on Netflix, and Anatomy of a Fall currently in cinemas. Woohoo! So folks, stay tuned and we will be right back with our first film of the episode, Psycho Beach Party. I guess we are the only ones watching the movie.
01:02:14
Speaker
These guys have only one thing on their minds. Wanna wiener? There are some fried tomatoes in that tin can. I can feel it in my nuts. You and your nuts. You kids think you own this beach. Think it's a teenage world. Or you're dead wrong. Let me help you with that.
01:02:43
Speaker
Have I been acting strange lately? Who do you have to f*** to get a hot dog in this dump? What? I serve food check with a split person anyway. Should I unpack my bongos? I intend to unpack mine. Alright guys, come on, that's enough.
01:03:11
Speaker
What the hell is that? Help me. I hate to say this, but I think our little chipper may be the butcher at Malibu Beach. Strange, the victim had only one testicle stuffed in his mouth. Oh, that's because he only had one.
01:03:27
Speaker
Plenty of meat. Only one potato. A little sex. I believe this is what you young people call it. A gang bang. A little sin. A bad boy. A bad boy's conspect. A little psycho. Kiss my ass, buddy. Party till you drop.
01:04:05
Speaker
That's the most exciting story idea I've heard in years.
01:04:11
Speaker
Are you ready to dance? Because it's time for a psycho beach party. Maddie, tell us all about psycho beach party. Party till you drop dead. Chiclet is a 16 year old tomboy who's desperate to be part of the in crowd of Malibu beach surfers.
01:04:28
Speaker
she's the typical american girl except for one little problem her personality is split into more slices than a pepperoni pizza my god i hate that psycho beach party was directed by robert lee king written by the one the only the inimitable charles bush uh produced and distributed by strand
01:04:49
Speaker
Florence is played by Lauren Ambrose, Kanaka played by Thomas Gibson, Starcat played by Nicholas Brendan, who was looking very fine in this movie, might I add, Bettina played by Kimberly Davies, Lars by Matt Kessler, Captain Stark played by Charles Bush, once again, Ruth played by Beth Broderick, Marvel played by Amy Adams, and Rhonda played by Kathleen Robertson.
01:05:12
Speaker
The only person I realize I left out now is Yo-Yo, who was the hottest person. I should have put him in. And Provolone.
01:05:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yoyo. Jesus, my God. Anyways, the film is not rated. It's 95 minutes. It's out of USA and Australia. Released January 23rd of 2000. Take your mind back there, right? Filmed in Malibu, California, and the budget was one and a half million, but it only made $268,117, unfortunately.
01:05:45
Speaker
So, look, Andrew, tell me what you thought about Psycho Beach Party. Yeah, so this is not a first watch for me, but it's a watch in a while for me. Okay, sure. This is one of those movies that I randomly caught because at the time, if you take yourself back to 2000, Strand Releasing was the gay releaser. Oh, totally.
01:06:11
Speaker
Like that was what I'm trying to think like Kiss Me Guido, Trick, like all those movies like came out on strand releasing. And so as a budding gay myself, you always looked out for strand releasing releases. And they were sexy, too. They were fucking sexy. Yeah. Yeah. And so Psycho Beach Party came out at the time. I think this would have been the time of
01:06:36
Speaker
Oh, God, what's what's the show that Laurie Ambrose is on that I'm totally blanking on six feet under six. It would have been six feet under time, right? I think so. But I'm going to look that up. Keep going.
01:06:47
Speaker
Um, so I saw Lauren Ambrose and loved her from six feet under. So wanted to seek this out. And then you get this cast of just like insane people. Thomas Gibson from Dharma, uh, uh, uh, what Dharma and Greg Nicholas Brendan from a Buffy the vampires layer. You get Beth Broderick who at the time was in, um, Sabrina the teenage witch Amy Adams. Yeah.
01:07:11
Speaker
which was just and dropped it gorgeous. Like it's just the casting of this is just insane. And then Matt Kessler, who just showed up and everything in 2000. And also Andrew, by the way, uh, six feet under actually didn't come out until June of 2001. Oh, okay. So this was kind of a breakout role for her. Exactly. Right.
01:07:29
Speaker
But yeah, I think that this movie perfectly kind of just like gives you those vibes that it's supposed to in like the most nutty way possible. And I just really love what Charles Bush brought to this in kind of showing us how drag could be incorporated in a really funny, but really earnest way.
01:07:50
Speaker
I think the stunting in this is hilarious. We get basically body doubles for people that don't even look anything like their body double, which is really funny to me. I think that there are some problematic stuff in it. We can talk about it in a little bit. Of course. There's one personality that Lauren Ambrose puts on that I think is a little bit
01:08:13
Speaker
Well, not so great, but yeah, sure. But I really like Anne Bowman and that whole character. I think she's hilarious. We can talk about the the the implicit child rape of it all if you want to. But there's something about that that I wish they would have just made. I wish they would have made her 18 because the stuff with Thomas Gibson comes off a little bit.
01:08:35
Speaker
Gross, if you know what I mean, given she's only 16 in the movie. But overall, really love this movie, apparently have a good time with it. Is it like straight up horror? No, but it is horror adjacent, and I really appreciate it. And I think that it's something that we weren't really getting in 2000. And I think that it was really fun to go back to that time and really just
01:08:58
Speaker
explore this movie again and just see all these people that you're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And also my childhood crush, David Chokachi, shows up in the first five minutes when the black and white movie. And I was like, oh, my God, I forgot he was in this. But yeah, overall, just have a ton of fun with this movie. What about you? Is this your first time watch or do you have a do you have a history with this movie?
01:09:23
Speaker
Uh, it is a first time watch. It is not however, my first time with Charles Bush. So I want to take you back actually all the way to 2003, um, when Maddie was in college at Indiana university.
01:09:35
Speaker
I was a senior in college and I was the artistic director for this group called the University Players. And the University Players was basically like the undergraduate theater club, basically. And it was really cool. We got money from the theater department.
01:09:53
Speaker
to basically run our own theater company. And so we had this money, we had incredibly talented people, and we just fucking went for it the year that I was artistic director. One thing that I didn't mention in our last episode is that part of that season that I produced as the artistic director
01:10:10
Speaker
also included the Rocky Horror Show. And one of our friends, Taylor, Andrew, you know, Taylor, Taylor played Frankfurter, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that season of 2003, 2004 started with a Halloween show. And the Halloween show was like a Halloween variety show kind of thing. But it ended with a production of Charles Bush's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom,
01:10:35
Speaker
which is a absolute, it's a ridiculous play. And actually John DeBoer, who will listen to this, he listens to every episode. And of course, you know, Andrew, you know, John, John directed it.
01:10:47
Speaker
And we had a blast with the show. Part of the fun was we did have some male butts in the show. People definitely enjoyed that part of it. And it wasn't bad, don't get me wrong. But it was a blast. Charles Bush is a genius. And Charles Bush has been part of the, it would be called, the style of theater that he does is literally called ridiculous. And the ridiculous style of theater is something that's actually been an incredibly,
01:11:16
Speaker
important part of the development of the American theatrical scene since the sixties, really, maybe even the fifties and just incredible stuff happens. So, you know, in vampire lesbians of Sodom, you find much the same things that you find here. It's campiness, it's corniness, it's wild, it's this. It's incredibly stylized, just like just like Psycho Beach Party is and really incredible stuff. So all that to say, I really love Charles Bush. And so I was looking forward to seeing this.
01:11:46
Speaker
And watching it, the execution, fantastic. I absolutely love this movie. I think this movie is a lot of fun. It's a lot of sexy. It's a lot of ridiculousness. It's a lot of everything, you know, man? And it's fucking fun. And Lauren Ambrose does a fantastic job in her role, I think. Charles Bush is also equally fantastic. Like, I mean, remember too, this is 2000. Like, I was watching this
01:12:11
Speaker
thinking, was this made like three years ago? You know what I mean? It feels, it feels closer to today than it does to 2000. Totally agree. Totally, totally agree. It feels like it was just made. And, and also like, I mean, look at these stars that we're seeing. I mean, you've already mentioned it, of course, but like Amy Adams and Lauren Ambrose, like really seeing them before they were big stars. That's incredible shit.
01:12:35
Speaker
and how Charles Bush managed to get this all together, I think in itself is a bit of a miracle. So, I mean, really, really great stuff. I mean, I can't really say enough good about it. I definitely was really in love with Yo-Yo, because he's just... Dude is just sexy, man. That body is working, girl.
01:12:54
Speaker
As gay people, we are attracted to bleach blonde people. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. It's just a thing that happens. You say you're gay and all of a sudden beach blonde looks amazing to you. I don't know how to explain it. I mean, look, there are plenty of guys I know that love, you know, dark haired dudes. Here I am, a dark haired dude. Thank God for it. But I'll tell you what, there's something about a blonde baby. There is something
01:13:17
Speaker
about a blonde, Andrew. Do you know what I mean? And then on top of that, you get him oil wrestling with. Oh, my God. Come on. And then the other the other cutie. Oh, my God. Totally, totally random was the counter boy. And his name is Nicholas Diaghosto. And I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. He's from Final Destination Five.
01:13:38
Speaker
I'll tell you what, he can final destination with me all he wants because I'll tell you what, boy is cute. I could not get over how cute he was. And I was like, my God, if we if we play hot of the episode, I've already got mine. It's done. It goes to. So, yeah, look, if you've not seen Psycho Beach Party and honestly, I'm going to guess that a lot of people listening right now haven't because the other thing about strand releasing is that they were hard to get. You know what I mean? And like this one, I rented this. So, you know, now it's it's available for rental, obviously.
01:14:06
Speaker
But because of that difficulty in getting things, this was the kind of stuff that you had to go to Suncoast for. Remember that? The library didn't have this. And remember, 2000, we barely had working internet then. You know what I mean? My porn was popping up dot matrix. It was printing off. So we didn't have access in the same ways. I'm going to guess a lot of people have not seen this.
01:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you. And this is like, so growing up in like small town America, like you did, it was really hard to access these type of things. Like I remember, I remember we had a Suncoast that I would go to and special order some of these movies that like,
01:14:51
Speaker
I'm talking about like Wet Hot American Summer. Like that movie was impossible to find in a small town. Such a good movie. God, I love it. And just like Psycho Beach Party, you had to seek these things out. Like it was it was tough back in those days. I'm glad I'm really glad that we're seeing a lot of Renaissance with a lot of these shows and these movies that kind of, you know, didn't have the release that that some others did. But like you you're never going to see Psycho Beach Party on a Michigan movie screen.
01:15:20
Speaker
That is one thing to bring up, I think. We've just had a chat about drag in small town America and how things work and how you get access to things and people banning books and people do all the shit, right?
01:15:32
Speaker
And look, there, there is a lot to be said about the screen culture that we live in, right? There's screens everywhere. I've got a screen on my wrist, a screen in my hand. I've got two screens in front of me and an iPad next to me on a TV, you know, over to my right. You don't, you know, there's screens everywhere and electronics that buzz and things that can get you all the time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But in the, in the midst of all of that, it is incredible.
01:15:59
Speaker
the amount of access that we have now. I know that I'm speaking the obvious, I get that, but that's fucking important. Access to information, even something like Psycho Beach Party, it matters. It matters in a big way.
01:16:16
Speaker
because just like the story that I told in our last episode of going to see Rocky Horror as much as I did and how that really helped me, there's going to be some kid out there that watches Psycho Beach Party and feels the same thing. Do you know what I mean? They're going to feel just as weird, just as silly, and just as ridiculous, and they're going to watch this and feel a little bit more at home.
01:16:34
Speaker
And so, you know, once again, in the midst of things not being available at a fucking library, I mean, honestly, thank God, as annoying as it can be sometimes to pay for so many fucking streaming things, thank God we can actually get it. And it's honestly not that hard, truly.
Charles Busch and Psycho Beach Party
01:16:50
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
01:16:51
Speaker
Um, I did, I did think so. A couple of things that I saw in kind of my research for psycho beach party. Um, Charles Bush is actually a, uh, graduate of Northwestern university here in Illinois. Um, and it's, I think it was funny that he put that on star cat as well. They keep, they talk about Northwestern a lot.
01:17:13
Speaker
in the movie and how he was a psychology student up at Northwestern but never finished. And remember too, folks might not know that Northwestern's theater program is one of the best in the country. If you study at Northwestern with theater, that is some incredible shit that you got with you right there.
01:17:34
Speaker
There are a couple of really funny quotes that I wrote down in my notes. There's the one where Amy Adams is trying to seduce the boys and Bettina goes, you know, they're talking about like how they're like surfer cool guys and she's like, should I unpack my bongos? And Amy Adams character goes,
01:17:55
Speaker
She goes, well I intend to unpack mine. When she goes to talk to Starcat to try to seduce him, she's basically justifying why she's there with Starcat.
01:18:11
Speaker
with Florence and Bettina because they're like not the cool girls, but she was like, well, I needed a car in my seat. She says my parents took away my wheels because I would hit an old lady at a crosswalk. Parents are such squares, huh? I love it.
01:18:29
Speaker
Another one I thought was really funny was when they're talking to the movie star who's there on the beach staying at the haunted house. They go up to her and they're like, oh, are you incognito? And she goes, no, I'm German Irish. That by far was my favorite line. So fucking good. A couple of other ones.
01:18:54
Speaker
There's I forget who says I think it's Bettina. She goes, you sounded like an old lady, like like 30. It was like, oh, God. But there's also a point in the movie where the detective understands that the killer is going after imperfect people. So people that either have like like there's a girl, there's the mean girl in the wheelchair, which is also a hilarious part that he would make the girl in the wheelchair the worst person in the movie. Of course. Go figure.
01:19:24
Speaker
But there's a part, you know, where they go to the party at the end and there's basically the movie star, she says, like, oh, have you met my new fella? He's deaf and has 11 fingers. And Nicholas Brendan just looks at him and he goes, sucker doesn't stand a chance. Now, one thing about the film, too, that that's important to note is that this didn't start as a film, right? This was originally. Yeah.
01:19:53
Speaker
And so the play was originally called Gidget Goes Psychotic. It opened in 1987, so it had been in Charles Bush's brain for a long time before the movie really took off. It got changed. The name changed to Psycho Beach Party. There was a copyright issue, I guess, and probably about Gidget, of course. And in the original production, Charles Bush, of course, was in it, but he played Chiclet.
01:20:20
Speaker
So the Lauren Ambrose role, he was playing that one. By the time the movie came along, this is far later, 1987, so that's 13 years later, he was actually considering playing the role, but then decided there's no way that he could look that young.
01:20:36
Speaker
So they chose Lauren Ambrose instead. They chose a woman to play the role, right? And made that decision. But kept Charles Bush in drag, which of course is incredibly important just for the entire style of everything and the fact that Charles Bush, you know, made it, of course.
01:20:51
Speaker
And he said, well, what was this? He said, decided that he might not be believable in the role of a 16 year old girl while I can still manage with the aid of a sympathetic cameraman to play a sophisticated 25, 16 would be a stretch. And so he added in the character of Monica Stark so that he could be in the film.
01:21:10
Speaker
Oh, cool.
Charles Busch's Achievements and Relevance
01:21:11
Speaker
Something else to mention there, too, is that right around that time of 2000, that was a really big time for Charles Bush, because at the same time, his play called The Tale of the Allergist Wife was on Broadway. So this was his Broadway, his first play going on, well, his first Broadway play on Broadway, actually.
01:21:30
Speaker
And it was also nominated for a Tony Award in 2004. So it didn't win, but just being up for it is incredible and for a Drama Desk Award. So that was a really, really big time for Charles Bush and just for that whole group of people in general.
01:21:46
Speaker
That's really cool. I didn't know all that history about his like stage stuff and everything. Yeah. The only other movie that I've seen of his I think I probably have seen more is Die Mommy Die. Yeah. But yeah, which which was also a play. Oh, cool. Well, good to see that some of his stuff got a little bit of a bigger release. So that's yeah. I thought it was really funny that he cast an actual woman as his body double in the car and the sex scene.
01:22:16
Speaker
which I just thought was really a treat. So, you know, like God bless him. Like these are these are the people in America that just that just astound me, you know, people like him, people like John Waters, people, people like Peaches, people. I mean, all these people that are just incredible people, like not afraid to be themselves at all.
01:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And it's really funny to think that this is 2000. Like you said earlier, I thought that this was... When we were looking at our worksheet and everything, we always tend to go in chronological order for how we review the movies.
01:22:52
Speaker
When I was thinking about Psycho Beach Party, I was like, actually, I don't know which one's older if Psycho Beach Party's older or all about evil's older. Like, I wasn't sure. And there's a 10 year difference. It's so it's so crazy to think about. But I mean, it's just I think that's probably the most astounding takeaway from the film for me is how current it feels. And, you know, it makes me think about, like, you know, when will the next one of these really be made? Because it should be done more and more.
01:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple of movies out there that I haven't caught yet that are supposed to be really good, like Bottoms and like, Oh, Bottoms. Yeah. Dicks, the musical. Like there's a couple of that I haven't seen yet that I think will help with this kind of like comedy. But OK, one thing we have to talk about before we before we score these movies is the gay of it all, because yes, there is a gay storyline in this, which I was so happy
Provolone and Yo-Yo: Comedy and Style
01:23:46
Speaker
to see. So good.
01:23:47
Speaker
Um, so we have Provolone and Yo-Yo, who are kind of these two side characters who throughout the throughout the movie, they wrestle a lot. And I thought it's so funny when they're wrestling that second time and that I forget who squirts the oil on them, but he just automate. He just like squirts the oil on them and they it starts getting like sexy and like everyone down. Well, and then everyone starts to realize it's looking sexy and they're like, um, should we stop this? I don't know what's happening.
01:24:15
Speaker
Um, and then I thought it was funny that there's a running storyline where they are in the movie stars bedroom and they're like trying on her, her like stuff and she comes in and because she's from like Hollywood where there's, we're pretty much everyone's a little bit queer. Um, she's like, she picks up on it right away and she's like, actually, I don't think this magenta is your color. I think you've been looking better in the black and she's like,
01:24:40
Speaker
Any time you want to come over, I can show you my shoes next time. And she's trying to encourage it while they're starting to still push it down. And then finally at the end, they kiss and it relieves Provolone's constipation that he's had throughout the movie. I know. It's so good.
01:24:57
Speaker
But he'd been constipated for 68 days or something like that. Yeah. He's like they kiss and he's like, oh, this has really got things moving for me. And I was like, well, that's an interesting way to think about queerness, but whatever. And I you know, at the end, we get the revelation that Lars is actually the killer and that he is actually the son of, you know, the good person. It's a whole it's not what it is. How large Lars was sexy to when he's up on that stool. I was like, oh, God.
01:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, Matt, Matt Kessler had a ton of roles like this in like the 2000, 2005, 2006 ish. But yeah, he's just one of those guys that you like when I think of the 2000s, I think of Matt Kessler. You know, he's so he's so good looking.
01:25:46
Speaker
Like ridiculous. And also he's in Waiting for Guffman, one of the best films ever made, baby. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. But overall, I mean, what else do we have to say about Psycho Beach Party? I mean, I love that they do kind of an homage to the old surfer movies when they do kind of the when they're up on a little dance and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that that's really fun. The girl that does that dance in the movie when during the credits. Holy shit. That girl does her job.
01:26:13
Speaker
I know. It's the intense dancing that she does. I also love that they name a white guy Kanaka. Kanaka is... Yeah, maybe you shouldn't call white people Kanaka. That's not good. Yeah. All right, Matty. Overall, Psycho Beach Party, we grade on a seven stripe scale here at Fraggy the 13th Horror Podcast. What do you give Psycho Beach Party? I gave it a solid five and I said it's corny, campy, ridiculous, and honestly pretty stupid. And that's why it works.
01:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, I also gave it a five. I said, perfectly encapsulates the time period while also showing us what casting looks like. Love this stupid little movie. Love it. Well, folks, that does it for Psycho Beach Party. Get out there and watch it, rent it, or buy it, however you can see it. Give us a moment. We'll be right back with another fine film called All About Evil. Daddy loved this movie theater. He believed in this place. And in me, your father wanted you to be an actor.
01:27:14
Speaker
This theater can work. I'll see to it personally. Yeah, it's like daddy always said. The show must go on! Fuck you mother!
01:27:43
Speaker
I'm not a concessionaire. I'm an actress. I am a filmmaker. In all of history and all the annals of horror, there's never been a great female horror filmmaker. Did you see how important that is? I am the Scarlet Leper. And you are the whore. No, no, I never said you were whore. I said you were... She's murdering her actress.
01:28:13
Speaker
by grinding out weekly gore films that she writes, directs, and stars in. Satisfying a rather large number of fans' unquenchable thirst for violence. Debori Tanis' films are shocking. You're getting this in close-up, right? And fans say they're as real as it gets. Is that somebody screaming? Uh, we're making a new film.
01:28:44
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another fantastically frightening Friday night at the Victoria Theatre. Now, further ado... And do you know where the, uh, ladies' room is? Mr. Boratays!
01:29:11
Speaker
Get ready to hear all about good- oh wait no that's not the title it's all about evil. Andrew tell us all about all about evil. People are dying to get into this movie. A mousy librarian inherits her father's beloved but falling apart old movie house. In order to save the family business she discovers her inner serial killer and a legion of rabid gore fans.
01:29:34
Speaker
When she starts turning out a series of grisly shorts, what her fans don't realize yet is that the murders in the movies are all too real. Directed and written by Joshua Granell, also known as Peaches Christ, production company was handed by Backlash Films and Fog City Pictures.
01:29:55
Speaker
Debbie is played by Natasha Lyonne, Steven is played by Thomas Decker, Linda is played by Cassandra Peterson, Evelyn is played by Mink Stoll, Adrian is played by Noah Segan, Mr. Twiggs, Jack Donner, Lolita played by Ashley Fink, Patrick played by Peter George, Tammy played by Julie Brown, and Peaches Christ played by Joshua Granell.
01:30:17
Speaker
This movie is not rated. It comes in at 98 minutes. It was released on July 30th of 2010, set and filmed in the Victoria Theater in San Francisco, California. It was budget information not known, and it didn't really make a lot of money. But if I remember right from talking with Peaches, it was a very, very low cost release. It was a gala release. You know what I mean? It was a gala release.
01:30:46
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, Maddie, I had seen this once or no, twice before once when it came out 2010 and then for the, for when we had peaches on, you know, uh, when we did, um, midnight mass and we talked with her, uh, I watched it for that. Um, but this was, uh, since then a watch, but what about you? Is this a first time watch or what do you have at the
01:31:08
Speaker
It was indeed a first-time watch for me.
Film Direction and Peaches Christ's Influence
01:31:11
Speaker
And thank you, Peaches, for the screener. Really appreciate it. I was unable to get this over here in the EU. It's released from Severin Pictures. So, you know, folks out there, if you're listening in the EU, you might want to look them up and see if you can get it that way. But it's a little difficult to get over here. Anyways, I'm glad that I got it because it was a really great movie. I really had a lot of fun watching this.
01:31:33
Speaker
I think too, you know, the movie has a lot going for it just straight from the get-go, right? It's got Natasha Lyonne, it's got Cassandra Peterson, and it's got Ming Stoll. Like, I mean, already it's winning. It's winning in big ways. Anything with Ming Stoll, I'm probably going to love it because I fucking love Ming Stoll.
01:31:50
Speaker
And this is one that I think really works. And I think it works not only because it's ridiculous. You know it's going to be ridiculous. Look at the fucking thing. And Peach's Christ has her hand on this. So of course, you know it's going to be that. But if we dig deeper and look at this from a film perspective,
01:32:11
Speaker
It's so well done. You know, like the photography in this movie is really well done, especially near the end. I think that the direction of the movie is really tight. I think that the writing doesn't leave anything lacking. And I think that the cast really pulls out all the stops to really believe in the movie and make it make it move forward.
01:32:31
Speaker
So, you know, I think if you take the ridiculousness of it aside and look at this as a piece of filmmaking, I think that Peaches did a really great job. And it's something that they should be really proud of because, I mean, by God, pulling something like this off is fucking tough. And they did it. And I just think it's wonderful.
01:32:52
Speaker
Yeah. Um, this one for me, I really loved it. Uh, I think that I picked up on a lot more stuff this, you know, I feel like when we watch movies for the show, like when I watch movies in general, I just, I'm just watching it. But when we watch it for the show, I'm like looking for stuff, if that makes any sense. I mean, it's, it's, it's because you're thinking about what you're going to say.
01:33:12
Speaker
Yeah. And so this one, I started to see all of the homages to classic horror. So like we get all the classic horror posters and like, that's how the opening credits is kind of crafted after. And then, you know, we get all of the classic movies, but with a little bit of a twist on it. Like, what was it? I'm trying to think of my notes, a tale of two severed titties instead of
01:33:38
Speaker
Tale of Two Cities. I know. It's so good. So there's like a lot of like love put in this movie. Maiming of the Shrew. So stupid. So stupid. And also like what I noticed in this time around is like all of the gore effects are really good and really effective. Like when she goes to sew that librarian's lips shut, I was cringing. Like it was big time. Yeah.
01:34:03
Speaker
tough to watch. What I really loved was actually seeing Cassandra Peterson as an actress in this movie because she doesn't play Elvira. She's doing like just being an actress, which I don't really see. The part where she looks up from her son's bed at the Elvira poster is her
01:34:22
Speaker
hilarious. Yeah. The fact that he has an Elvira poster on his wall and his mom is Cassandra Peterson. Yeah. Cause he's like, he's like, well, what if I'm in love with an older woman and she's like how old and she looks up at the poet. Oh my God. It's, it's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Great casting right there. And from what I understand, this was done as a favor for peaches Christ from Cassandra Peterson and to La Natasha Leon, which is really cool.
01:34:45
Speaker
I know that I've seen Thomas Decker and other stuff, but I can't quite place him. I love him. He's so good. Yeah, he was good. The one person in this and she's actually I don't think she's in our cast list here, but Judy, his friend. Oh, I forgot to put Judy in there. I'm sorry.
01:35:05
Speaker
um she I kind of was rooting for her to die because she's kind of a bitch she's she's pretty annoying yeah she's like around every around every corner she's trying to like um
01:35:20
Speaker
It's not feminist because it's what people thought feminists were is like this kind of like thing that like she's just angry at everything. And it just it really it really twisted my
Comedic Highlights and Meta-references
01:35:32
Speaker
gears. And I was like, can you just relax for a second? It is like it is a little much. Yeah, but but but it works for that character, though. It totally does. And that's what I'm talking about. Like the character just annoying me because like, can you not just let your friend Stephen like horror movies? Like, do you do you need to like
01:35:49
Speaker
psychoanalyze everything he's doing. He just wants to watch the damn movie. Honestly, yeah. I love the setup for this. I thought it was hilarious at the beginning when she, as a little girl, she pees herself then accidentally electrocutes herself. It's so ridiculous. So ridiculous.
01:36:06
Speaker
And that's what causes her to have like a split in her personality, if you will. And her mom who play, it's so funny seeing the Wicked Witch of the West all dressed up in chain smoking and laughing at children. So stupid.
01:36:24
Speaker
Um, because at the beginning, what we, what we find out is they're doing kind of like a child's matinee vignette of like a wizard of Oz type type thing. Um, and then, you know, we fast forward to, I think 10 years later, maybe, uh, and you know, Natasha Leon, her father has passed away and she has inherited the theater and she's trying to save it. Just like any theater these days, we're just trying to keep them around and not be AMC's all of them.
01:36:55
Speaker
And then, you know, through a series of unfortunate events, she ends up stabbing her, I think, stepmom. I don't think that's real, mom. And what she doesn't realize is that it's all on camera. It's all on security cameras. And then what she when she goes to start the movie, she accidentally shows that. But people think it's a snuff film. They think it's like a it's like an homage.
01:37:20
Speaker
And that's what kind of leads her down the road of making all these things. What I thought was hilarious is that she makes these snuff films, but then also somehow always makes it about like politeness at the movie theater, which I thought was really funny, like like staying off of your phone or not talking during the movie or like, you know, a number of things. Look, I get it. I feel the same way about it. Maybe not quite as murderous, but it enrages me.
01:37:49
Speaker
I don't know if you noticed, but when she was stabbing her stepmom, she was doing kind of an homage to Friday the 13th. She's like, kill her mommy, kill her mommy. I will, Jason, I will. And then the other part about the, you know, the murders happen. But the one that was so funny to me is the girl that's on she's on her phone and she gets poisoned by Natasha Leon and her small diet coke.
01:38:17
Speaker
And she wakes up in the theater and it's locked and she's the only one in there and then she goes down to the basement. And what they are initially trying to do is put her in a guillotine but her head doesn't fit in the guillotine. And I don't know what, there's like something about the physical comedy of him trying to force her face through that little hole that was just so funny to me. And then what they end up doing instead is putting her boobs in.
01:38:45
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you just roll with it. You know what I mean? You just roll with it. One joke that's funny to think about now is that when the stepmom is handing over the paperwork to have her sign it to give it away, she's like, Bed Bath & Beyond is going to make big bucks for this property. And I was like, Oh, that has not aged well. Cool. Now Bed Bath & Beyond is bankrupt and going out of business.
01:39:15
Speaker
I think at the end of the one, The Tale of Two Severed Titties, the tagline is, even in France, cell phones are rude, which I thought was a little bit of a funny little stab there. That's so good.
01:39:30
Speaker
Yeah, overall, I mean, and then the fact that like Peaches kind of shows up in her own movies and plays herself is kind of ingenious because it's it's it's of a time when Peaches was doing kind of Midnight Mass at the theater in San Francisco because, you know, and so it's kind of like a little homage to that. They even say like, oh, yeah, she's like the famous like Midnight Movie drag queen. And I thought it was funny what was
01:39:57
Speaker
Um, the girl in line, she's like, uh, what does she say? She says something about like, um, her makeup. She's wearing too much. It's Judy. She says it's wearing too much makeup. She looks like a drag queen and the drag queens are standing right behind her and they kind of give her like a scowl, which I thought was really funny.
01:40:13
Speaker
One quick thing about the Midnight Mass stuff too, which of course it's a brilliant podcast and we love Michael Verotti too, just brilliant stuff. But I didn't know this little tidbit of information. So prior to making All About Evil, this is from Wikipedia, Grinnell's Midnight Mass concept was created into the 2007 television series Midnight Mass with your host, Peaches Christ, in which Grinnell, performing as his drag character, Peaches Christ, hosted aerials of horror films.
01:40:43
Speaker
The series was funded by Mark Cuban, who had recently purchased Landmark Theaters, the company that owned and operated the Bridge Theater, which Grinnell managed. Isn't that funny? Yeah, I didn't know that. That's crazy. It's one of those little factoids that I was like, huh, you never think you're going to see Mark Cuban in the same sentence, you know? Yeah, as Peach is Christ.
01:41:05
Speaker
A couple of little tidbits that I thought that stood out to me as far as physical comedy goes in the movie, because let's be honest, there's a lot of physical comedy in this movie.
Film Distribution Challenges and Praises
01:41:15
Speaker
The guy who plays the usher, who she hires after he beats up the old woman on the street. Oh my God, and he's so gross. He's just a gross pig.
01:41:24
Speaker
But he has this really funny part where they're standing in line and they're getting interviewed by the guy from The Morning Fog, the TV show. And he just all of a sudden out of nowhere just goes, tickets!
01:41:39
Speaker
It came out of nowhere, kind of like maybe like shocked for a second, but I just thought it was really funny. The other part with him that I thought was hilarious is when he's going in the finale, when he's going to stab our characters and the body falls on top, head down on top of his head, like a severed head goes into his body, which I thought was really hilarious.
01:42:01
Speaker
Um, and he kind of dances around with a body on top of his head for a second. Um, the other part comes from Peaches herself. There's a really funny part at the very end and it's a blink and you'll miss it, but it made me crack up is where Natasha Leon's character is, um, blowing kisses into the audience. And, um, Peaches kind of just does like a little, like,
01:42:21
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to catch it. Oh, it was it stood out to me. I just thought it was really funny. But yeah, overall, I just think that this is a highly underseen movie. I think more people will see it now that it's on shutter here in the US. I'm glad to see that it's getting distribution through that, because I do think that this is a little bit of a lost film. You know what I mean? Totally. And you know, I'm glad.
01:42:45
Speaker
I really hate how distribution works. Just put it on shutter over here too. It's so stupid that I just couldn't watch it that way. But I mean, you're absolutely right. It's once again back to the access issue. So watch this. If you've not seen it yet, and once again, just like Psycho Beach Party, I'm gonna guess most of you probably have not. Go watch this. It's so good. And it's starring some really great people. Watch it.
01:43:09
Speaker
Yeah. Um, one other part that made me cringe is where the librarian, um, she basically forces her sewn up mouth open. That part really got me. Um, I love, I love Mink stole so fucking much. Like how can you not love Mink stole? Come on. Yeah. Um,
01:43:30
Speaker
I'm trying to think if there was anything else. There's like a ton of stuff in this movie. The girl at the at the end, who's kind of like the bully when she takes all those shots of the of the Kool-Aid, of the poison Kool-Aid. And her it cuts to her a couple of times after that. And slowly you start to see that like her face is starting to blow up. And then you see that. And she basically like turns into like a toxic Avenger, a little monster kind of thing.
01:43:56
Speaker
Their face falls off and everything, which I thought was a fitting ending to that character. Everyone kind of like gets their comeuppance in this movie. The only one that I kind of was hoping something worse would happen was the teacher. Yeah, because we have this teacher character who has been basically telling everyone that Steven is going to shoot up the school or Steven is going to do something crazy because he draws scary photos and likes horror films.
01:44:24
Speaker
Yeah. And so I was kind of hoping that Debbie would fall on top of her at the end, but instead she just gets splattered with her blood, which is fine. I just wanted that character to get worse. A worse if you know, she deserved it.
01:44:41
Speaker
I thought it was really funny that Debbie uses a soup kitchen as a potential casting firm. I'm just bringing in homeless people because nobody will miss them. That's a common, a very thing to do in these kind of movies. I don't know. It was really funny to see.
01:45:03
Speaker
And then just San Francisco as a character was really fun. We don't get a ton of San Francisco stuff. And so seeing San Francisco in 2010... I mean, San Francisco is not doing so well these days, you know? I know. But in 2010, it was like the epicenter. Yeah, of course. In 2010 prior, it was kind of epicenter of just gay stuff in general. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do.
01:45:28
Speaker
But yeah, overall, you know, what a fantastic little movie. It's it's it's plays homage to a lot of your favorite horror stuff. And I just love it. I think it's a great movie. Me too. Would you rate it? So out of the seven stripes of the Gale rainbow, I'm going to give all about evil a five and a half. And I said really transplants you into a fucked up little world filled with homages to make any horror fan swoon.
01:45:52
Speaker
and I gave it a five and I said really enjoyed this fucked up little flick. Great photography, excellent cast, and mink stole being mink stole. Loved it. Well that will do it for All About Evil. We'll take our last break and we'll be right back to close out the show.
01:46:17
Speaker
Okay, early to bed, early to rise, makes a woman healthy, wealthy, and wise. That's why you're wiser than me. It's Steven. Hi, I'm Maurice. I'm an executive by day and a wild man by night. Hi, my name is Monroe. You've probably already noticed that I have incredibly blue eyes. And that does it for another episode of Friday the 13th Horror Podcast. Hope you had a blast with us, folks. But before we let you go,
01:46:45
Speaker
We have a final game for you. And the final game was one that we haven't played in a good long while. It is slice left, slice right. It is the horrific version of Tinder. And here we are. So Andrew, I'm going to ask you about these people and you're going to tell me whether you're slicing left, say no, or slicing right, which means fuck me immediately.
01:47:06
Speaker
Thank you for reminding me of the rules because I had forgotten. No problem. Okay, first off is from Psycho Beach Party, Kanaka.
01:47:15
Speaker
Tom, the him at that time, I'd slice right. I mean, I had a huge crush on Greg when Darma and Greg was out. True. I think that that actor may be problematic these days, but I don't remember. But, you know, first cycle beach party time. Yeah, I'll slice right. Why not? Whatever. He's cute. I'll slice right, too. He's not even he's not even my type and I'll slice right. Next one is from All About Evil Steven.
01:47:41
Speaker
A little too young for me, so I think I'm gonna slice left on that one. With no surprise to anyone, I'm going to slice right. He is very, very cute. And he was a real cutie in that movie too, so slice right for me.
01:47:56
Speaker
All right, the next one on our list is Yo-Yo. Slice right. I mean, if you didn't hear our discussion on Psycho Beach Party, I think you know where we land on this place. Literally immediately slicing right on him. He is so sexy. He's just he's very, very sexy.
01:48:12
Speaker
All right, what about his counterpart, Provolone? Yeah, sure. I'm going to slice right on him, too. In fact, I'm going to marry them both. I'm going to have a crazy weird throuple for the rest of my life with those two. How about that? Yeah, I'm also going to slice right, but we're going to have to go see a GI doctor. OK, because you can't be constipated for that long. That's not going to work.
01:48:33
Speaker
Well, listen, folks, hope you had a lot of fun in this episode and hope you really enjoyed our surprise guest Peaches Christ, none other than before we let you go, as I lose my voice, of course, right as I'm starting to talk about this, a couple of things here. If you want to support by the 13th, you can become a patron on Patreon or by merch by going to our website, which is Friday, 13 dot com slash support.
01:48:57
Speaker
We do have a new patron, actually just came through today, and that is Michael Julian. So thank you so much, Michael, for your patronage to the show. It really helps us do a lot of things like get re compensated for movies that we have to rent or replace equipment or, you know, God forbid, travel or anything like that. So, you know, it really goes all the way back into the show. We have a separate account just for the money that comes in for the show that we never take money out of unless it's for the show.
01:49:27
Speaker
So consider donating today. If you can't, we also will take a rating or review. You can do that in many, many places. The best places that help us out are on Apple podcasts and on Spotify. I just looked the other day. We need some more reviews though. So if you could just hit that five stars on Spotify as well, if you listen there, we really, really appreciate it.
01:49:54
Speaker
So folks, once again, thanks for being with us. And Andrew, before we send these fine folks on their way full of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce, let's remind them that the number one thing they need to do this this day, more than anything, is to get slayed.