Peaches Christ is San Francisco’s singing and dancing Statue of Liberty: that is, an icon, a beacon, a symbol of freedom that appeals to citizens, immigrants and visitors alike, from all walks of life. For over a dozen years, the Drag Queen of Pop has held court as ring-a-ding-ding leader of The Bridge Theater’s mega-successful summertime cult movie series “Midnight Mass,” where classic fan favorites like Mommie Dearest, Barbarella, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Evil Dead 2, Showgirls and Purple Rain have been presented with spectacular live shows and special celebrity guests ranging from Tura Satana to Linda Blair to Peach’s idols, John Waters and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
Now Peaches has moved on and up from being merely a superstar impresario and local legend to a full-blown (as it were) movie star-and-maker in her own right with the mercilessly malevolent, deliriously decadent and relentlessly ribald “splattire,” All About Evil.
Recently, Peaches' rather more subdued and serious doppelganger, San Francisco filmmaker Joshua Grannell, summed up his inspirational rags-to-riches success saga for me: “I moved to San Francisco after graduating from film school at Penn State to become an underground filmmaker of sorts. I was really into the Kuchar brothers and the whole Canyon Cinema movement, but got side-tracked performing as Peaches at Trannyshack shortly after it opened.”
Fast-forward a decade-plus and now the world has All About Evil, an instant cult classic taking its cues from previous cult classics, both directed and written by Grannell with boundless wit and a contagious love of the genre. The familiar plot is given a uniquely personal spin: Deborah, a young, beleaguered single-screen movie-house manager (played to bitchy pitch-perfection by Natasha Lyonne, of But I'm a Cheerleader fame), decides the only way to survive in this cut-throat industry is to make her own damn movies - as realistically convincing and cost-effectively as possible. After a fatal encounter in the lobby one fateful night, Deborah and her loyal staff (expertly and entertaining portrayed by veteran Jack Donner, the fantastically freaky twins Jade and Nikita Ramsey, and character actor Noah Segan) embark on a grisly series of inventively executed snuff films, the victim roles cast by anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their subsequent programs of original “fictional” indie-horror flicks (with hilarious titles like A Tale of Two Severed Titties) literally make a killing at the box office, until Deborah’s evil ways finally catch up with her, with the help of a horrified former fan, Steven, played by Thomas Dekker (star of TV's Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles and the recent remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street). The supporting cast features Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson in a rare out-of-makeup role as Steven’s mom, and the famously fabulous Mink Stole, star of such John Waters’ classics as Desperate Living (1977) and Pink Flamingos (1972). Sprinkled throughout the bloody proceedings are inspired “bits” of mirthful mayhem and ingeniously devised set “pieces.” All About Evil indeed has it all.
Besides the obvious influence of pioneering, groundbreaking Herschell Gordon Lewis classics like Blood Feast (1963) and The Wizard of Gore (1970), Grannell mentioned another influence from the bubbling cauldron that is the underground film well: “I was definitely inspired by the filmmaker Doris Wishman, both the movies she made and the woman that she was. She was making exploitation films unapologetically in a completely male-dominated grindhouse world. I was also looking around at the closing of so many great SF neighborhood movie houses and the anxiety that created in me helped inspire me to think about what length we should go to in order to save these old cinemas.”
The recently released Evil DVD contains a treasure trove of bonus special features, including the short film Grindhouse, which inspired Evil, and Peaches' colorful promo-short Children of the Popcorn. “Behind the Evil” is an engrossing “making-of” documentary that is almost as much fun as the movie itself. “Evil Live” gives us a vicarious taste of a “Peaches Christ Experience” presentation of the film, with footage and backstage/audience interviews shot during the 5/1/10 star-studded world premiere of Evil at a sold-out Castro Theater as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, before Peaches took Evil on the road, recreating the lavish live show with the movie at various cities across the country and beyond. (I caught it at the Victoria Theater in the Mission District, where it was primarily shot, the perfect venue for a screening, and screaming.) For anyone interested in cult/indie cinema, contemporary San Francisco underground folklore, fringe subcultures of all stripes and types, and/or vivaciously vibrant and boldly creative entertainment, All About Evil is all about you.
What's next for Joshua Grannell? More movies, we hope? “That's my hope too!” he told me. “I'm working on a new screenplay, continuing to do shows as Peaches Christ, and developing a new production company we've formed here in San Francisco. More to come!”
Rock on, sister.
Will "the Thrill" Viharo is a pulp fiction author and B Movie impresario.
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