Psycho Beach Party w/ Michael Varrati

Queer Horror: A Film Guide  creator/co-editor Sean Abley and contributor Michael Varrati in conversation about Charles Busch's stage play-turned horror comedy film, Psycho Beach Party (2000). 

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Queer Horror: A Film Guide - The Podcast is a 30 minute deep(ish) dive into a classic (or not-so-classic) horror film found in the 500-page encyclopedia of genre films with LGBTQ content, Queer Horror: A Film Guide. Each episode Sean Abley, creator/co-editor of Queer Horror: A Film Guide, asks one of the contributors to pick a film they wrote about for the book that deserves even more queer analysis. Guests include co-editor Tyler Doupé, contributors Calpernia Addams, Daniel W. Kelly, Brian Kirst, Michael Varrati, and special guest Heather O. Petrocelli, PhD.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to Queer Horror A Film Guide, the podcast, where the creator and editors and contributors to Queer Horror, a film guide, pick one film that they've written about and do a little bit of a deeper dive. I've made a commitment that every episode of this will be about 30 minutes long. So go ahead and set your timers. I'm Sean Abley. I'm the creator and co-editor of Queer Horror A Film Guide. And today, my uh cohort is one of the busiest people in show business. Also, uh, most people probably know him right this minute from the Midnight Mass podcast that he co-hosts with Peaches Christ, but he also has been a film journalist forever, a filmmaker forever, uh, has directed the Chainsaw Awards for Fangoria, Dragula for the Boulay brothers. He's literally everywhere. And that would be Michael Varati. Hi, Michael.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Hi, Sean. It's a pleasure to be here. Uh, and always a thrill to talk queer horror with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, I so enjoyed being on Midnight Mass to talk just the sort of the topic of queer horror. That was a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

It was. It's very um rare that we do an episode that's about a subgenre instead of like a specific movie or person. We've only done it twice. We did an episode on Hag Exploitation where we were joined by film journalist David Del Val, and then we did an episode all about queer horror with you, and then our other guest was Dr. Heather Petricelli. And I really, really loved that episode. I'm glad that we got to kind of dig into our mutual love of this space. Uh, it also led to you and I doing a number of panels together at various conventions, which we've also done over the years. You and I have been talking about queer horror, I think, since we met many, many years ago. Yeah. And I think we'll be talking about it for many, many years to come.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

You were one of my original interviews for my Gay of the Dead blog for Fangoria, which started in 2009, which just blows my mind. It's been that long. I have such affection for the film that you've picked today, and we can talk about why when we talk about the film after you reveal the title, which is The movie we're discussing today is 2000's Psycho Beach Party, written by the iconic Charles Bush and directed by Robert Lee King.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

If you're not familiar with this movie, it is a parody of Teen Beach movies, the likes of which that used to star Gidget and Frankie and Annette. But the star of this movie is not as pure as either of those. It's Chiclet, played by Lauren Ambrose of Six Feet Under Fame. And Chiclet has a problem. She wants to be part of the cool kids' club. She wants to hang out with the surfers, but her mom's been keeping her away because Chicklet has a malady that when she sees circles, it unleashes her other personality, a kinkster demoness known as Anne Bowman. So, of course, when murders start happening at the beach, mom starts suspecting that her own daughter might be responsible for these brutal slayings. But there's more than meets the eye in this teen beach movie that turns into a slasher who done it, which of course also features drag icon Charles Bush, who not only wrote, as I mentioned, but stars as a detective in this movie. Some gay interplay between uh surfers, and well, a lot of loving nods to be movies of yesteryear.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I have such affection for this because I know the play upon which it was based, written by Charles Bush. And the fact that Charles Bush played Chicklet in the original stage production, but um plays, you know, an adult in this version, I think is kind of hilarious. And so good. Like we're treated to one of the rare film appearances by Charles. Um, you know, he was on Oz for a season or two, and I think he was in like, wasn't he in one of the Adams family movies and stuff? But he doesn't do a lot of films. So this is a treat to see uh him a creature of the stage translating his talents to the cinema. And I I just he's I guess when you write the lines for yourself, you get to be hilarious, and Charles is absolutely hilarious in this film.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Well, what's funny is for people who know Charles Bush largely for Charles Bush's work on stage, it's wild because so many of the things that Charles Bush pulls upon are old movies. He styles almost all of his drag characters as leading ladies of yesteryear. Psycho Beach Party, of course, is an homage to those AIP beach movies that starred Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. But also his other motion picture where he prominently features in drag Die Mommy Die is a movie that's sort of an homage to the melodramas, like the Douglas Cirque sort of movies of yesteryear. So he's very rooted in the world of movies. And I love that he was able to take this play that is a loving kind of send up of movies and then bring it to the movie space. Honestly, you know, anybody who knows me and knows my career, it probably comes as no surprise that I love a camp horror movie homage that is done by a drag queen. Uh, I know a lot of those who do that and they always delight me. But this is one of those that I think is a really exceptional piece of film because it knows exactly what it is. It's a lot of fun. And uh it's one that I find myself watching over and over again. I first saw it on uh late night television. I think it was a pay channel like HBO or Stars, I don't remember which. And I came in just after it had started, and I remember thinking, what is this? And I just was obsessed. And I used to watch it over and over and over again when I first saw it. So when the book came around, it was another one of those titles that I just said, Sean, listen, I'm writing about Psycho Beach Party.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

It's funny because I have a history with Charles. I'll make this short because we only have 30 minutes. So, way back in my twenties when I was living in Chicago doing theater, I wrote a version of Reefer Madness uh for the stage, not the musical version. I got there first. And I already knew of Charles' work by reputation. I missed seeing the original Vampire Lesbians of Sodom off off Broadway or off Broadway because of a snafu and a travel thing anyway. And so, but I wrote him a letter and I said, you know, I am so inspired by your work. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And he wrote back. He wrote back this long handwritten card. It was just lovely that he actually took the time to do that. Jump forward years later, I'm doing a backers audition in New York, and one of the company members from my theater in Chicago had moved to New York and became Charles's Whig stylist, who then now directs all of his plays, Carl Andress, who's a dear friend of mine. So I met Charles. Charles was like, the theater is dead. There's no, you know, and I'm there to do a backers audition for one of my plays. And he's like, the theater's dead, there's no future in theater. I'm like, uh jump forward again to when they're in Los Angeles doing Die Mommy Die, the production that my friend Carl directed, and uh to like get interest to make the movie. And Charles is like, I'm so sorry. I was so terrible to you back then, crushing your dreams as a young playwright. So I've had this full circle moment with Charles. So anything that sort of Charles connected, I feel of a kinship to. So I am I'm thrilled that we got it into the book. All right. So enough of my personal stories. Let's talk about this cast, let's talk about this insane stacked cast of this movie that a lot of whom were doing some of their first things, but then there's also some, like obviously, some vets in there. The one that I'd forgotten about was Amy Adams.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yes. Oh, this cast is crazy. When you think about the fact, I had mentioned Lauren Ambrose, who um most people know from her iconic role in Six Feet Under. Nicholas Brendan's in this, who at the time was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We've got what's his face from Dharma and Greg? Um Thomas Gibson. Thomas Gibson, yes, yes. Amy Adams is in this, Beth Broderick from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Matt Keyslar from Greg Iraqi's Splendor and Scream Three. You know, this cast is just so, so well populated. And everybody's kind of firing on all cylinders, which I really like. This is an early role from Amy Adams, and you can see from Jump that she's got it. You know, she plays Marvel Land, sort of the uh typified popular girl that is in all of these beach movies, who our lead just kind of feels like she doesn't stack up, both literally and metaphorically against. And she gets the assignment. Amy Adams comes in, guns are blazing, she's ridiculous, she's camp. It feels like, were it not for some of the more lurid drag humor, she would have fit very comfortably in, you know, beach blanket bingo or how to stuff a wild bikini.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

It's interesting to watch these young actress and see who understands the style versus the ones that are doing a good job just because they're there, if that makes sense. Like Amy Adams that we now know, we've seen her in a million different things. She's like a student of cinema. She understands, you know, she's got huge versatility, um, despite looking like a leading lady, you know, or some, you know, ingenue, the people would put her in a certain box. And then there's other people that I don't want to point out because it would seem mean, like, because I'm not I'm not insulting their performance, but there's other young actors in here that you can tell don't necessarily understand the Charles Bush style. And that's, you know, performances that have hard edges around them, if that makes sense. Like everything is drawn with a thick line around it, and moments are like complete, they're beginning, middle, end. Uh, you know, and a moment could be your line. Like it could literally be like the beginning, middle, and end of how you say a line. It's all very like like the the core, yeah. I don't know, it's just that they have sharp corners, if that makes sense. And there's other people that are just sort of are there well doing a good job, uh, but not necessarily like leaning into the style.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, well, one performance that I think absolutely does deserve all the praise it it gets is Lauren Ambrose and the lead is Chiclet. And I'm really, really glad that at the beginning you made a point to say that in the original stage version, Charles played the Chiclet character, but obviously by the time they brought it to screen and the differences between stage and screen, it didn't work so much for a middle-aged drag queen to be playing the teenager, especially amongst other teenagers. So he created Monica Stark for the film version. And Chiclet is now played by Lauren Ambrose. But because that part was originally written as a drag character, I think that Lauren Ambrose is still very drag in this movie, and she gets what that means. And I think that's really important because when I think of Psycho Beach Party, I don't think of it as a movie with a drag queen. I think of it as a drag movie. Essentially, in most respects, all of the cast is doing some kind of drag. Whether it's beach party drag, whether it's old movie drag, whether it's literal drag, there is the um kind of larger definition of the art form where they're taking something and kicking it up a notch. It's like taking this thing and giving a heightened reality version of it. Everything's uh very much um accentuated and extreme and camp. And I really, really think that if Lauren Ambrose didn't fundamentally understand what Charles Bush had imbued in the character of Chicklet on stage, it wouldn't have worked. She gets the trans translation and transition between Chicklet and Anne Bowen very well, and I think that that that kind of sells the rest of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, you know, if you're if we're going by a little an older school version of drag, which you know is gender illusion, right? That's sort of your bedrock of drag. And then what Charles did is I call it sort of the silver age of drag, which is now add theatricality to it. You know, there's a difference between, and there's a these are all great, but there's the difference between like the bar performances and like an off-Broadway show, it just what the tools, the tools that you put into play when you're doing that. And so you could have just a drag queen in a movie playing a woman, but this is a camp uh property, and so you need those two layers of like first there's a gender illusion, now there's a theatricality on top of it. And I think that's what I was sort of trying to get to with my whole like, you know, there's the hard edges on this stuff. Sure. And Lauren Ambrose is, you know, whether or not she would at the time have said, Yes, this is what I'm doing, or she just naturally understood it. She definitely like grounds this movie in a really great performance. I I do you remember in this again, this movie talk telling tales out of school. I thought at some point that she said she wasn't happy with this movie. Am I wrong about that?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

I've never heard that, so I can't say one way or the other.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

All right, great. Then I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna leave it in in here just because it's an example of me possibly getting out over my skis, but for some reason I thought that she wasn't happy with it, which I was uh shocked because she's so good uh in it. So the one, you know, we're looking at these things with a fine-tooth comb, and this is gonna seem like so like you know, not fun when I bring this up and when we talk about the parts of it that might be a little problematic, is Kathleen Robertson's character in a wheelchair.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah, I I do think that if there is anything to kind of look at with a more shrewd eye or maybe discuss deeper because of a problematic nature, it's the fact that not only is Kathleen Robertson in a wheelchair, but the whole kind of thrust of the killer's MO is he's killing people who's different. And so there's this sort of look at disability and special needs in a very specific lens through that. That of course, because this movie is drag and it is parody and it is satire, is maybe not kind. It is playing a lot of the disabilities for laughs. The idea that the one character has has psoriasis and they all laugh about it, or you know, that the one the one bald character, and I think that it could be cumulatively um ableist.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, it's such a weird, you know, tight rope because in the bigger picture, I feel like most of that stuff is fairly innocuous. I mean, the one thing that we could really point to, I think that that would be legit then and now is the fact that there should have been an actress in a wheelchair playing an act a character in a wheelchair. Like that would be that's sort of feels like a sort of a no-brainer. But the uh in putting together this book, what I realize is that we as queer people who are horror fans, we've been fed poison like by the genre that we love. Like we've basically been betrayed by the genre that we love for for still today, quite frankly. It's getting better, but still today. And so it's hard for us to be able to look at something and go, oh, that's parody, that's satire, so it's okay if it's this, when all we're being fed is that. So it doesn't matter the container of the poison, it's still poison. And so I understand if people are not celebrating this film because of, you know, it's like at the end of the day, if the killer's killing everybody that's different, even if the lesson is don't kill people that are different, all the characters that are different are dead by the end of the movie. So, you know, it it it I I get it. Uh I don't personally take offense to that, but you know, I think it's sort of our self-appointed job to look at these things and and consider them at least.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Well, for me, it always is a matter of looking at a movie through the lens of time in which it was made and the climate in which it was made. And I never excuse things that we know better now, or even excuse things that we should have known bet known better then. But I also am aware that sometimes uh these things are are progressive, right? Like the idea that we we need to have the conversation so we don't repeat, we do better, and we should do better. But you know, I think that like when to your point, there are so many movies that kind of allowed us to not think about it. That's not excusable, but Dr. Scott and Rocky Horror was played by an able-bodied person in a wheelchair. Corey Haym and Silver Bullet played a kid in a wheelchair. We know that Corey Haim could walk. I think there was so much just allowing these things by both filmmakers and film audiences for far too long that there are aspects of these movies that now we can look back and say, Oh, that's fucked up. And we we knew better then and we know better now. And we can have that earnest discussion and and we should, but it doesn't erase the fact that the movie exists.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah. I said this to Cal Purnia when we were talking about one of the films. It's like my husband doesn't like mushrooms. Sometimes I cook things with mushrooms and he just eats around the mushrooms. Like, so for some of these movies, we just have to have to eat around the mushrooms, right? And you know, I won't throw a movie out just because there's part of it that maybe doesn't isn't a super bullseye for me philosophically. So, you know, it just depends on your own personal like threshold for that kind of thing. I think it's interesting because you know, the biggest movie maybe in history that is out right now that has a character that is in a wheelchair, wicked. And they found an actress to play that character who is in a wheelchair. And you know, the stakes are high with those big blockbuster movies, and they could have, you know, cast an able-bodied person that they know would like be a name and would sell a movie. I mean, this this young actress, I've never heard of her before.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

But what I like about that, in addition to all the reasons you should like that, is by doing it, they show it can be done. And and then it kind of sets the precedent. There's no excuse to not do this, it can be done. You can you can make this well and you can make it right and you can make it proper and do right by everybody.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

It just takes some effort. I think that yeah, the show pose, uh, like it or not, showed that the excuse that there aren't a well of trans performers that can handle being on a television show in a lead role was just that an excuse for not working hard enough. And now, you know, thanks to that show. I mean, I don't I'm I have no love for Ryan Murphy, but there are other people involved that I do love, and that is unleashed this, you know, this group of talented actors into the world. So, you know, thankful for that. So I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I would like mark that give this movie any demerits for, and I don't really think so.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

I mean, I think it all I mean, the only things that would probably be somewhat offensive are purposely played for comedy. Like, you know, this was written by a queer person, but some of the things when um the two surfers who are struggling with their sexuality are figuring themselves out, there are some very gay stereotypical lines that are thrown out for we as the audience to understand, oh, that's what they're going through, or you know, I'd like to sample your poo-poo platter or whatever it is. But again, it's taking it in the context in which it's offered, you know. If this was some hard-hitting BBC Russell T. Davies series, I would be like, dudes, get it together. But when it's psycho beach party, I kind of appreciate and understand what I'm getting.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Right. And I think that Charles, you know, in writing the script, he's writing to the era, to the genre and the era. And so, and also, you know, frankly, I don't know if he would think that he this was his job, but so much of queer entertainment that's done on a mass scale, it this is their job, which is you're talking to you're not preaching to the choir, you are speaking to the congregation. And so our job sometimes is to like it's the small end of the wedge in first, like for the straight audiences, like they'll they'll get this. I call it the flyover state humor, you know, that's like 10 years, 10 years old too old, but like some people haven't heard of yet.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

No, I talk about this all the time. You know, as a filmmaker, I've gone to many, many, many queer film festivals and exhibited at many queer film festivals. And one of the things that um you become acutely aware of, and I know you know this as well, is there are queer movies that are made for queer people, and there are queer movies that are made for straight people. And they all serve a purpose. I remember when Love Simon came out and people were really excited about it. And I'm happy that movie exists, but that is an example of a gay movie for a straight audience, so they can be like, Oh, I understand now. They're not seeing eating out two sloppy seconds, you know, because that's like maybe too gay. That there needs to be sort of this kind of like palatable crossover for the people who want to show we're with you, but we don't necessarily need to see the glory hole comedy.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

You know, right, right. Uh, shout out to Rebecca McKendry for making that glory hole comedy, by the way. Horror comedy, glorious. Um, yeah, uh yeah, I think that there is a grand tradition that began with like Philadelphia, like movies about gay things for straight people. And so it's the like PG 13 sort of watered down version with some you know humanizing of people and and all too normal portrayals of you know certain aspects of queer life. Um, or I remember what was that? Uh an early frost. Do you remember an early frost where it's like I got AIDS yesterday, tomorrow I'm dead. Like, and then it's about everybody around that person, you know, like stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

But to bringing all of this up, I think it's important because in the case of a movie like Psycho Beach Party, it's a rare example where it's actually kind of both. We don't get this very often. The references, by and large, because the character of Bettina Barnes, the B movie actress who comes to town that they're all obsessed with, we get that. Like if you are just a horror fan, you know who she is, you know the kind of actress that she's parodying in the movies they're parodying. We also know the kind of movies Psycho Beach Party is parodying. There have been many, many beach movies. It's part of the Zeitgeist Disney has made their own teen beach movie musical that references these films. It is a larger cultural thing. And within this thing that a major audience can understand, there's also the humor for us. It is still, as I said at the beginning, a drag movie where all of the characters in some respects are drag. But because it has been wrapped up in this sort of like Russian nesting doll of things that are also for other audiences, it becomes a thing where we can laugh about the sort of like gay oil wrestling on the beach, while everybody else is sort of just like, ha ha ha, drag queen, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

I look at Charles' work as like I look at Bullwinkle cartoons, which is there bullwinkle cartoons. There was comedy for the kids watching a cartoon, but when Natasha's secret identity in a caper is tequila mockingbird, that's for the adults. And I look at Charles' work like, here's the stuff, here's the the bus and truck crowd. I'm sorry, the bridge and tunnel crowd. The bus and truck crowd would be on tour. The bridge and tunnel crowd, you know, enjoying uh the you know, the carnival circus on stage, and then there's the stuff for us that he sort of slides in. Everything from you know, you know this as a screenwriter, like it all starts with the script. And if you don't have a good script, you don't have a good movie. And Charles is just like 100% home runs, as far as I'm concerned. So I'm just realizing the date is 2000 on this one. You said that at the top. And I'm remembering now that by the mid-2000s, we had the gay horror, the first sort of gay, it was called gay then, gay horror boom, of which we I think we both did. We both participated. I was involved in that making movies back then, gay horror movies. And so I find that interesting that like this uh for some reason I just I assume just because of the content that this happened after that, but it didn't, it happened before that.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

So it was really in a vacuum when this film was released, yeah, and it was ahead of the curve. But aren't all groundbreaking artists a little bit ahead of the curve? I that's that's the thing. Charles Bush has always been kind of a person who pushes the envelope and who was doing drag theater on Broadway in a time where it was not really happening. And so then in a post uh, you know, RuPaul's drag race era, where some of these competitors are now Roxy Hart in Chicago. Well, guess who you partially have to thank for that? It's not just because one drag show was on television. There are a lot of things and a lot of people who built up, you know, the the foundations from which this all comes. And I think that even to have a gay horror boom in the mid-1000s, uh, you need to have the stray gay horror movie here and there that like allows people to be like, see, they're showing Psycho Beach Party on HBO. Yeah, maybe it's at 2 a.m., but they're showing it on HBO.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Keep it away from the children. I think it's interesting that it didn't, that the the gay horror films that sort of cropped up in the mid-2000s didn't don't seem uh genetically connected to Psycho Beach Party, and that you know, Psycho Beach Party is sort of a camp, not sort of, is a camp comedy horror movie. And and there were maybe a couple in the mid-2000s, but most of them were pretty straightforward.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So I think it's a larger conversation about respectability politics, right? I think we see this back and forth, especially when there's been a bigger conservative swing in our government and against us. There's always a period of time where the larger community is like, look, we're just like you. We want, you know, a house and picket fence and 2.5 children and all these things that you don't like about us, that's it's a little fringe even for us, which is bullshit and which I have never prescribed to. But we we know that there have been cycles where drag has fallen out of favor because the community wanted to present as heteronormative, which is its own much larger, not half-hour conversation. And I think that coming out of 2000, when you have a camp forward drag movie, and then we're in the midst of the Bush administration, and suddenly it's like, okay, here are things that we can present. It's a slasher movie, like the way you understand slasher movies, it's just all boys or XYZ. So the extra elements, the ultra elements, the drag elements, that that's the that's the love Simon versus the eating out, right? It's like that. What's our bridge too far at this moment in time? And I think it's a larger discussion that we're still unpacking.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

I think that this movie would not get released today. I think you're correct. And it it is the most like, and I'm gonna say innocuous, and I don't mean that as a slam, I mean it is like just an assessment. It's like the most innocuous of gay anything, and you know, the most gentle like film as when it comes to the queer content, and yet now in our current climate, it would be a lightning rod. And it would I almost I I do worry because if a movie like this gets released now and it it becomes a lightning rod, the studios are nothing if not cowardly, and it even if you make them independently, the the the distribution companies won't pick it up. So I I'm I'm nervous.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Uh I'm nervous too, but as sort of someone who bucks the system or always is preaching about the need for transgressive and underground art, it's when we need it the most. I think that if you have the means and the ability to go out and make something that's extra queer, now is when we need it. I will tell you that to my to my detriment, I'm sure, there have been times when I've gotten pushback on things that I've made and I kind of dig my heels in the sand. I I don't mind saying because you can log into Shutter right now and read comments. It's not like it's a secret. I have written the chainsaw words three times, I've directed them twice, and I will be writing and directing them again. Surprise everybody.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Scoop, scoop.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

But I have seen, you know, I have included a lot of queer folks and queer visibility in the shows. And quite often we'll see hear from the bro dudes like this show's too gay. This show's too gay. Well, I don't know what they think is gonna happen when they complain about it, but for me, what I hear is okay, I'll just make it gayer. Good luck, everybody.

unknown 29:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yes. We're gonna make it harder for you. We're gonna make you have to work it, work up your your oh, look at that. I don't know if you heard that alarm. That our 30 minutes is up. Probably for the best, probably for the best. We're gonna have plenty of time in 2025 to discuss politics. Um, so we'll save it for another episode. Well, that is it. Thank you, Michael. Um, I love I love going into these films like this, it just makes me so happy to like get really granular with things that maybe maybe don't maybe don't deserve the granular treatment, but I like to do it anyway.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

So yeah, well, I think Psycho Beach Party deserves it, and I'm so glad that we took the time today.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yeah. Uh Michael, where can we find you?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

You can find me on Instagram and Blue Sky at Michael Varotti. It's my name. And of course, every other Wednesday at midnight, we drop new episodes of Midnight Mass, which I co-host with Drag Icon Peaches Christ, where we dig into your favorite cult films and ours.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

You also, you know, we didn't mention this. Um, I did mention you're a filmmaker. Your current feature film, sort of making the rounds right now, is There's a Zombie Outside, correct?

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yes, which will be dropping on streaming uh at the beginning of March 2025, depending on the time of this recording. You're either hearing this in the past or the future or whenever. Uh, but it should be available out there on streaming platforms. You can check it out. It is definitely probably upsettingly queer to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

So I I was just gonna say, you know, there's there's those conservative zombie lovers that'll that'll go in before they know what's what's happening to them. Um well, I'm Sean Ablet. You can find me as Gay of the Dead, just about everywhere you could look. Uh, Instagram, Patreon, Facebook, uh, Blue Sky, sticking it out on Twitter right now because they need more queer voices over there, telling them that they're foolish. Um, all the places. Uh TikTok. I do the TikTok on occasion. Queer Horror, a film guide, is available from McFarlandBooks.com. And please, please, please, please buy it from the publisher and not from your major online retailers. It helps the publisher and it doesn't hurt the giant retailers if you don't shop there. All right. This has been a ton of fun. Um, please join us next time.