[Film Review] Death Drop Gorgeous (2020)

The concept of camp has a long and storied past within the horror genre, and especially in the slasher. Over the top gore, nonsensical plots, and one-dimensional characters dominate the proliferation of this subgenre and have come to be some of the hallmarks of a good time when watching a scary movie. Camp lets films get away with things such as tacky performances or low production budgets because, as discussed earlier this year when I revisited Basket Case for Ghouls https://www.ghoulsmagazine.com/articles/basket-case-1982-film-review?rq=basket%20case , they just have so much heart. When something is campy, you assume that the people who made it had a good time doing so, and that they did it because they love it, which endears the audience to it. 

But horror isn’t the only thing that packs a campy punch. Drag culture, here used as shorthand both for actual drag queens and for the larger LGBTQ+ fanbase around drag performance, is nigh defined by camp. Drag relies on a perpetual subversion and re-examination of gender roles, and to engage playfully with femininity and masculinity as types of social performance. Drag queens are often over the top personas, much like the archetypal teens in a slasher. Further, since drag laughs in the face of making gender traditionalists uncomfortable, it also veers frequently into the crass, the grotesque, and the violent. Thus, drag and horror are a match made in Hell, as evidenced by the success of reality competition show The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula. But as drag more fully enters mainstream culture, we still needed that true crossover, the drag slasher. Enter Death Drop Gorgeous.

This film is camp done to all-sequined, messy, lewd perfection. A story about an aging drag queen who will do anything to reclaim the glory of her youth and a young gay man looking for a fresh start in life, the plot is part Golden Era slasher, part vintage porno, and it does both so very well. The cast of characters – buddy cops with a physically familiar relationship, a sleazy club owner – are ripped straight from an old X-rated theater and are exactly what you’d expect, by which I mean equal parts wooden and hammy. Michael McAdam as the aging queen Gloria Hole gives a wonderful performance, and Johnny Sederquist likewise carries that energy as [MAJOR SPOILER]. Despite no one getting an Oscar for their turn here, the story and characters still get under your skin – some deaths felt like karma, and others made me feel actively sad. 

Speaking of, the kills are some of the best parts of this movie. Each one is unique and brings in different gay porn tropes (massage parlors, handymen, etc), to make the kills campy beyond simply the low-budget gore that populates the screen. From the first kill, you are enthralled by the corn syrup, red dye, and… Jell-O? Used to get those deaths on screen. Each death is so creative and perfect for its victim that they’re some of the most anticipated moments in the film. Minor spoiler, but there’s a meat grinder used for EXACTLY what you want a meat grinder used for in a slasher of this nature. All the deaths are amazing individual moments that come together to create a masterful portrait of a killer.

I would be remiss, however, if I just discussed this as a horror film, and did not at least nod to how this is also in large part a love letter to drag. I’m a novice fan of drag culture myself, and so I don’t know if any of the things I picked up as referential were in fact references to specific queens or indicative of larger parts of culture (except I am sure fictional drag queen Janet Fitness is modeled after real life queen Jan), but there was clearly a level of care taken in making the drag in the film authentic. Every time a queen was on screen, the makeup and outfit were clearly meticulously considered, and the several interspersed drag performances were fully choreographed, though they never fell into being full on musical interludes. 

Lest this just be about the aesthetic of the film, as we all know, even within the campiest film we can find nuggets of truth and meaning. Death Drop Gorgeous is no exception, with a penultimate scene that is particularly poignant, and should make those of us who do not participate directly in gay male spaces think about our interactions with the culture. Not to give too much away, but a queen is brutally murdered and no one notices, because a group of cis white women on a heterosexual bachelorette bender have taken over the bar (intended for gay men). By demanding these marginalized people entertain them, even at the expense of their lives, the movie reminds us that queer spaces aren’t universally open safe spaces for straight women to use as they see fit, and we need to be respectful of trodding into spaces created for people at different intersections of oppression. 

Overall, Death Drop Gorgeous is low-budget, with unrealistic deaths and even more unrealistic performances. But none of that matters even in the slightest, because this movie leans into the cultures from which it came, drag and horror, both of which historically have had to scrape by on little attention and less money while still producing amazing culture-shifting moments. Is Death Drop Gorgeous itself a pivotal cultural moment for queer indie horror? I surely can’t say, but this film has definitely made its way onto my “rewatch yearly at minimum” list.

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