This Halloween, The Westdale screened the 1975 cult classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with an extra special drag pre-show with Hamilton drag performers
By Naomi Moshe, Arts & CUlture contributor
The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been drawing in audiences worldwide for over 45 years for a reason. The cult classic film is not only jam packed with fun, but it is also a landmark piece of cinema for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. The film exudes the message of radical self acceptance, and being unafraid of the hidden desires that live deep within all of us––a sentiment that the queer community of the mid 1970’s desperately needed to hear. As a result, midnight screenings of Rocky Horror became safe spaces for the queer community to socialize and connect with one another at a time when simply existing as a gay person in broad daylight was a dangerous act.
When I heard that The Westdale was screening Rocky Horror on Halloween night, including a special drag pre-show with local Hamilton drag performers Jessie James and Karma Kameleon, I knew I needed to go. Besides, is there any better way to spend Halloween night than heckling profanities at a giant screen surrounded by hundreds of other people?
The atmosphere at The Westdale was, in a word, electrifying. Of course, crowds of people dressed up as characters from the movie. But more importantly, people were genuinely excited for the show, even though most people in attendance probably have seen this film more times than they could count on both hands. The energy was infectious––the entire theater was buzzing with anticipation.
The drag pre-show, hosted by Jessie James and Karma Kameleon, was a blast. Karma and Jessie performed campy lip syncs of songs from the movie’s soundtrack, including “Dammit Janet” and “Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me.” The highlight of the night for me was Jessie’s incredible live vocal performance of “Sweet Transvestite.” I had the pleasure of speaking with Jessie shortly after the event to get some insight on the importance of nights such as these for Hamilton’s queer community.
“Visibility is so important. I didn’t see myself growing up, and I struggled a lot with that. Being able to put on public events where people can come see us be explicitly queer, it’s the first step in having a conversation about [queerness.] It demystifies the queer experience. It brings a lot of joy into it,” explained Jessie.
When asked about her personal highlight of the night, Jessie said that it was when the whole theater got up and did the Time Warp with her and Karma. “To look out into the audience and see everyone standing up and dancing along…There [are] very few words I could use to describe the energy you feel from that. It’s almost addictive in a weird way,” said Jessie.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show continues to bring together people from all walks of life, even 45 years after its release. And, for Hamilton’s LGBTQ+ community, events like these create space for authentic self expression and unapologetic queerness.
Shane Madill
The Silhouette
It is really, really easy to just watch and cheapest viagra anywhere consume more popular modern horror movies. This year The Conjuring, Insidious: Chapter 2, and Mama all managed to gross over $100 million at the global box office, with relative successes such as Evil Dead and The Purge also being noticeable. However, this Halloween I would like to encourage you to experience some other, lesser known scary movies to experience different styles and stories possible within the large horror spectrum.
Martyrs (2008)
This French film depicts the attempted revenge of two women against their previous captors. The movie does a fantastic job of escalating the scares over time while taking a relatively simple premise and adding smart elements to make both the plot and specific scenes very memorable.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)
A legitimately funny comedy/horror movie about two hillbillies and a bunch of college kids who mistake them for blood-thirsty murderers. Well-paced, perfect dramatic irony, and plenty of laughs wrapped in a homage allow this to be comfortably compared as a funky cross between Shaun of the Dead and Cabin in the Woods.
Trick ‘r Treat (2007)
Besides the immensely more popular and well-known Halloween franchise, this should be the movie you watch to get into the scary mood of the season. Even though it only received a handful of screenings before being sent to DVD, this is still a great example of classic suspense.
Splinter (2008)
Taking inspiration from ‘isolation’ films such as Cabin Fever and traditional zombie films, this pulls together elements of classic horror movies together in a surprisingly high-quality fashion. A group of people trapped in a gas station fight off a parasite creating zombie-like beings with its victims; well worth a few scares.
Monsters (2010)
Think of a mix between Cloverfield and District 9, and this is what you get. Not quite as horror-focused as Cloverfield, and not quite as much of a social commentary as District 9. It’s got some heart and some scares – as a journalist is tasked to escort his boss’s daughter through an alien invested zone to safety.
The scariest movie scene ever filmed does not take place in a graveyard, asylum, or Transylvanian castle. Rather, it is set in a school nurse’s office.
In Risky Business (1983), high school senior Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise) misses two midterms after he accidently sinks his father’s Porsche in Lake Michigan. Although Joel fears his father’s wrath, the real terror begins when he seeks a note from the school nurse. If he is not marked excused, his GPA and chances of attending Princeton will both be ruined.
He pleads with the nurse, but she is unmoved. In desperation, he grabs her by the collar. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, as he releases his clenched fists, “I just don’t think I can leave until I get just a little compassion.” He receives none.
Risky Business is a dark satire of teen sex comedies, not a horror movie. Yet, this scene still gives me shivers. Indeed, the idea that my future will be irreparably sabotaged by a combination of my own ineptitude and an inflexible, unsympathetic academic system is way more frightening to me than most horror movie tropes. When the nurse dismissively waves Joel away, she may as well be brandishing a bloody machete.
This type of everyday anxiety is not often exploited in mainstream horror cinema. Certainly, horror movies often play on primal instincts. But these fears are subtly different than the nagging, unflashy worries of the average, comparatively privileged university student. This might seem somewhat unusual, considering that most young people, a crucial horror movie demographic, probably worry more about their grades and career choices than about being chopped in half.
I am not complaining, however, that Hollywood has yet to turn out a feature length version of those nerve-wracking moments from Risky Business. Nor, do I fault horror movies for failing to harness more humdrum anxieties. Indeed, I hope that no film ever bears a tagline like, “In T-29 no one can hear you scream.”
Rather, I think that this omission speaks to why horror movies are so counterintuitively enjoyable in the first place.
No matter how realistic the special effects or performances may seem, there is still a fundamental undercurrent of fantasy in most horror movies, since the scares onscreen are not those of everyday life. Even found footage horror films, like The Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity series, which achieve considerable realism through their pseudo-documentary aesthetics, also rely on basically supernatural subject matter.
It is precisely because we are not constantly afraid of being dismembered or possessed that moviegoers can generally react to such cinematic mayhem with excitement and delight, rather than abject repulsion. In this way, horror movies can offer us an escape from our most persistent, daily worries, as opposed to preying on them.
Ultimately, horror films work because, even when the blood and guts are flying, they are careful not to cut too close to the bone.
