Death Drop Gorgeous
104 Minutes, Not Rated
Written and Directed by Michael J. Ahern, Christopher Dalpe, and Brandon Perras-Sanchez.
Synopsis:
A dejected bartender and an aging drag queen fight to survive the eccentric and hostile nightlife of a corrupt city, as a masked maniac slaughters young gay men and drains them of blood.
Well, shit.
Usually, campy comedies are right in my wheelhouse.
Like, sitting Dead-Red in my wheelhouse.
And Dark Star Pictures has done me right more often than not, so I was ready for this one.
But while Death Drop Gorgeous isn’t outside the strike zone completely, it’s not a home run for me, either.
Maybe it’s because I’ve recently watched a few other films that featured serial killers and/or supernatural monsters in the entertainment industry that I enjoyed better: Too Late (stand-up comedy), The Last Laugh (also stand-up comedy), and Uncle Peckerhead (touring musicians), and found them to be more enjoyable than Death Drop Gorgeous.
Maybe it’s because everyone has seen stand-up comedy or a small band in a crappy bar, so that’s identifiable, whereas not everyone has been to a drag club?
Maybe it feels weird to watch queer cinema seemingly exploit drag/queer clichés that non-queer filmmakers would get dragged (no pun intended) for using?
Maybe that’s why?
I honestly don’t know.
I do know that DDG isn’t bad, I’m just not sure how “non-niche” it can be. Some of the comedy–and the supernatural bits–are fairly accessible to normies, but it’s overall set-up and execution is simply not going to work for some folks.
And regardless, not everything lands.
DDG feels like it wants to be a quasi-horror version of The Birdcage, but it doesn’t quite get there.
I can’t tell you not to watch it, again, as it has it’s moments, but overall, it’s just kind of hanging out there, not really anything spectacular outside its central selling point: queer indie horror film.
It’s made for that audience, and doesn’t seem interested in reaching beyond that, except, as it calls itself, as an exploitation film.
I thought we’d moved beyond that.
But if the filmmakers are okay with that, so be it.
Death Drop Gorgeous will be available on Digital from Dark Star Pictures beginning September 10.
Death Drop Gorgeous stars Wayne Gonsalves, Payton St. James, Brandon Perras-Sanchez, and Christopher Dalpe.
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