Editorials
Les Ghouls: The Cockettes and the Creation of the Modern Drag Monster
Formed in 1969, The Cockettes were a San Francisco-based avant-garde theater troupe whose penchant for psychedelic satire quickly garnered them a cult following that spread far past their Bay Area surroundings. Founded by drag icon Hibiscus, the group consisted of members from across the gender spectrum, and would eventually expand to include the likes of film superstar Divine and disco legend Sylvester.
With legendary queens popping up more frequently in fright films and fabulous monsters routinely competing for a crown on one of horror’s biggest streaming platforms, there’s invariably always some grumpy naysayer who insists on asking – “What’s drag have to do with horror?”
Often presented in bad faith, this question tends to neglect that the two art forms are, in many ways, deeply linked.
Exploring the Connection Between Horror and Drag
By their most basic definitions, horror and drag are mediums that utilize a sense of heightened reality to critique, expose, and lambast the world around us. As such, drag artists have long leaned into the fantastic lens that fright provides, and there’s a rich history of the two intermingling. From legendary “male actress” Charles Pierce utilizing recreations of Bette Davis’s Baby Jane in his act to USA Up All Night hosting drag-skewed genre films, the comingling of crafts is not only time-honored, but crucial.
…and while the symbiosis between drag and horror can be traced back to a time that predates the moving picture, the modern era owes a debt to one particular troupe of performers whose gender-skewing revolution changed the face of contemporary performance forever.
Formed in 1969, The Cockettes were a San Francisco-based avant-garde theater troupe whose penchant for psychedelic satire quickly garnered them a cult following that spread far past their Bay Area surroundings. Founded by drag icon Hibiscus, the group consisted of members from across the gender spectrum, and would eventually expand to include the likes of film superstar Divine and disco legend Sylvester.
PALACE MARQUEE: Screen Shot from Les Ghouls (1971) a short film by Scott Runyon & Syd Dutton”
An Influential Group With Punk Roots
Born out of the burgeoning counter-culture scene of Haight-Asbury, The Cockettes’ work sought to critique and satirize the cultural constructs of the world around them.
“We were just kids…like The Little Rascals in drag doing Busby Berkeley on acid, out to truck our fantasies on stage for the world to see,” says Rumi Missabu, one of the founding and core members of The Cockettes.
Intentionally or not, through expressing those fantasies, The Cockettes created a movement, the tendrils of which can still be seen today in the likes of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and the celebrated stage shows of Peaches Christ.
…and while the punk rock ethos of this group would be more than enough to mark their influence on the drag monsters that would follow, The Cockettes’ own forays into fright have also left an indelible mark on queer history.
Though not all of The Cockettes’ original stage shows dabbled in the macabre, one of the most storied (thanks in large part to being preserved in the documentary The Cockettes in the Palace) is the October 1970 production of Les Ghouls.
LES GHOULS DRAWING ADVERT: Steven Arnold, The Rumi Missabu Collection
Mick Jagger and Halloween
Part of a series of shows (billed as “Nocturnal Dreams”) at the Palace Theater, Les Ghouls was an original Halloween production that encompassed dancing tombstones, a parody of 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, and a show-stopping “Mick Jagger”-fueled finale. Running from October 29th through the 31st of 1970, Les Ghouls was accompanied each night by a screening of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (itself barely two years old at this point in time) and was admittedly an ever-changing beast thanks to cast extravagance, drug-use, and more.
“To describe the Cockettes’ Halloween extravaganza Les Ghouls is to launch into a catalog of adjectives, none of which would be accurate in of itself, and all of which would only confuse,” says Rumi Missabu.
To be sure, the amorphous nature of the production has led to certain aspects of the show to pass into drag legend, with varying tidbits popping up in a multitude of places (for example, the Noe Hill website suggests that in at least one performance Sylvester played “The Queen of Mars”) and each remembrance juicier than the last.
“With Halloween weekend looming, I jumped right back in the mud puddle declaring to close the show as Mick Jagger,” Missabu says, speaking on the show’s changing aspects. “Our set list varied from night-to-night and I remember covering ‘Little Queenie,’ ‘Shake a Tail Feather,’ and ‘Honkytonk Woman.’”
Though it may seem chaotic to the outsider, it’s this frenetic energy that also gave the Cockettes their edge and helped set the mold for the generations of punk rock, off-the-cuff performers that would follow.
RUMI AS MICK: David Wise. The Rumi Missabu Collection
The Brides of Frankenstein
In her unpublished autobiography, Cockette member Tahara remembers that Les Ghouls had multiple performers playing the Bride of Frankenstein not because of an artistic choice, but simply because they all wanted to do so. While this definitely did not go off without a hitch (there was one incident where one of the “Brides,” played by Goldie Glitters, was locked in a closet and subsequently had an epileptic seizure on stage ), this freewheeling experimentation was a hallmark of The Cockettes’ oeuvre.
Perhaps more importantly, it was also a crucial aspect of the troupe’s bond with the audience.
“When the doors [would] finally open, the crush of bodies that ensued brought to mind the stampede of pushing, shoving humanity that ends Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust,” says Rumi Missabu about the audience’s fervor at Les Ghouls and other shows. “It’s an audience that has been coached in manner by their idols- The Cockettes…which means they’re straight out of Salvador Dali’s imagination or Antonin Artaud’s madness or Charles Baudelaire’s hash dreams – we were madcap chefs cooking up a storm and the ingredients were magic and tribal anarchy. No one really cared if we could sing or dance; the fact that we dared to assume as much was enough for both ourselves and our audience.”
The Cockettes’ Influence on Modern Queer Horror
By bringing the audience into their domain, the Cockettes could curate a dream or a nightmare and use either to point out the absurdity of the world outside. Their engagement with zombies, monsters, and yes, even Mick Jagger, was a critique of the establishment and a radical exultation of otherness. Much like the Bride of Frankenstein that they were celebrating (and several of them wanted to be) in Les Ghouls, The Cockettes did not ask to be brought into this world, but refused to accept what was given to them merely because it was there.
The legacy of Les Ghouls and The Cockettes continues to be seen in the modern landscape (cult impresario Peaches Christ has referenced them as an influence on her own Midnight Mass), and their radical use of heightened persona is reflected as much in horror as in drag circles (the outrageous works of Troma come to mind).
Halloween Shows Were Just the Beginning
What’s more, their storied Halloween shows were not The Cockettes’ only engagement with the dark lens of the fantastic. The troupe would also appear in the 1971 feature film Luminous Procuress, which centered around a surreal landscape that dealt with bizarre, dreamlike, and horror-infused imagery. In addition to the historical significance of the group’s participation in the film, the cult prestige of Luminous Procuress further cemented The Cockettes jubilant connection to surrealism and otherness.
Later iterations of the troupe would go-on to mount productions of The Masque of the Red Death and upon Divine’s inclusion, do a show that would see the John Waters superstar dressed up as a giant lobster.
Through balancing the strange and absurd with a sense of whimsy, the Cockettes revealed that the horrors of the outside world could be cajoled and critiqued. With glitter and wild abandon, they showed that if we were able to laugh at our fears, we may also be able to conquer them.
…and while it is true that The Cockettes may not have engaged in the gory, blood and guts imagery utilized by later horror intersecting drag artists, it cannot be denied that they laid the foundation to boldly use otherness to fight back and/or simply be.
So, what does drag have to do with horror? The easy answer would be everything, but the correct one is that it depends on how radical you’re willing to become.
When I begin crafting my reviews, I do some quick background research on the film itself, but I avoid looking at what others have to say. The last thing I want is for my views to be swayed in any way by what others think or say about a film. It has been at least 13 years since I’ve seen the English-language shot-for-shot remake of Funny Games. And I didn’t remember much about it. After watching the original 1997 masterpiece just minutes ago, I quickly ran to my computer to start writing this. Whether or not I’m breaking new ground by saying this is up in the air, and I could even be very incorrect with this: Funny Games is the perfect foil to Scream, and the irreparable damage it has caused to the slasher subgenre.
The Family at the Center of this Film
Funny Games follows the upper-class family of Anna (Susanne Lothar), George (Ulrich Mühe), son Georgie (Stefan Clapczynski), and dog Rolfi (Rolfi?), who arrive at their lake house for a few weeks of undisturbed peace. Soon after their arrival, they’re met by Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering), two white-clad yuppies who seem just a bit off. Who will survive and who will die in this game that is less funny than the title suggests?
I’ve made this statement about Scream time and time again. Before I get into it too much, let’s take a quick step back to ward off the Ryan C. Showers-like people. I love Scream (as well as 2, 5, and 6). It created a new wave of filmmakers and singlehandedly brought the slasher subgenre back from the dead like a Resident Evil zombie. Like what Tarantino did to independent crime thrillers of the 2000s and 10s, Scream has done to slashers. Post-Scream, slashers felt the need to be overtly meta and as twisty as possible, even at the film’s own demise. There is nothing wrong with a slasher film attempting to be smart. The problem arises when filmmakers who can’t pull it off think they can.
Is Funny Games Anti-Horror or Anti-Slasher?
The barebones rumblings I’ve heard about Funny Games over the years are that writer/director Michael Haneke calls it anti-horror. I would posit that Funny Games unknowingly found itself as more of an anti-slasher rather than an anti-horror. (Hell, it could be both!) Scream would release to acclaim just one year before Haneke’s incredible creation, so I can’t definitively say that Funny Games is a direct response to Scream, as much as I would like to.
Meta-ness has existed in cinema and art long before Scream came to be. Though if you had asked me when I was a freshman in high school, I would have told you Wes Craven created the idea of being meta. It just strikes me as a bit odd that two incredibly meta horror films would be released just one year apart and have such an impact on the genre. Whereas Scream uses its meta nature to make the audience do the Leonardo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood… meme, Haneke uses it as a mirror for the audience.
Scream vs. Funny Games: A Clash of Meta Intentions
Scream doesn’t ask the audience to figure out which killer is behind the mask at which points; it just assumes that you will suspend your disbelief enough to accept it. Funny Games subverts this idea by showing you the perpetrators immediately and then forcing you to sit in the same room with them, faces uncovered, for nearly the film’s entire runtime. Scream was flashy and fun, Funny Games is long and uncomfortable. Haneke forces the audience to sit with the atrocities and exist within the trauma felt by the family as they’re brutally picked off one by one.
Funny Games utilizes fourth wall breaks to wink at the audience. Haneke is, more or less, trying to make the audience feel bad for what they’re watching. Each time Paul looks at the camera, it’s almost as if he’s saying, “You wanted this.” One of the most intriguing moments in the film is when Peter gets killed and Paul says, “Where is the remote?” before grabbing it, pressing rewind, and going back moments before Anna kills Peter. This is a direct middle finger to the audience. You think you’re getting a final girl in this nasty picture? Hell no. You asked for this, so you’re getting this.
A Contemptuous Look at Slasher Tropes
Both Funny Games are the only Haneke films I’ve seen, so I can’t speak much on his oeuvre. But Funny Games almost feels contemptful about horror, slashers in particular. The direct nature of the boys and their constant presence in each scene eliminates any potential plot holes. E.g., how did Jason Voorhees get from one side of the lake to a cabin a quarter of a mile away? You just have to believe! In horror, we’ve come to accept that when you’re watching a slasher film, you MUST accept what’s given to you. Haneke proves it can be done simply and effectively.
Whether you think it’s horror or not, Funny Games is one of the greatest horror films of all time. Before the elevated horror craze that exists to inflict misery on the viewers, Haneke had “been there, done that.” When [spoiler] dies, [spoiler] and [spoiler] sit in the living room in silence for nearly two minutes in a single uncut shot. Then, in the same uncut shot, [spoiler] starts keening for another two or three minutes. Nearly every slasher film moves on after a kill. Occasionally, we’ll get a funeral service or a memorial set up at the local high school for the slain teenagers. But there’s rarely an effective reflection on the loss of life in a slasher film. Funny Games tells you that you will reflect on death because you asked for death. You bought the ticket (rented the film), so you must reap what you sow.
Why Funny Games Remains One-of-a-Kind
This piece has been overly harsh on slasher films, and that was not the intention. Behind found footage, slasher films are probably my second favorite subgenre. As someone who has watched their fair share of them, it’s easy to see the pre-Scream and post-Scream shift. But there’s this weird disconnect where slasher films had transformed from commentary on life and loss to nothing more than flashy kills where a clown saws a woman from crotch to cranium, and then refuses to pay her fairly. Funny Games is an impressive meditation on horror and horror audiences. Even the title is a poke at the absurdity of slashers. If you haven’t seen Funny Games, I highly suggest checking it out because I can promise you, you’ve never seen a horror film like it. And we probably never will again.
As a horror fan, I tend to think about remakes a lot. Not why they are made, necessarily. That answer is pretty clear: money. But something closer to “if they have to be made, how can they be made well?” It’s rare to find a remake that is generally considered to be better than the original. However, there are plenty that have been deemed to be valuable in a different way. You can find these in basically all subgenres. Sci-fi, for instance (The Thing, The Blob). Zombies (Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead). Even slashers (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, My Bloody Valentine). However, when it comes to haunted house remakes, only The Woman in Black truly stands out, and it is shockingly underrated. Even more intriguingly, it is demonstrably better than the original movie.
The Original Haunted House Movie Is Almost Always Better
Now please note, I’m specifically talking about movies with haunted houses, rather than ghost movies in general. We wouldn’t want to be bringing The Ring into this conversation. That’s not fair to anyone.
Plenty of haunted house movies are minted classics, and as such, the subgenre has gotten its fair share of remakes. These are, almost unilaterally, some of the most-panned movies in a format that attracts bad reviews like honey attracts flies.
You’ve got 2005’s The Amityville Horror (a CGI-heavy slog briefly buoyed by a shirtless, possessed Ryan Reynolds). That same year’s Dark Water (one of many inert remakes of Asian horror films to come from that era). 1999’s The House on Haunted Hill (a manic, incoherent effort that millennial nostalgia has perhaps been too kind to). That same year there was The Haunting (a manic, incoherent effort that didn’t even earn nostalgia in the first place). And 2015’s Poltergeist (Remember this movie? Don’t you wish you didn’t?). And while I could accept arguments about 2001’s THIR13EN Ghosts, it’s hard to compete with a William Castle classic.
The Problem with Haunted House Remakes
Generally, I think haunted house remakes fail so often because of remakes’ compulsive obsession with updating the material. They throw in state-of-the-art special effects, the hottest stars of the era, and big set piece action sequences. Like, did House on Haunted Hill need to open with that weird roller coaster scene? Of course it didn’t.
However, when it comes to haunted house movies, bigger does not always mean better. They tend to be at their best when they are about ordinary people experiencing heightened versions of normal domestic fears. Bumps in the night, unexplained shadows, and the like. Maybe even some glowing eyes or a floating child. That’s all fine and dandy. But once you have a giant stone lion decapitating Owen Wilson, things have perhaps gone a bit off the rails.
The One Big Exception is The Woman in Black
The one undeniable exception to the haunted house remake rule is 2012’s The Woman in Black. If we want to split hairs, it’s technically the second adaptation of the Susan Hill novel of the same name. But The Haunting was technically a Shirley Jackson re-adaptation, and that still counts as a remake, so this does too.
The novel follows a young solicitor being haunted when handling a client’s estate at the secluded Eel Marsh House. The property was first adapted into a 1989 TV movie starring Adrian Rawlings, and it was ripe for a remake. In spite of having at least one majorly eerie scene, the 1989 movie is in fact too simple and small-scale. It is too invested in the humdrum realities of country life to have much time to be scary. Plus, it boasts a small screen budget and a distinctly “British television” sense of production design. Eel Marsh basically looks like any old English house, with whitewashed walls and a bland exterior.
Therefore, the “bigger is better” mentality of horror remakes took The Woman in Black to the exact level it needed.
The Woman in Black 2012 Makes Some Great Choices
2012’s The Woman in Black deserves an enormous amount of credit for carrying the remake mantle superbly well. By following a more sedate original, it reaches the exact pitch it needs in order to craft a perfect haunted house story. Most appropriately, the design of Eel Marsh House and its environs are gloriously excessive. While they don’t stretch the bounds of reality into sheer impossibility, they completely turn the original movie on its head.
Eel Marsh is now, as it should be, a decaying, rambling pile where every corner might hide deadly secrets. It’d be scary even if there wasn’t a ghost inside it, if only because it might contain copious black mold. Then you add the marshy grounds choked in horror movie fog. And then there’s the winding, muddy road that gets lost in the tide and feels downright purgatorial. Finally, you have a proper damn setting for a haunted house movie that plumbs the wicked secrets of the wealthy.
Why The Woman in Black Remake Is an Underrated Horror Gem
While 2012’s The Woman in Black is certainly underrated as a remake, I think it is even more underrated as a haunted house movie. For one thing, it is one of the best examples of the pre-Conjuring jump-scare horror movie done right. And if you’ve read my work for any amount of time, you know how positively I feel about jump scares. The Woman in Black offers a delectable combo platter of shocks designed to keep you on your toes. For example, there are plenty of patient shots that wait for you to notice the creepy thing in the background. But there are also a number of short sharp shocks that remain tremendously effective.
That is not to say that the movie is perfect. They did slightly overstep with their “bigger is better” move to cast Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role. It was a big swing making his first post-Potter role that of a single father with a four-year-old kid. It’s a bit much to have asked 2012 audiences to swallow, though it reads slightly better so many years later.
However, despite its flaws, The Woman in Black remake is demonstrably better than the original. In nearly every conceivable way. It’s pure Hammer Films confection, as opposed to a television drama without an ounce of oomph.
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