Psycho Beach Party is delicious.
Originally a 1987 stage play by Charles Busch, a drag performer and PBP screenwriter, Psycho Beach Party is the quintessentially queer horror comedy satire and parody of the early-2000s, and we don’t talk about it enough. This could be due to the popularity of another horror comedy parody of the same year: Scary Movie (2000). However, while Scary Movie has queer characters, they are marred by extremely pervasive stereotypes that have persisted in film, especially horror, for decades. Psycho Beach Party, on the other hand, has more to offer horror queers than Scary Movie. It was created by a queer individual and satirizes 1950s/1960s conservatism and family values. This campy summer flick that draws from films like Psycho (1960) and Surf Party (1964) deserves more recognition for its creativity and proud queerness.
Central to Psycho Beach Party is camp. Much like Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), Jawbreaker (1999), and …But I’m a Cheerleader (1999), this film has a sinister sparkle that makes it a delightful, nostalgic summer watch for millennials and Gen-Z Y2K-enthusiasts. It flirts with traditionally queer subversive subtext while making itself accessible to new viewers who love the early-aughts style as well as love the familiar faces of several actors. Psycho Beach Party falls into the subgenre of horror-comedy spoof, parody, and/or satire. Ask anyone about early-00s horror comedies, and the Scary Movie franchise would be frequently mentioned. Bridging the gap between the first horror spoof comedies Saturday the 14th (1981) and Student Bodies (1981), Scary Movie found its audience in horror and the mainstream, thanks to the wildly-popular Wayans Brothers.
There is not much satire to be found in Scary Movie, unlike Psycho Beach Party. Scary Movie suffers from an overuse of harmful queer stereotypes, while Psycho Beach Party uses queer characters and themes to analyze 1950/1960s-era misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. Scary Movie digs itself into society’s deep-rooted history of homophobia and transphobia while presenting audiences with a fun mashup of horror’s most beloved films. As a result of its popularity, the franchise would continue to perpetuate negative queer stereotypes in popular culture, further entrenching them in pop culture discourse. A prominent example is Ms. Mann, the girls’ gym coach in the franchise’s first installment. Ms. Mann, in a matter of just a few minutes of screentime, divulges to protagonist Cindy that she essentially transitioned (MTF) to gain an athletic edge (a dangerous myth within past and current right-wing circles), then proceeds to sexually harass Cindy. Scary Movie writers had the nerve to slip in just one more harmful myth perpetuated in Hollywood films for decades: Ms. Mann has a Nazi S.S. uniform hanging behind her desk.
Psycho Beach Party, thanks to screenwriter and creator Charles Busch, does not take the film in such a toxic direction. PBP feels targeted at queers with an appreciation for the horror genre and camp sensibilities, and there is a certain tenderness in how it treats its queer characters. Unlike Scary Movie’s predatory gays, the queers of PBP are not malicious, nor do they fall into the cliche of getting knocked off by the end of the film. PBP reclaims tired horror queer stereotypes from films such as Psycho while introducing new possibilities for the genre, including having a drag queen be a police captain in a 1960s beach town (the John Waters-Divine connection is not lost on me). There is even a queer history callback to Christine Jorgensen, one of the first transgender public figures, having surgically transitioned with the help of a doctor in Denmark in 1952, receiving worldwide media attention.
Now, let’s grab our surfboards and drop into this wacky, campy, and totally nectar 2000s flick!
Psycho Beach Party is a classic who-done-it. Teenage Florence Forrest (Lauren Ambrose), desperately seeks the approval of the cool surfers down by the beach, particularly the popular Starcat (Nicholas Brendon) and Kanaka (Thomas Gibson), a mythic beach fixture that hangs out with high schoolers and surfs massive waves via green screen. Florence, dubbed Chicklet by her new surfer chums, exhibits symptoms of multiple personalities just around the time murders begin in her town. Chicklet; her bookish, horror-obsessed best friend Berdine; her new flirtatious acquaintance Marvel Ann (played by the wonderful Amy Adams, giving us another fabulous iteration of her horny cheerleader character from Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)); her ragtag team of surfer bros; her secretive mother; and an aging B-horror movie star are all under the surveillance of Police Captain Monica Stark.
Meet the cast and Capt. Stark’s prime suspects:
Character: Florence “Chicklet” Forrest
Played by: Lauren Ambrose (Can’t Hardly Wait, Yellowjackets)
Surf Status: Total grommet.
Red Flags: the classic horror film affliction of multiple personality disorder.
Character: Captain Monica Stark
Played By: Charles Busch (Addams Family Values, Die, Mommie, Die!)
Town Gossip: She has a past with the legendary Kanaka!
Red Flags: A cop.
Character: Marvel Ann
Played By: Amy Adams (Drop Dead Gorgeous, Enchanted, Sharp Objects)
Surf Status: None, groupie
Red Flags: Too horny
Character: Berdine
Played By: Danni Wheeler (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch)
Town Gossip: she reads far too into cheesy horror films for feminist and queer subtext…
Rainbow Flag: yes.
Character: Starcat
Played By: Nicholas Brendan (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer)
Surf Status: the insufferable Leader
Red Flags: a big-headed psychology major who knows way too much…
Characters: Yo-Yo & Provoloney
Played By: Nick Cornish (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek) & Andrew Levitas (writer and producer)
Surf Status: two bros who love waves and chicks and oily beach wrestling
Rainbow Flags: yes.
Character: Kanaka
Played By: Thomas Gibson (Dharma & Greg, Criminal Minds)
Surf Status: A GOD.
Red Flags: exclusively hangs out with high schoolers.
Character: Rhonda
Played By: Kathleen Robertson (Beverly Hills 90210, Scary Movie 2)
Town Gossip: None, starts it all.
Red Flags: definitely uses antigay slurs.
Character: Ruth Forrest
Played By: Beth Broderick (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Sharp Objects)
Town Gossip: lover of the Armed Forces…
Red Flags: questionable parenting choices.
Character: Lars
Played By: Matt Keeslar (Waiting for Guffman, Scream 3)
Town Gossip: None, beloved quiet foreign exchange student.
Red Flags: a foreign exchange student in a horror movie.