L to R: Raya Light signs her afterlife away on Faux King Awesome's back. Hugz Bunny finds it's easier to smile at work when you have a big hole in your cheek.

The Bridge Theater obliged everyone to sign liability forms at last Saturday's screening of Evil Dead 2. In the cue to enter the theater, many attendees appeared pre-injured, blood dripping from their faces, skin torn off.

If there were an accident during the execution of the pre-screening roller derby, who would be able to tell?

Peaches Christ sang the original song, "Let's Get Undead," by Ric Ray to start the festivities. Kegel Kater, L Ron Hubby, Cousin Wonderlette, and Ray performed an accompanying dance wherein Lady Bear was devoured in their collective zombie hunger. In the final bars of the song, she disappeared in a flight of glittering red fabric scraps shot out from the hands of the four dancers.


Peaches Christ with zombie cheerleaders and Bridge employees about the release balls into the audience.

The highlight of the evening, billed bigger than the Evil Dead 2 title, was Zombie Drag Queen Roller Derby. Three teams - The Spawn of Skatin', The Booty Callers, and The Zombie-Sluts of Roller-Town - competed.

The first round was a fairly innocent race. Every member of the team ran one length of the theater and then tagged her teammate. An official time was kept. In this the Booty Callers were far and away fastest by nearly four seconds over the runner-up team.

For the second round, two large balls were released. The audience attempted to keep the balls away from the skaters. Each captured ball was worth a point. The Booty Callers and Spawn of Skatin' each won a point in this round.


above: members of the Booty Callers and Spawn of Skatin'.

Christ gave the final round a long preface. In an early interation of the "Wig Snatching Round," Squeaky Blonde had her scalp nearly pulled off (she'd glued her wig down) hence the liability forms.

Skaters raced in an effort to reassemble their teams, wig intact, on the other side of the theater. Underneath the projection booth, the three teams piled up in a frenzy of kneepads. Knees, skates, wrenched shoulders and naked heads were all anyone could see, until time was called and the conquests were counted.

Though the Zombie-Sluts of Roller-Town made a strong pitch to catch up, the dominance of The Booty Callers won the day.


L to R: Anjie Myma rolls to the opposite side of the theater wig intact. The Booty Callers fight for a hairy prize in the third round of the roller derby.

Midnight Mass last presented Evil Dead 2 in 2001, though Christ brought star Bruce Campbell to town as recently as December for a special screening of "My Name Is Bruce," a parodic kiss off to his B-movie career.

Director Sam Rami (of Spiderman fame) may be credited with innovating the time-lapse dolly and rack-focus shots that have become horror staples. Campbell, however, is the loveable subject of our interest with a chin two sizes too long at his most slapstick entertaining in Evil Dead 2.

Campbell never stops fighting for his life though the difference between the living and the dead is never apparent in this series.

The Dead seem to be "evil" simply because they would make the living "dead." The Dead don't desire to live, they do live. Not only are they animate, they possess super powers and commit unprosecutable acts of bad behavior. Who wouldn't want to be dead? What's more, they aren't elitists. They want the living to join them!

The contrast between the living and the dead indicates only dissatisfaction with any kind of consent-negating activity. The living don't consent to be dead. The Dead are disrespectful.Accidents, bad luck, disasters, and aggressive behavior are the villains of these films. A tremendous psychological frame for the rubber joints and desperate laughter of Campbell.


L to R: Kegel Kater puckers up. L Ron Hubby drinks his reanimation fluid.

Throughout the film, many gay men in attendance vocally expressed their adoration of Campbell. There aren't many straight men who make for healthy gay icons, but Campbell can be said to be one.

His vaudevillian expressions mix with an endless, resilliant vulnerability. His acceptance of this suffocation over time as both a weapon and an identity prefigures the post-911 New Depression queer. "Where do we go from here," is a question of what adventure will next catapult us through time and space or else leave us bloody and laughing on a dark night in a room alone.

This Friday and Saturday, Midnight Mass screens "Showgirls." Tickets can be secured here.