When Midnight Mass closes it’s final season this Saturday, San Francisco will be without a regular midnight movie series for the first time since the 1930s.
Host Peaches Christ is already planning her first
one off show, for October. So, the Midnight Mass brand will not die.
Yours Truly and Peaches Christ (aka director Joshua Grannell).
However, many factors have transformed the marketplace for late night public cinema.
First, the availability of DVD versions of most cult classics and the proliferation of high definition home entertainment systems has made private residences a more common venue for film than public theaters.
Midnight film theatrically is now mainly a ritual of first run fan-driven properties. Franchises like Spider-Man or Harry Potter, command millions of viewers on their opening weekends, far more than “Rocky Horror” ever drew in it’s heyday.
Further.. the necessity for creative people, specifically consenting sexual minorities, to meet in public under cover of darkness is less urgent.
From the 70s through the 90s, one could be sure, in an unfamiliar town, to find a kindred soul in a late night showing of Kenneth Anger or John Waters. Now the Internet feeds every subculture beyond it’s capacity to sustain itself. Even towns of 50 or 100 thousand people are emboldened enough to have a gay bar.
Scenes from the pre-show for “Pink Flamingos” Clockwise from upper left: Heklina gets behind an audience volunteer for a rimming demonstration. Rentecca gets peed on in her “Filthiest Person Alive” step-down number. Jade and Nikita Ramsey from “All About Evil” hear the judges evaluations after their act of throwing tampons on the audience. “Evil” cast memnbers in attendance included Thomas Dekker and Anthony Fitzgerald.
In concert with these changes, video production has opened the world of moviemaking to anyone with an organizational capacity and an executable vision. The depth of properties for the traditional midnight audience is increasing exponentially just as their ability to command grand viewing spaces on an extended basis is diminished.
It’s fitting that after so many years dedicated to a boutique cinema company (Landmark) that
Christ will be maximizing her own potential as a drag performer, a screenwriter, a director. Too often in such a flux, key personalities are sacrified to the bottom line when they ought to be brought to greater notice.
The Midnight Mass pre-shows, oftentimes as long as the films, are universally camp, streetwise affairs and often experiences in collaborative art. Behind Christ is a team of dedicated performers including Bea Dazzler, Hugz Bunny, Kegel Kater, Cousin Wonderlette, Lady Bear, Syphillis Diller, and L. Ron Hubby. If this isn’t appropriate experience for the entertainment workshop of Hollywood, I don’t know what is.
Scenes from the “Poltergeist” pre-show. Clockwise from upper left. Martiny walks past evil clown Kiddie in her effort to commune with TV people. Peaches prays with Peggy Leggs who gave the audience her best Zelda Rubenstein impersonation. An array of competitors in the “Evil Clown” competition won by Faux King Awesome and Raya LIght..
The most flattering result from 12 years of Midnight Mass would be a disaspora like that experienced after the demise of Trannyshack last year when drag nights began popping up in every neighborhood on every day of the week, sometimes two and three at a time. Would that single screen movie houses were prepped for such a revival of midnight fare or that nightlife venues were possessing of silver screens, popcorn, and ushers.
More likely is a nationwide revival of Midnighs following the release of “All About Evil” as budding filmmakers, frustrated in their ability to crack the theatrical market, collaborate in as yet unimagined ways inspired by Christ’s example.
“Elvira: Mistress of the Dark” screens this Friday and Saturday at the Bridge Theater. Tickets are available
here.