Heklina and Peaches on the phone.

Are you finding, like so many others, that you just cannot get enough of Peaches Christ? Or are you the least bit curious about all her bizarre shows but not quite brave enough to go to those midnight movie extravaganzas? Have I got good news for you! PC has compiled three of her favorite short films, another slasher flick, and a cooking show that will not soon be on the Cooking Channel. All this is available in her smash slash DVD, The Peaches Christ Short Film Collection. For those not in the know, Peaches Christ is an underground drag phenomenon, emcee, filmmaker, and actor, with ten years of professional experience. “Midnight Mass with Your Hostess Peaches Christ” is this City’s immensely popular midnight cult movie freak-along, which is entering its ninth year of silly shock and awwww. The convoluted, complex, over-the-top pre-show live stage productions, guest celeb stars (Elvira was the latest), and drag done to filth keep dragging in the blood-freak groupies to packed houses. And of course viewers are encouraged to be participants in the madness, coming in costume and becoming one with the fierceness.

Peaches recently completed what she calls the “Tran-ilogy of Terror,” written and directed by her alter ego Joshua Grannell. Her short films—-Season of the Troll, A Nightmare On Castro Street, and Whatever Happened to Peaches Christ?—have been screened internationally and on cable TV. Grannelll’s short film, Grindhouse, is a gore comedy that will soon be a feature-length movie.

Peaches produces the wildly successful SF Underground Short Film Festival, designed to showcase outrageously talented and often-overlooked Bay Area filmmakers. Now in its fourth year, the festival has screened over 100 shorts. You may have seen “Tran-ilogy of Terror” when it debuted at the SF Frameline Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in June 2005.

Season of the Troll is a15-minute short concerning a frequent visitor to Midnight Mass who wears a troll mask and occasionally participates on stage. But Peaches’ and her pals’ light-hearted ribbings of the creature stir up something creepy inside the beast when it secretly plots revenge, slowly poisoning Peaches’ sidekick Martiny with a killer casserole. Peaches tries to save her friend by hiring a full-time nurse to get her friend back on her feet, but the nurse is not all that healing in her practice. In fact, she is completely bat-shit crazy. And the terror (and laughter) does not stop there. It seems that soon almost all of Peaches’ friends are in for a bloody encounter with the terrible troll, who will stop at nothing to complete her vendetta and bloodlust.

A Nightmare on Castro Street is a 17-minute takeoff on that nightmare on Elm Street and those long, scary fingernails of Freddy. But these are far worse. They are press-on nails that turn into weapons of death. All because Peaches thought she was doing a good deed in checking her drunken drag comrade Squeaky Blonde into a rehab center. After treatment, Squeaky seems squeaky clean and sober. All is gay on Castro Street. Everyone admires the new, sweet Squeaky. But not for long. During the night Squeaks hears the liquor bottles beckoning her back to booze-ville; and Dr. Jekyll is taken over by Mr. Hyde with just one sip of the poisonous spirits. Bad Squeaky returns to become even more evil than when she was carted off to the asylum and forced to dry up. Now no one is safe on Castro Street, especially those who had the audacity to criticize her drinking problem and hold an intervention. Or was all that just a dream? Perhaps. But then, no one was safe in Freddy’s dreams, so who can say what Squeaky’s dreams might conjure up?! Mayhem and merriment, to be sure.   

My personal fave rave, however, is Whatever Happened to Peaches Christ? It’s a 19-minute spoof on the Betty Davis/Joan Crawford classic cult hit, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? You don’t have to have seen that flick to enjoy this terrific takeoff, but I highly recommend it; because frequent references to the film (“But ya ARE, Blanch!”) are sewn into the very fabric of this third chapter of Tran-ilogy of Terror. Just like Baby Jane Hudson, Peaches has outlived her career after 40 years have passed, and she is no longer adored by her fans. It’s her former drag sidekick, Martiny, who just like Blanch Hudson, is still admired, even after a tragic accident (or was it an accident?) has crippled her and put her in a wheelchair, leaving her at the mercy of her jealous and insane, drunken girleena companion. Not even our heroine Heklina (who has aged gracefully and can still cook up a mean cheese blackout casserole) can save Martiny from Peaches’ warped personality and foul (fowl??) dinners.
Grindhouse is a 16-minute tease of a full-length gore-athon that is in production at present. The blood-drenched flicks of Deborah Tennis (played to perfection by Jennifer Taher) are totally thrilling to her fans who enjoy scary slash and gash films. Murder can be so amusing. These weekly shorts seem so realistic; but everyone knows it’s just a movie, and that’s not real blood, and those are all clever special effects, riiiiiiight? Some might say her works are TOO realistic. Some might even wonder if some of that was real. We follow the rise to fame and fortune of this cult filmmaker and movie star. We see how her gory films such as The Maiming of the Shrew and A Tale of Two Severed Titties have catapulted her career, bringing in record-breaking audiences and the praise of countless critics. However does she do it? Where does she find all those unknown actors? Who does all the clever makeup that makes us swear this guts and gore stuff is for real? Find out when you visit the Grindhouse! But first visit Peaches’ online Gift Shop at peacheschrist.com and order this fiercer than fierce DVD. It’s absolutely gore-geous!!!