After 25 years, a far-out queer cult classic by Charles Busch is getting the Criterion treatment this month.
The Psycho Beach Party creator and star recently reacted to the 2000 beach party parody joining the Criterion Channel this month in honor of its 25th anniversary, reflecting on the “kind of wild” journey from its 1987 off-Broadway origins.
“It’s funny, it started off as a spoof of beach party movies, and the more I worked on it, I thought there was a little more to it,” he told IndieWire. “That maybe it is a little bit personal about how, when you’re young, and you don’t quite know who you are, and you feel like you’re a different person with your parents, your friends, at your school, it’s a bit of a metaphor for that.”
Busch added, “I believe the Criterion Collection has taken on the movie. I was just looking through their catalogue and, my god, to think of it… [to be] in the same collection as the greatest films by Fellini and Kurosawa and Truffaut. It’s kind of wild. These movies can kind of disappear, and I’m hoping this will lead to Criterion taking on my follow-up picture, Die, Mommie, Die!, which I’m very proud of.”
Originally titled Gidget Goes Psychotic, before it was changed due to copyright reasons, Charles originated the lead role of 16-year old Chicklet in the play when it first debuted.
Lauren Ambrose, Amy Adams and Danni Wheeler in ‘Psycho Beach Party’ (2000)
Busch then wrote and appeared as Captain Monica Stark in the 2000 feature adaptation, which starred Lauren Ambrose as Chicklet Forrest, a tomboy struggling to fit in with a ’60s Malibu surfer crowd. Meanwhile, her split personality begins popping up as a serial killer picks off her friends.
In February, Ambrose reflected on the film’s 25th anniversary and working with “the amazing Charles Busch” on Psycho Beach Party.
“That’s a film that came from Charles’ one-man show in a walkup theater in New York that he did like every weekend for years and years, and played all the characters,” Ambrose told Deadline. “And then I got to play a version of Charles Busch in the film when I was a kid, and it was an amazing time.”
The film also starred Thomas Gibson, Kimberley Davies, Matt Keeslar, Nicholas Brendon, Beth Broderick, Amy Adams, Kathleen Robertson and more.
In addition to joining the Criterion Collection, Psycho Beach Party‘s original producer and distributor Strand Releasing is planning a physical re-release in the near future.
