By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Starring Lauren Kitchen, Brooklyn Woods and Martini Bear
Written and directed by Brooke H. Cellars
Warped Witch Cinema
If you have ever yearned to see a John Waters movie that is more menstrual, you’re in luck! Brooke H. Cellars’ feature debut THE CRAMPS: A PERIOD PIECE serves camp, uterine lining and visceral monsters without apology.
Starting with a fantasy ballet-sequence homage to Powell and Pressberger’s THE RED SHOES, the movie (which won the Best Debut Feature award at this month’s Boston Underground Film Festival) wastes no time in establishing its fluency in cinematic history, and its intent to forcefully co-opt it for its own use. The dreaming dancer is Agnes (Lauren Kitchen), a young woman with beautifully wild red hair who lives with her strict mother (Brooklyn Woods) and sister Liberty (Harlie Madison). Aptly, the other women in the house are always shown with their hair up in buns as tight as their countenances. These “traditional” women sit around in their pearls, judging Agnes for her wild ways. To them, getting a job as a shampoo girl at a local salon is far too uncouth for a proper young lady. Well, Agnes is anything but a tightly woven woman, and she takes that gig.
The characters at the salon are truly among the best facets of THE CRAMPS. There is Laverne (Martini Bear), the bearded queen matriarch who does not mince words, Holiday (Michelle Malentina), who is actually a terrible stylist, and Teddy (Wicken Taylor), the pink-haired satanist with a heart of gold. Like any girl gang worth its weight in styling gel, these three band together to support Agnes in ways her family never even tried.
While each of these ladies embraces the proper tone and humor, Teddy’s asides about Satan and blessings of darkness are perpetually charming and hilarious. She is bubbly and kind, with an ever-present upside-down pink cross proudly displayed on her necklace. The contrast between expectations for her performance as hyperfeminine with the dark lord never wears out its welcome, and makes her one of the sweeter characters of the bunch.
While Agnes’ life at the salon is quite typical, with cute boys, hair-washing and terrible period cramps, what is not common is the fact that those menstrual pains suddenly start becoming autonomous, detached monsters that lurch from her uterus and cause havoc to those around who have wronged her. The creature design is a bloody, viscous blob, but Tribble-sized and mobile. Cowards who are disgusted by the mere concept of menstrual blood will find this creature frightening, but for the adults in the room, this little fella is a vehicle for pure camp.
And camp it is. The humor, the costume and set design, even the monster attacks are all out of the 1960s and the worlds of Waters and Gregg Araki. Though the performances could be accused of being wooden and the editing lacks zippiness, both read like stylistic choices made by Cellars to adhere to a specific look and feel. There is clear intention and consistency here, and that is no easy feat.
THE CRAMPS: A PERIOD PIECE might not leave the audience in terror, but it will leave them laughing. As it makes its way across the fest circuit, this modern menstrual monster movie is a little treat to gift yourself with after a long day of fighting the patriarchy.
