Mass mayhem
Peaches Christ rocks twelve o'clock with "Midnight Mass."

By Johnny Ray Huston

SHE'S SPENT DAYS , weeks, even months preparing for this moment. Now, finally, she's about to make her grand entrance. The music is blaring. The Vegas showgirls and showboys are undressed and in place onstage. As a neon volcano begins to rumble and erupt, she emerges from the smoke. A vision. A goddess.

No, I'm not talking about Nomi Malone. I'm talking about Peaches Christ on the opening night of this summer's season of "Midnight Mass." Paul Verhoeven's gaudy vision of the American sex-cesspool paled in comparison to the pre-Showgirls show Peaches had in store, a melee that included free lap dances for everyone who bought a large popcorn. The fun began the second I got out of my car, when I stepped into the path of "Midnight Mass" regular Pippi Lovestocking, who was handing out free cans of Budweiser to people waiting in line. "You're going to need to get drunk to watch this piece of shit," she said, punctuating her advice with an acidic cackle.

For the past five years, "Midnight Mass" has revived the spirit of the midnight movie. Audience members receive informative and funny movie-related "Church Bulletins" as they enter the Bridge Theater, where Peaches (a.k.a. Joshua Grannell) – along with her soft-spoken sidekick Martiny (a.k.a. Michael Brenchley) – presides over the mayhem with deadpan wit. "'Midnight Mass' has turned into what it is: a rowdy, raucous party that is drag- and camp-focused and inclusive of everyone," Peaches says. "We attract everyone from little teenagers to senior citizens." Later this year, the whole family can go camping at Peaches' second annual Russian River Massacre, scheduled for the weekend before Halloween.

Bay Guardian: What favorite movies have you not been able to show at "Midnight Mass"?

Peaches Christ: I've always wanted to do Heathers but there are problems attached to legal rights. Frankenhooker we may do someday. Re-Animator. My real passion is horror, including classics like Nightmare on Elm Street. At this point, the series features movies I love, but it's different from the thrill that I'd have showing something like The Corpse Grinders. I like showing [Dario] Argento, or Doris Wishman or Ted V. Mikels, but those movies aren't as well attended.

BG: In terms of combining midnight movies and drag, what you're doing is also linked to the Cockettes' early-'70s performances. Did you see the documentary?

PC: One of the things that has been most meaningful for us was seeing The Cockettes. Martiny and I have been partners in crime since we were 18. We met and became friends our first week of college at Penn State and survived the middle of Pennsylvania together. We pooled our resources and brought John Waters to the university for a lecture; we borrowed a friend's car to pick him up from the airport, and I was really just so nervous. But it was the most amazing experience.

He talked about the Cockettes; we told him that we were thinking of moving to San Francisco, and he was into it – the night before we moved here he took us out for drinks in Baltimore. I started working for Landmark about a week later, so the wheels were immediately in motion. I managed a theater in Belmont and commuted. The precursor to "Midnight Mass" – this is kind of sick – was a kiddy Sunday matinee series that I ran. That's where I learned about booking and programming. And the funny thing about that kiddy matinee series was that mostly people my age went to it. I did Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The NeverEnding Story, Charlotte's Web, The Dark Crystal.

BG: "Midnight Mass" at the Bridge began in 1998 with a Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! screening. Do you remember that night?

PC: Yes, I remember them all. We have so many wasted memories. There was a Tura Satana look-alike contest. I didn't know what the hell I was doing; I was unsure of myself as a hostess. People in San Francisco hadn't heard of me. The audience was pouring in, and I didn't know anybody. Some friends were there, but there were over 300 people – it was a sellout crowd. I was petrified. I remember I had a dress made, which I never do. I had someone do my wig for me.

BG: You went the diva route.

PC: I thought that was the way you should do it, and of course none of that matters. A friend helped me judge the Tura Satana contest because she works that look in her daywear, and she froze up on stage. But out of nowhere, Putanesca showed up. At the time I didn't really know her – she's one of my closest friends now. She'd never seen Faster, Pussycat!, but she'd come from another drag event and just happened to be wearing a long black wig. I told her to do some karate chops. She came out doing a cartwheel and karate-chopped someone and totally won the contest. I'm forever grateful that she showed up.

BG: Some "Midnight Mass" events have become annual, such as the mother-daughter mud-wrestling contest.

PC: The drag queen roller derby and the mother-daughter mud wrestling can't help but be different each year. This year we have a Chastity and Cher coming for the mother-daughter wrestling. My favorite mother-daughter mud wrestling ever was [Trannyshack host] Heklina and Pippi. Just to see those two go at it – you really wondered how much of it was performance.

BG: Do you have drag idols?

PC: I suppose my idols are less drag-centered. B-movie queens like Tura Satana, horror queens like Linnea Quigley. Mink Stole, just for the way she talks. Divine was probably the one drag queen I really looked up to – not so much as a drag queen but as an actress and a freak.

My drag character was born in a movie, my senior thesis film Jizzmopper: A Love Story. I would never consider myself a female illusionist. I'm more like a clown or a boy in a wig dressing up for fun. I appreciate all forms of drag. I love the Imperial Court. Maybe I fall more into a punk school, but I totally can go down to Harvey's and watch a drag show and love it. I think it takes just as much nerve to go up there and lip-synch flawlessly to a Mariah Carey number.

BG: Your recent film Season of the Troll just played a festival in Philadelphia. What's it about?

PC: The movie showcases Jennifer Taher, who plays the Troll Girl character from "Midnight Mass." Part of the running story line with Troll Girl is that I can't stand her and I feel like she's stealing my stage time. She's disgusting and awful and bratty – the audience loves her.

[In Season of the Troll] I hire a nurse to take care of Martiny. The nurse is Troll Girl in disguise. At work, I discover pictures of me with "Pigfucker" written on them; a poster for The Big Doll House has been changed to The Big Troll House. I'm freaking out, thinking, "Who could be so mean?" I run home to find Martiny dead on the bed, and I catch the nurse wearing one of my wigs – she's in front of a mirror saying, "I have my own midnight movie series. It's fierce, Mary." I burst through the door, and she reveals herself as the troll.

Then the movie changes from Mommie Dearest into a tribute to Halloween. I do a Jamie Lee Curtis: I go back to the theater and the staff are all dead with tombstones over their heads; one's stuffed into the popcorn popper. Troll Girl wears the Michael Myers coveralls, carrying a butcher knife. I hide in a closet at one point. At another, she stabs me in the tit and there's this close-up of birdseed pouring out.

BG: Last year you put on the Russian River Massacre, a weekend in Guerneville that included the slasher movie Sleepaway Camp. What did you love about it?

PC: Sleepaway Camp is so joyously homophobic and transphobic that it's too much fun and hilarious – I would challenge even the most Republican or conservative gay person to not laugh at that movie. So many people [at Russian River Massacre] hadn't seen it and were stunned by the ending.

It didn't occur to me until I scoped things out what kind of crowd we would attempt to move from San Francisco to Guerneville. The "Midnight Mass" crowd aren't exactly camping and hiking types. But those kind of out-of-town trips strip away ego. It was neat to be able to do a show and then hang out with people poolside.

Ironically, after doing the event, I was doing online searches and found out that the girl who played Angela the murderous teen tranny [Felissa Rose] just appeared with the [writer-]director [Robert Hiltzik] at a convention –

BG: Yeah, they had a Sleepaway Camp reunion!

PC: Someday I'd like to contact the director and the girl who played Angela. I would love to bring them here and ask, "What were you thinking?"

'Midnight Mass': 'Night of a Thousand (Butt) Pirates': The Goonies plays Sat/3, midnight, featuring special guest Troll Girl, Bridge Theater, 3010 Geary, S.F. $8, (415) 751-3213. Go to www.peacheschrist.com for more info.