Severin Films, with sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has locked into Aug. 30 as the street date for a newly-minted Blu-ray edition of Peaches Christ’s (aka: Joshua Grannell) 2010 horror delight, All About Evil.
The film screams arthouse. The film is camp. And more importantly, All About Evil is everything a genre fan could hope for. And now it will be available on Blu-ray (after a long-out-of-print, self-distributed DVD edition was launched back on Nov. 30, 2010).
The film had an audience preview in May of 2010 (that “experience” is included here as a featurette titled “Evil Live: The Peaches Christ Experience In 4D”), it then proceeded to a couple of film festival screenings, finally had a limited theatrical break in July of 2010 (self-distributed) and the arrived in the DVD marketplace on Nov. 30. And then gone, baby gone.
When you have a film, like All About Evil, that is — despite its limited budget — this entertaining, the word “cult” naturally gets associated with it over the years. Resurrected by Severin Films, if you have missed out on the fun, then now is the time to partake!!
The film opens with a prologue, which sets the tone for the rest of the film. Water Tennis operates the Victoria Theatre, one of those classic stand-alone picture palaces and he loves to put on little performances before the main feature, in this case a retro screening of The Wizard of Oz.
His daughter, Debbie, is to do a little skit, but has a case of stage fright and, well, wets herself, an event that will stick with her for years to come. It doesn’t help that her stepmother, played by Julie Caitlin Brown (as Vekor in the Star Trek: The Next Generation double-episode titled “Gambit, Part 1” and “Gambit, Part 2”), is the Wicked Witch and berates the poor little Dorothy.
Skip ahead to modern times and poor old dad has kicked the bucket, the theatre has fallen on hard times and Debbie’s (played as an adult by Natasha Lyonne — as Jessica in the American Pie films, Slums of Beverly Hills, Blade: Trinity, Hello, My Name Is Doris … as Nicky in Orange is the New Black and as Nadia Vulvokov in Russian Dolls) mean stepmother wants to sell the place to developers. Things get heated and Debbie snaps, rams a pencil into her tormentor’s brain and then beats the dying woman to a pulp … all of this is caught on the theatre’s security camera.
The show must go on. Debbie, who is a librarian during the day, but still with a love for the old movie theatre, has a limited (paltry) audience for tonight’s showing and, in a panic, inadvertently puts the slaughter of her step mom on the big screen. The audience, hardcore genre fans, think it is an experimental short film and go nuts!!
Whoa, our little homicidal maniac may have found her calling. With the help of two lunatic twin “usherettes,” Vera and Veda (played by twins Jade and Nikita Ramsey … both have had roles in the new Star Trek: Picard series), Mr. Twigs, the projectionist (played veteran character actor Jack Donner … as Tal in the original Star Trek) and lay about Adrian (Noah Segan — Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi), Debbie goes into production.
New kills, new short “films” and the audience builds … the theatre is saved. But wait, one of the genre nerds, Steven (Thomas Dekker — Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, From Within, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc.), begins to suspect that these delightful films might be all too real!!
In one of those brilliant casting moves, Cassandra Peterson (Eliva, The Mistress of Darkness herself), plays Steven’s mom!!
Bonus delights include commentary with Peaches Christ, who is joined by cast members Thomas Dekker, Ashley Fink, Jade and Nikita Ramsey, there is also a roundtable discussion, the short film titled Grindhouse, a bonus CD and a trio of featurettes — “Star Quality: The Making of All About Evil,” “Children of the Popcorn” and “Behind the Evil.”
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