GIRL TRASH: CELEBRATING THE GODDESSES OF EXPLOITATION CINEMA
Please join Token Homo and Zodiac Film Club in welcoming our precious new baby to the world: It’s a GIRL! And she’s pure TRASH.
Our season opens with MURDERCISE (2023) – a film that stuffs the spirit of GIRL TRASH into a pair of spandex leggings and cartwheels screaming “LOOK AT MY TITS”.
When fitness enthusiast Phoebe gets her big break in an aerobics video, she’s disappointed to discover that the directing is deeply sleazy, her co-stars are all ‘strippers, perverts and communists’, and no-one is showing her the respect she deserves. Meanwhile, a pair of serial killers are stalking the local area, disguised as police officers. Can Phoebe find her way to the top billing in the deadliest home workout video ever made?
MURDERCISE is co-directed by Angelica De Alba and Paul Ragsdale, whose partnership follows in the footsteps of filmmaking couples like Debra Hill and John Carpenter, Russ and Eve Meyer or trash legends Roberta and Michael Findlay. With their own production company, A&P Productions, De Alba Ragsdale are building a growing fanbase who are only happy to step in and crowdfund their camp, fun horror films, helped along with a scene of utterly fabulous regular collaborators that, frankly, we want to infiltrate.
Starring as MURDERCISE’s unlikely lead, Phoebe, Kansas Bowling is the first of our GIRL TRASH GODDESSES. A young legend of California’s indie film scene, her self-proclaimed cinematic influences include the Monkees’ movie and TV series. Bowling wrote her first film, the prehistoric serial killer slasher B.C. BUTCHER (2016), at just 15 years old, then went on, not just to direct it at 17, but to get cult California celeb Kato Kaelin to be in it… for free! The part that put her on the mainstream map was a Manson Girl in Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (2019), but she’s acted in nearly 40 films, almost all of them low-budget genre flicks lovingly put together by plucky Hollywood outsiders. Her advice to anyone who wants to make a movie? ‘Don’t sit around thinking about it. Just do it, because it’ll be worth it.’
An all-around inspiring watch to kick off our GIRL TRASH season.
/// GIRL TRASH celebrates the women, non-binary and gender non-conforming filmmakers of trash and exploitation cinema, hosted by Zodiac Film Club and Token Homo. All films are served with introductions, intermissions, prize giveaways, and subtitles / captions where possible. Tickets from £3.50 + fees. Adults 18+ only. Follow @zodiacfilmclub and @tokenhomo on Instagram for info and updates. Please contact the venue for access information. ///
Programme supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery. www.filmlondon.org.uk/film-hub-london
