190. Party Monster with special guest Jesse Krempel - a podcast by Scott and Pete

"Well, congratulations on getting out of the very dangerous world of haberdashery!" It's a Disco Bloodbath on the pod this week as we double featured both Party Monster movies with our friend Jesse Krempel host of the podcast Cult Cinema Circle. The documentary, or shall we say "Shockumentary" from 1998, and the 2003 film starring Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green, Chloë  Sevigny, Wilmer Valderrama, and Dylan McDermott. Michael Alig's saga of the murder in clubland always fascinated us as young gays, and spoiler alert, at least one of the two entries holds up in its revisit. Long before World of Wonder took over the queer landscape with RuPaul's Drag Race, they made a documentary that looked at the events surrounding the murder of Andre "Angel" Melendez by club promoter and all around sh*t head Micahel Alig, with the help of Robert "Freeze" Riggs that landed them both in prison for 15 years. Former child actor superstar Mac Culkin came out of his 9 year retirement to play Alig in the 2003 indie dramatization of the events. With Seth Green playing the larger than life "celebutante" James St. James, Party Monster felt like event-queer-cinema in the early '00s when represention of gay characters in film was scarse. We reflect on how suprisingly poor the 2003 theatrical version revisits. The casting of Mac and Seth (two cis hetro men) aside, did we just overlook all its flaws when first watching because we were excited for this story being told in a major movie? Topics discussed include the colorful characters chronicled in the Shockumentary, the club kids taking over '90s daytime TV, and did 2000s indie darling Chloë  Sevigny have better things she could have been doing than this thankless role? For better or for worse both Party Monsters are a unique snapshot of the club kid era of time gone by. 

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