By Savannah Whaley
As a child of the ‘80s, film and stage director Erynn Dalton became fascinated by horror watching slasher films featuring Jason, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger. The iconic horror movie exclamation “It’s alive!” could easily describe her red-hot career as one award-winning film has just started streaming and another is having its world premiere.
Dalton took time out preparing for the debut of American Cryptids at Savor Cinema in the Popcorn Frights Film Festival to discuss Big Easy Queens, a film she shot locally which began streaming on Hulu this summer.
Wilton Manors stands in for the steamy, spooky underworld of New Orleans for the movie that began with Dalton meeting actor Eric Swanson aka Miss Bouvèé and screenwriter Robert Leleux.
“The first time I met Eric we were trying to figure out timeslots at the Foundry because we were both doing shows. As we were talking, I said, ‘By the way, you know, I do film as well, and he goes, ‘Oh my gosh. I have a screenplay.’ Next thing I know, we’re having dinner with Robert and they’re pitching me on Big Easy Queens.”
Only in Wilton Manors could the campy glam horror film’s plot be considered dinner table conversation. Original musical numbers, voodoo, zombies and drag queens combine for pure queer glitter and blood horror as Mob Queen of the Quarter Minnie Bouvèé reignites her rivalry with her arch-nemesis Poodles Makenzie while dealing with a creepy masked stalker and Mimi Bouvèé-Truvé, her estranged, man-stealing sister.
It would be the film debut for Swanson’s Minnie Bouvèé alter ego that has won local awards and recognition. The filmmakers wanted to cast a national drag celebrity for her sister and, in a roundabout way, they succeeded with Suzie Toot aka Benjamin Shaevitz. After the film wrapped, Suzie appeared on Season 17 of RuPaul’s Drag Race and won the Lip Sync LaLaPaRuZa Smackdown.
“Ben was a working local actor and we needed to do our first reading for the script just to hear it out loud, find our comedy moments and what’s working, what’s not working,” Dalton recalled. “We invited Ben to come read the role of Mimi, and we laughed the whole time. He was perfect.
“We had contacted a couple of celebrity drag queens for the role of Mimi and it just wasn’t working out due to timing and budget. Eric called me and said he couldn’t get Ben out of his head – he was just so funny during the reading. I agreed and said if we can let go of the idea of having a celeb, I’d love to cast Ben. As it turns out, we ended up with our drag celeb for that role once Drag Race aired!”
The film was shot in Wilton Manors in only 10 days and, amazingly, the financial backing came together almost as quickly.
“It started with Marc Martorana and Don D’Arminio, who are huge supporters of the artistic community in South Florida – they are always hosting fundraisers for local arts organizations – and they offered to host one to help us raise money for the movie,” she marveled. “They let us put on a New Orleans-themed fundraiser. There was a jazz band in their backyard, everybody dressed up and we had made posters of sketches of what the queens’ costumes would look like. We invited people from the community, gave them our pitch and raised the bulk of our budget in that one night. That’s such a rare thing to happen and it just really shows the closeness of the community that we have here.”
Full disclosure, OutClique® Publisher and Editor In Chief Dr. Steven O. Evans is one of the producers who stepped up, but he was not alone in helping get the movie made.
“Pub on the Drive was so gracious with their facility and let us shoot there at night and after closing,” Dalton recalled. “We had one scene with a huge crowd and they just let us have their crowd. We signed a million talent releases that night for anyone who wanted to be in the background. Tropics also let us film for a night at the very end of their business hours and gave us the facility overnight. We rolled out of there when it was daylight. They were long hours, but we couldn’t have made the film without The Pub and Tropics.”
Once Big Easy Queens was ready for distribution it began winning awards at film festivals including Best Feature (Queer Fear Film Festival), Best LGBTQ Feature (Orlando Independent Film Festival), Audience Award (Popcorn Frights Film Festival), Best Actor for Eric Swanson (Berlin Indie Film Festival) Best Actress for Jennifer McClain who performs Poodles Makenzie (Hong Kong Indie Film Festival) and Best Soundtrack (Venice Independent Film Festival).
“We were able to ride that Suzie Toot wave [after RuPaul’s Drag Race] and were approached by The Advocate, who was looking for LGBTQ programming for their Advocate Originals slate on Hulu,” Dalton said. “The Advocate has been a wonderful partner and helped open up some doors for distribution so people all over the U.S. can see the film. We’re now getting a lot of requests from people throughout the world asking how they can see the film as Hulu isn’t available in many countries. Our next step is finding international distribution outlets for the movie.”
Dalton’s next horror feature, American Cryptids, will soon be on the film festival circuit and is the first of a planned trilogy. There is a possible Big Easy Queens sequel in the works, as well as a period drama called Fiddler’s Green that would find Miss Bouvèé and Suzie Toot in Paris before the WWII Nazi invasion.
“We have a great script for Fiddler’s Green, so we are really focused on getting that one produced,” Dalton said. “Given the current political climate, we feel passionately that the film needs to get out into the world. We’ve been so fortunate to have Big Easy Queens find a large fan base and we want to use that platform to create something that really needs to be seen right now.”
