Horror comedy is having quite a moment on the small screen.
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comedy → have → screen
This delights Geraldine Quinn, renowned cabaret performer and self-professed horror buff, but she feels there’s something missing from today’s spooky slapstick: song and dance.
So, naturally, she created a Gen X-slasher-horror-comedy-musical.
“I’ve been teased about writing a musical since I started in cabaret 20 years ago.
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I → delight → cabaret
‘You should just write a musical because it’s so easy’,” the Green Room Award-winning performer says sarcastically.
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performer → write → musical
“I wanted to challenge myself …
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I → want → myself
And it felt like the right time.”
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it → feel → time
What resulted was Campervan: An Ozploitation Horror Musical, her own absurd take on the slasher genre which will show at this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival.
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which → result → Festival
Set in 2008, it follows a group of friends who reunite to finish an amateur slasher movie they’d begun while camping a decade earlier.
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they → Set → movie
The last time they filmed, however, one of their friends was found dismembered in the bush.
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one → film → bush
Will they be able to complete their camcorder project before more tragic souls mysteriously disappear?
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souls → complete → project
Sprinkled throughout is the all-important song and dance, including a “balls-out rock” piece about services clubs, a Sondheim-equse number about the practicalities of making a movie in the bush, a folk-indie tune about good people doing slightly evil things, and a “Donna Summer disco” ode to horror.
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song → sprinkle → horror
It’s mad, but so is Quinn’s collection of inspirations: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, American Movie, Phantom of the Paradise, the infamous low-budget Australian slasher Houseboat Horror
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collection → ’ → Paradise
It’s a mash-up of genres rarely seen live on stage.
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It → ’ → stage
But while it may give some people stylistic whiplash, it makes perfect sense to Quinn.
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it → give → Quinn
The cabaret star craved a fully original story, and you can’t really get more original (and absurd) than a slasher in which someone sings about how you can’t bring your own food into a services club (closely related to an RSL).
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you → crave → RSL
“The line between horror and comedy is quite close because it’s all dependent upon surprise and subverting expectations – both a joke and a gory kill,” Quinn says, noting other examples of funny musical horrors like Evil Dead The Musical and American Psycho: A Musical Thriller.
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Quinn → ’ → Dead
She wanted to capture the “auteur” period of the ’90s, when amateur filmmakers would take wild risks with crappy camcorders, while simultaneously pointing to the “rosy-eyed” nostalgia with which people oftentimes reflect on that era.
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people → want → era
As the show’s tagline goes: “Nostalgia is a killer.”
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Nostalgia → go → ?
But most importantly, she wanted to represent the diversity of those from lower socio-economic outer-suburban areas, and the way many of them unite through a shared love of something.
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many → want → something
“It developed from the stuff we used to do when we were kids around Noble Park and Dandenong.
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we → develop → Park
We’d drive up to Ferntree Gully and hang around the old haunted house.
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We → drive → house
We’d talk about music and films.
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We → talk → music
We didn’t fit into any clique,” Quinn says.
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Quinn → fit → clique
Granted, bringing a singalong horror to life on stage comes with practical limitations.
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bringing → grant → limitations
Quinn couldn’t splatter the audience with blood and guts – most theatres don’t have a “splash zone”, after all.
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theatres → splatter → zone
However, working on a Fringe production meant being able to lean into the limitations, subsequently discovering an entire avenue of creative possibilities.
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working → work → possibilities
For example, Campervan contains no blood whatsoever.
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Campervan → contain → blood
Instead, they rely on “very gory flesh-crunching sound effects” and a data projector to show each death from the killer’s perspective – as if the audience is watching the murders through a ’90s camcorder.
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audience → rely → camcorder
Casey Bennetto (Keating!), the writer and musician behind Campervan’s musical dramaturgy, says it’s usually because of these practical restrictions that we see more slasher comedy on screen rather than stage.
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we → say → stage
However, he believes productions like Quinn’s heighten the stakes more than a movie, given its exploration of character.
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productions → believe → character
“Some of those films are determined to not have characters open up too much because they want to be able to kill them.
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they → determine → them
But the musical asks you to lean into a character and their destiny, which can heighten both the peril and comedy,” Bennetto says.
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Bennetto → ask → peril
Campervan luxuriates in the juxtaposition between the “happy endings” of musicals and the death galore of slashers, he says.
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he → luxuriate → slashers
“You get the joy of upending convention, but then also sometimes dovetailing into it.”
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You → get → it
He hopes those who see Campervan rethink the limits of the musical genre, leaving the theatre thinking, “if they can do that, why can’t we do this?”
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we → hop → this
They’ll also hopefully walk away with a better grasp of how they themselves could survive a musical slasher.
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they → walk → slasher
According to Quinn, the golden rule is to write the story yourself, and ensure your character is the surviving “bookend” narrator.
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character → accord → story
She would know – that’s precisely what she did for herself.
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she → know → herself
Campervan: An Ozploitation Horror Musical is showing at Trades Hall as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival from October 7 to 11.
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Campervan → show → 11
Get it delivered every Friday.
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it → get → ?
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