Our 12th sensational season of BAR TRASH was a DOUBLE FEATURE!, with two separate programmes screening across our venues.
SATANIC PANIC! on Sundays at Finsbury Park Picturehouse and Beer Merchants Tap, served spine-tingling tales of witch hunts, scapegoats and pop-culture hysteria from the 1970s and ’80s, when the world lost its mind and blamed Satan for our sins… Then, in a cinematic hookup for the ages, I collaborated with the amazing Zodiac Film Club to present GIRL TRASH! at Genesis Cinema every Wednesday, a sensational celebration of the femme filmmakers of trash and exploitation cinema!!!
Whether as actors, writers or directors, women in film who embrace the salacious are rarely taken seriously. But not here! With each film we’ve curated, we celebrate a filmmaker (or several) whose career embraced schlock, splatter and cheap thrills aplenty. Our GIRL TRASH GODDESSES neither asked for permission nor wanted forgiveness.
Forget the glass ceiling. Ours is mirrored – and splattered with blood!
#194: Opening Night: MURDERCISE dir Angelica De Alba & Paul Ragsdale (2023/USA)
Genesis Cinema 21 JAN 2026 [full event info]
MURDERCISE (2023) is a film that stuffs the spirit of GIRL TRASH into a pair of spandex leggings and cartwheels screaming “LOOK AT MY TITS”.
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.
#196: CLEOPATRA JONES dir Jack Starrett (1973/USA)
Genesis Cinema 28 JAN 2026 [full event info]
Our second film is the best dressed in our programme and features not ONE, but TWO GIRL TRASH GODDESSES, Tamara Dobson and Shelley Winters. Model CLEOPATRA JONES (Tamara Dobson) knows martial arts, drives a ’73 Corvette Stingray and is a secret undercover agent. Driven to stem the flow of heroin into her drug ravaged community, she fights the war on drugs in platform heels and a fur coat. When she orders the torching of a Turkish poppy field, the infamous drug lord ‘Mommy’ (Shelley Winters) and her gang of minions set their sights on revenge.
#198: SAVAGE STREETS dirs Danny Steinmann & Tom DeSimone (1984/USA)
Genesis Cinema 04 FEB 2026 [full event info]
SAVAGE STREETS is that most powerful of molotov cocktails, an iconic screen star giving her all in material that feels like a distillation of everything that ‘80s exploitation cinema threw at the screen (for better and worse). Of course, a ‘rape revenge’ film from a director with previous work for the Playboy channel would hardly seem the most promising credentials. But despite its issues, we’d risk walking down those savage streets any day if it meant we could hang out with the girl gang at the heart of the story. Co-written by LA video art pioneer Norman Yonemoto, it is of course possible that SAVAGE STREETS might just be more than its big-hair looks.
Brenda (Linda Blair) is the leader of ‘The Satins’, a close-knit girl gang who like to hang out on Hollywood Boulevard, window shop for crossbows (Chekov’s crossbow!) and collectively take care of Brenda’s deaf sister, Heather (played by future scream queen, Linnea Quigley). After a run-in with the local gang of drug dealers, ‘The Scars’, Brenda and her friends become the targets of their terrible violence. Come for the usual exploitation fare: catfights in the women’s showers, topless bath ruminating, and general male-gaze a-go-go, but stay for the Satins and the mesmerising energy of their ride or die friendship… and to watch the bad guys burn, of course.
#200: BAR TRASH 200 – PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE dir Edward D. Wood Jr. (1958/USA)
Genesis Cinema 18 FEB 2026 [full event info]
Are you brave enough for an encounter with aliens from another planet? And what is this deadly Plan 9 they speak of? Something about reanimating the world’s dead to build a zombie army and prevent humanity from destroying the Universe?!?
To celebrate our 200th BAR TRASH show, Token Homo and Zodiac Film Club presented Edward D. Wood Jr’s infamously otherworldly PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1958) with added 4D special effects for a spectacular DIY celebration of alternative screen culture.
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is perhaps the quintessential BAR TRASH title. We first screened it back in Season 3: TRASH OR TREASURE?, our radical reclaiming of ‘The Golden Turkey Awards’ that rescued Edward D. Wood Jr. from history but crowned him ‘The Worst Director of All Time’. For many, Ed Wood’s films have become a benchmark for filmmaking ineptness with their supposedly ‘terrible’ acting, no-budget FX, and plot incredulity. But are they really that bad?
#202: SCARECROW IN A GARDEN OF CUCUMBERS dir Robert J. Kaplan (1972/USA) with Avery McNeilly
Genesis Cinema 25 FEB 2026 [full event info]
GIRL TRASH GODDESS Holly Woodlawn stars in the leading role, one she chose over a supporting part in a Merchant Ivory production, opting instead for the highest pay she’d ever received: $6,500. SCARECROW was pitched as a movie with a transgender lead and a secret. Robert J. Kaplan’s concept for the film was that a trans woman would be the leading lady and her “sex” would never be revealed. With a simple plot – a small-town girl, Eve, arrives in the big city and tries to find a normal roommate – and low budget, the film relies on Holly’s slap-stick comedic timing and stunning beauty to solidify its cult status.
#204: TERMINAL ISLAND dir Stephanie Rothman (1973/USA) with Selina Robertson & Isabel Moir
Genesis Cinema 04 MAR 2026 [full event info]
Stephanie Rothman’s bargain with the industry was simple. She would deliver the exploitation films the market demanded – but she would direct them her way. With or without her, TERMINAL ISLAND was always going to be a women-in-prison picture. What only Rothman could supply was an unexpectedly sensitive study of social dynamics between anti-social people, operating beneath the obligatory smokescreen of sex and violence.
As she later put it, “I didn’t always get to choose the subjects of the film, but I did have control over the attitude toward and the treatment of the subjects. In this respect, I didn’t feel compromised or constrained.”
#206: EMPIRE OF THE ANTS dir Bert I. Gordon (1977/USA)
Genesis Cinema 11 MAR 2026 [full event info]
EMPIRE OF THE ANTS represented the absolute nadir of Joan Collins’ career. Her work had dried up, her agent was avoiding her calls, and she’d recently signed up for unemployment benefits. On top of that the production was a nightmare, with on-set injuries, pressure for the actors to perform stunts themselves and a 30 minute boat ride to the nearest bathroom. But Joan was the type to create her own opportunities. For months she’d been schlepping ‘The Stud’ – the script she’d convinced her sister Jackie to write – and it was at the EMPIRE OF THE ANTS premiere at Cannes (yes really!) that she finally found the producer who’d take it on.
Proof that sometimes you have to wade through the swamp (and fight some giant ants) to get where you’re going.
#208: B-Movie Women / Double Feature: LIMBO dir Tina Krause (1999/USA) + ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN dir Nathan Hertz (1958/USA)
Genesis Cinema 18 MAR 2026 [full event info]
LIMBO: Our first GIRL TRASH GODDESS of the night, Tina Krause, is an unstoppable B-Movie warrior from the fringes of film, appearing in more than 155 direct-to-video projects over the last three decades – starting with LOVE IS A STRANGER (1994) and continuing through a DIY rental library of micro-budget horror and erotic spoofs (sometimes both at once). An accidental film star, Krause was scouted at a horror convention she attended with her sister before becoming a key collaborator in W.A.V.E. Productions, the New Jersey ‘custom video movie studio’ that indulged its audience’s perverse desires by making them movies on demand.
LIMBO (1999) is Krause’s directing and screenwriting debut, presenting 3 days in the life of a young woman as she deals with identity issues, sexist mouth-breathers, and supernatural manifestations. Shot and edited on video, LIMBO combines video collage with dream-like horror, resulting in a slice of avant-garde cinema that’s very wonderfully not at all what you’d expect from the star of THE FAPPENING (2015) and GIFTWRAPPED AND GUTTED (2019).
ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN: Our second B-Movie GIRL TRASH GODDESS Allison Hayes started out as a concert pianist, then began winning beauty pageants before turning to acting. Groomed by the studio system for a career in B-Movies, Hayes made strong-minded women her specialism in early-career films like CHICAGO SYNDICATE and COUNT THREE AND PRAY (both 1955). Her signature toughness found a natural home in the wild frontiers of Westerns, both at the movies and later on TV. Sadly, complex health issues ended Hayes’ career prematurely, leaving ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN her most totemic performance.
Shot on a low budget over 8 days, ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958) delivers exactly what you’d hope from one of the best titles in exploitation cinema. This kitsch classic rises above its meagre ambitions by giving title character Nancy Archer (played by Hayes) a complex, messy back story, devoid of the saintly/sexless demeanour given most women in 1950s science fiction: Nancy drinks too much, loves the wrong man, and is determined to get her murderous revenge, even if that means ripping the roof off.
#210: FEMALE PRISONER #701: SCORPION aka Joshû 701-gô: Sasori dir Shun’ya Itô (1972/Japan)
Genesis Cinema 25 MAR 2026 [full event info]
When Nami Matsushima (Kaji) is betrayed by her lover, a corrupt police detective, her failed attempt at revenge sees her slammed behind bars. Sadistic guards, bullying inmates, back-breaking labour: nothing cracks her. She’s silent, she’s deadly, and she’s got a score to settle.
Nami was a defining role for Meiko Kaji, but she defined the role in turn. Her strength is her silence – and that was all Meiko’s idea. “When I first read the script, it had a lot of prison scenes and scenes where the protagonist goes through a lot of torture and so on. There were a lot of obscenities in the script, and when I read that, I thought, “This is meaningless, just shouting obscenities all the time.” So my important condition was that she wouldn’t say anything… I’m confident that the reason the world continues to be so intrigued by [Scorpion] is because of my decision not to have dialogue.”
#212: POISON IVY dir Katt Shea (USA/1992)
Genesis Cinema 01 APR 2026 [full event info]
Katt Shea’s POISON IVY (1992) is a sensational but complex portrait of intense female friendship that was detested by the studio and attacked by critics but found generation after generation of fans, who have read it as everything from queer coming of age story to class warfare film. “They wanted straight exploitation,” Shea said, “and I gave them Poison Ivy.”
POISON IVY was the comeback vehicle for 16-year-old Drew Barrymore, freshly recovered from early addiction and looking to make the jump from forgotten child star into her GIRL TRASH GODDESS era. She very nearly didn’t get the role, standing Shea up for multiple meetings and cementing her problem-child reputation. But at the last minute she pulled it together, stayed sober and – just like her character – used everything in her arsenal to make everyone on set fall in love with her.
#214: MOMMIE DEAREST dir Frank Perry (1981/USA)
Genesis Cinema 08 APR 2026 [full event info]
Glamorous Hollywood icon Joan Crawford (played by a maniacal Faye Dunaway) adopts two children, Christina and Christopher, in a bid for a fairytale happy family. But Joan is a controlling perfectionist, and when her fortunes take a turn for the worse – heartbreak, career downturn – the manipulative behaviour she already exhibits towards her daughter Christina (Diana Scarwid) escalates into histrionic abuse. As she scrabbles to cling onto fame, Joan lashes out, with her children bearing the brunt of her desperation.
Originally intended as a serious biopic, MOMMIE DEAREST was adapted from a sensational memoir by Christina Crawford, detailing the abusive childhood she and her adoptive brother suffered at Joan’s hands. Paramount Pictures thought they’d have an Oscars contender on their hands with Faye Dunaway as their leading lady. But with melodramatic script and direction, and Dunaway’s larger-than-life Crawford impersonation, the film became something else altogether.
Its camp savagery and deranged glamour was panned by contemporaneous critics, but MOMMIE DEAREST has since won a cult following among queer audiences. Join us to celebrate GIRL TRASH GODDESS Faye Dunaway, proof that even an Oscar winner can go trash (if they act unhinged enough).
#216: Closing Night: FASTER PUSSYCAT… KILL! KILL! dir Russ Meyer (1965/USA)
Genesis Cinema 15 APR 2026 [full event info]
Made by B-movie great Russ Meyer, whose excellent filmmaking mantra was “lust and profit”, PUSSYCAT was developed simply as a ‘girl’ version of one of his earlier successes, MOTORPSYCHO! (1965). That film had revolved around “three bad boys”, so PUSSYCAT would feature “three bad girls” – that’s exploitation math. And because Russ Meyer’s particular brand of lust called specifically for women beating men to a pulp – those three bad girls are the greatest GIRL TRASH GODDESSES in cinema history.
PUSSYCAT is a film simply swarming with GIRL TRASH GODDESSES, from star of the show Tura Satana, whose portrayal of Varla (creating the character’s look and performing all her own stunts) was described by Waters as one of the best villains in film history, to her unhinged co-stars Haji and Lori Williams, and producer Eve Meyer. Special mention also, to Janice at the Russ Meyer Foundation, who allowed us to include PUSSYCAT in our season.