The Cramps: A Period Piece

Bluesky

A sweet-natured fairytale about hairdressing, romance and a menstrual monster, Brooke H Cellars’ feature début follows a young women who is struggling to carve out her own identity in a world that has taught her to be apologetic and meek. Agnes (Lauren Kitchen) lives with her disapproving mother (Brooklyn Woods) and smugly respectable sister Liberty (Harlie Madison), in a house which is clinging to previous centuries and a body whose soft curves mark her out to them as a failure no matter what she does. To add to her problems, she finds herself in excruciating pain once a month when menstruating. She finds it hard to imagine a way out of any of this, but she longs for independence, so one day, without telling her family, she sneaks out of the house and gets a job.

If there’s one place where women find solidarity in the face of such difficulties, and permission to talk about them, it’s the hairdressing salon. Hairbrained is no exception. Owner Miss Laverne (played by drag queen Martini Bear), sweet Satanist stylist Teddy (Wicken Taylor) and assistane Holiday (Micelle Malentina) take her under their wings and quickly become determined to improve her life. She even gets a boyfriend, the smooth-talking Falcon, whose interest alone is enough to thrill her, even if Miss Laverne says he looks like an asshole. But when her menstrual troubles manifest as an actual monster – cute and sparkly but voracious – Agnes realises that she will have to toughen up and start fighting her own battles.

With sitcom-style sets decked out in pastel colours, the film has a distinct early Sixties vibe (except for Agnes’ home, whose baroque fittings and general gloom hark back to the 1860s). Its naïve dialogue and upbeat vibe are very much in keeping with this, but the kitsch atmosphere never becomes cloying. The cattiness with which the salon staff approach their enemies is deliciously unreasonable, and achieves its culmination in the annual hair extravaganza bonanza, which poor Holiday is downright phobic about. When longstanding foes Vinyl and Tangerina from the Electric Shriek Boutique blackmail Miss Laverne with an old photo, the team find themselves in a position where the survival of the boutique itself could depend on their success at the show – and it is here, of course, that our heroine’s long-suppressed creative talent comes into its own.

In amongst the fun, there’s a measure of gore which perhaps explains why this film screened at Fantastic Fest and was subsequently selected for Fantaspoa, but it’s not intended to be taken seriously. There is darker comedy in places, especially around Agnes’ visit to a gynaecologist, a scene which many viewers will relate to all too well. The film’s general campiness does not diminish the points it’s making. Director Brook H Cellars suffered from the effects of endometriosis for decades before getting help, partly due to feeling unable to speak about it. The Cramps takes the anger that comes from such experiences and uses it as a driving force for change. The film is playful and ferocious and full of the joy that comes from finally taking control of one’s own life.

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