Incredibly stupid yet highly enjoyable camp satire shows us a world where there are no supermodels, where beauty is outlawed and men have successfully advocated for plainness. In other words, it’s a perfect world.
The year is 2207. Archeologists secretly dig for fashion magazines as proof that women were once idolized for their beauty and their ability to accessorize. The police force is made up of drag queens and really unattractive lesbians.
Some women, however, are searching for a return to the good old days. The Beauty Renegades, an underground cult led by the blue-wigged Diana (Omewenne), hide out on the outskirts of town and teach women how to purge, exercise, and defeat men in hand to hand combat. Classes are led by Grace (Faulkner), and pop quizzes are given on the effectiveness of liposuction and the advantages of growing out your bangs.
Into this melee comes a genuine princess-Helen Darling (Kroot, who also wrote and directed) a natural beauty who has chosen to run away rather than marry the villainous Councilman Troy (Harder). Helen finds the Beauty Renegades to be a perfect fit for her, and becomes Diana’s confidante and lover, to the chagrin of drag queen Gabriel (Hale) who finds himself edged out by the beatific Helen.
Troy hires detective Alexander Lemuria (D’Addario) to find his wayward bride to be. Lemuria, who is an expert on the Renegades, finds himself drawn to Gabriel, who is plotting to overthrow Diana, who is…oy. You get the idea.
If there is anything really amiss with this consistently amusing film, it is the overly plotted plot. Kroot, perhaps afraid that the audience will be bored, has thrown in so many plots and subplots (involving Helen’s parents, and a renegade named Lillith who locates the fables Hanger 51, where old issues of Cosmo and Playboy are stored) that you really do need a scorecard to tell all the players.
Still, Kroot has made a truly unique vision here, and it is a lot of fun…if you are in a “Rocky Horror”/”Priscilla Queen of the Desert”/”As the World Turns” mood. The cast of drag queens, some of them quite attractive, is bitchy perfection, and the dialogue is first rate. Hale as the unappreciated Gabriel is a hoot, and Omewenne (who may or may not be a man, I just can’t tell) has some Joan Crawford moments as the leader Diana.
