Stream It Or Skip It: ‘All About Evil’ on Shudder, a Sort-Of Long-Lost Cult Horror Comedy Starring Natasha Lyonne

After a decade or so of obscurity, sort-of long-lost camp-cult splatter flick All About Evil makes its official streaming debut, and the movie surely has Natasha Lyonne’s resurgent career to thank for that. Originally released in 2010, the film stars a post-American Pie and –But I’m a Cheerleader, pre-Orange is the New Black and –Russian Doll Lyonne as a homicidal movie theater owner who makes short films of her heinous crimes in order to save the business. It’s written and directed by Joshua Grannell, better known as San Francisco drag performer Peaches Christ, who had enough clout to land John Waters regular Mink Stole and Elvira herself, Cassandra Peterson, for supporting roles. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

ALL ABOUT EVIL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Daddy always wanted little Debbie to be an actress, but an unfortunate incident – she wet herself on stage in front of a theater full of people, dampening the microphone cord and electrocuting herself, I HATE when that happens – seems to have made her permanently cuckoo. Deb (Lyonne) grows up to be an (ugh) librarian with a mean Bride of Frankenstein streak in her hair who runs cult horror movies (e.g. Blood Feast) at her daddy’s beloved San Fran movie house, the Victoria Theatre, to a handful of awesome weirdos who appreciate such things. But a handful of weirdos isn’t keeping the place out of the red. When Deb’s abusive harpy of a mother (Julie Caitlin Brown) moves to sell the place and levies her zillionth cruel insult at her daughter, Deb snaps and plants her Bic pen in mommy’s neck. And torso. Lots of times. Blood spurts everywhere, and there’s Natasha Lyonne’s adorable mischievous face all smeared and splattered with the red stuff. Neat!

Fate/coincidence then takes part in the story: This wonderfully horrible incident was captured on security cameras and subsequently plays on the theater screen to a dozen or so of the aforementioned weirdos, who think it’s wicked-cool. One of those dweebs is Steve (Thomas Dekker), a high-schooler whose mom (Peterson) worries that he watches too many gory movies – and whose principal thinks he’s on the cusp of (prepare to clench your teeth here) shooting up the school. Meanwhile, Deb starts glamming herself up as filmmaker/actress Deborah Tennis (rhymes with “Denise”), recruiting her decrepit projectionist (Jack Donner) and a few other screw-loosers to help make murderous shorts with punny titles like A Tale of Two Severed Titties, which she shows to bigger and bigger audiences – audiences who don’t know they’re watching snuff films. NO SPOILERS, but this probably ain’t gonna end well.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: All About Evil might be about as close as we can get to a John Waters movie these days, considering he hasn’t directed one in 18 very long years. So think Serial Mom if it was more giallo.

Performance Worth Watching: Donner – who died in 2019 at the age of 90 – is the type of distinctive-looking gentleman whose bit-part notoriety in Star Trek, Syfy originals and more, surely earned him many a chair on panels at sci-fi and horror conventions. He steals a scene or three in All About Evil and is a touch more charismatic than Lyonne, who doesn’t go quite as OTT as we might want her to.

Memorable Dialogue: “Why don’t you go find motherf—ing Theresa and harass her!” – Deborah

Sex and Skin: Pre- and post-chopped-off female breasts.

Our Take: All About Evil is a scrappy, surprisingly slickly directed and edited homage/satire/spoof to/of all manner of horror films, from Psycho to The Shining to any number of crappy ’80s slashers. Grannell cops his tongue-in-cheek tone wholesale from Waters, and even though the movie is excessively gory at times, it doesn’t quite match the cult movie master’s thirst for taboo extremity – not that anyone should even try, since we’ve seen enough coprophagia to last a lifetime, right?

The aim here is macabre laughs, and Grannell mostly succeeds, even if the gags and kills lack the creativity and originality to inspire big laughs and gasps. The plot feels padded with the Steve character’s corny high-school drama, another layer of spoof that the movie probably doesn’t need. But we’re most likely here to watch Lyonne, who leans into the schlock because she pretty much has to, but maintains enough of her character’s melancholy core to render Deborah’s story a quiet tragedy. Her approach doesn’t quite work; you may find yourself trying to will her into eating the scenery a bit more, to just lose a screw and go for it. It’s not a dealbreaker, though – Grannell more than makes up for it with some amiably gonzo-camp energy.

Our Call: There’s enough purposely cheesy, quasi-witty one liners and general love for horror movies in Grannell’s screenplay to make All About Evil worth a watch for the right audience – and you know who you are. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘All About Evil’ on Shudder, XXXXXXXXXXxx