Cox’s 1987 film of the same name, and the time like a small miracle, helped him have influenced him most are grade B
subtitled it, A Bad Girl Gets Worse. It get a job writing and producing promo monster movies and disaster flicks, along
4
employed cheesy home-made special ef- spots for TV shows. with anything by the Three Stooges. His

issue
fects along with unconvincing costumes Years later, with sharpened editing skills entire oeuvre is an homage to schlock.
and locations that reflected the gay sub- and a creative urge that had been both He loves camera techniques and special
culture without bothering to incorporate exploited and frustrated by the world effects, the gadgetry and the jargon—



Fluxion
it into the plot. But the camerawork was of television advertising, he returned to the medium more than the meaning or
ART
brilliant. Some scenes were infused with making low-budget, low-tech, feature- the message. His favorite effects reveal a
Gothic atmosphere, others with a frolick- length films for his own enjoyment, this displaced, grown-up version of the fasci-
ing madcap ebullience. time on videotape (thus, once again, nation most little boys have with blowing
Of course, none of the actors was be- precluding any real possibility for com- things up and setting them on fire.
ing paid, and there was no crew. Nor mercial screening or release). Thinking about all of this made me want
was there any plan or strategy to make About the time he was finishing the last to interview him on the history and na-
something that could be marketed, even of these films was when we decided to ture of the obsession—which I did, with
to the funkiest of independent festivals. split up, after 20 years as lovers, in 1998. the following results.
Though in the back of his mind Bill may Two of the films starred Bill himself, play-
have envisioned a career path that would ing a character at odds with, once again, Tell me how you first got started in film-
shadow John Waters, for the most part an evil drag queen, this time played by making.
he pursued the project scene by scene, me. While our relationship was evolving In 1959, when I was 10 years old, my par-
using the talent and materials at hand, away from romance, making the films ents bought me a little Brownie movie
yielding to a kind of artistic opportunism. together renewed our mutual admiration. camera. It was blue plastic and it looked
Mostly, Bill simply couldn’t resist the As a person with my own insistent yet like a transistor radio. It had a button to
seductions of film making as a form undisciplined creative impulses, I was make it go on and off. That was it: on,
of creative play. It was like a drug, an charmed all over again by Bill’s dedicat- off, on, off.
alternative reality. He got sucked into ed obsession with film-making, his ability The first film I made was a horror movie
that other world and didn’t see any point to lose himself in the process. about an old lady and a madman who
in leaving. Where other people go to the “Making art is the highest form of mental wants to throw acid in somebody’s face.
movies to escape, Bill’s escape was to activity,” he once said to me. The state- I played both parts. I had a couple of
make movies. ment surprised me since Bill was never costumes and a couple of wigs and, with
In much the same fashion, he had already an aesthete. Rather, his enthusiasm has a the help of my mom, I made a three-
completed two other feature-length nerdy-loner quality, with all the typically minute movie.
films, made in school and just afterward. masculine limitations and appeal implied The thing was, I had no concept of how
Ultimately, Straight to Hell did serve as by that label. He bonds with the tech to edit film after it was shot, or any way
a calling card for a job on the margins of guys, the tape editors (usually straight to do it. So I had to edit in the camera,
the Hollywood film industry. He showed and blue-collar), more easily than with which meant constant costume changes.
it to someone who, by what seemed at other writers and artists. The films that I’d dress up like an old lady, and I’d go
162
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