Brendan Jesus
Comedy has long been a tool infused into horror for a multitude of reasons, such as making it more approachable, bringing levity to more serious ideas, and, obviously, for entertainment factors. We’ve seen comedians/funny people break into horror with excellent results, and we’ve seen films like Evil Dead turned into ground-breaking and side-splitting musical gorefests. One thing I’ve never personally seen though? Horror stand-up comedy. The great thing about stand-up comedy is that when you find your audience, you can really mold your act into what you truly want it to be. Stand-up has taken many forms from regular one person, one mic, observational (literal) sketch comedy with Demetri Martin, music-based comedy from the likes of Stephen Lynch and Bo Burnham, and even magic comedy from the greatest comedic voice of our generation The Amazing Johnathan.
Recently I was in London and was looking for some fun things to do, as I had already spent my first four days there guzzling down Elvis Juice on tap at the BrewDog brewery. Next to BrewDog was a tunnel lined with graffiti. Not just like regular old boring New York graffiti tags, but actual art. I’d come to learn this was just plainly called The Tunnel, a space where artists have free reign, with no legal recourse, to cover the tunnel walls with as much graffiti as they want. There was art of different Pokémon, political messages, and even this weird ass Creature From the Black Lagoon–type character that had a similar gate to myself. Typically I only use the first paragraph here as my setup, but I think the whole picture is really important for what’s to come, so please just hang in there.
Towards the end of the tunnel was a door with a large, lit-up sign over it, simply named: The Vaults. I was immediately hooked. After doing some research I learned The Vaults is a creative space, almost like a Fringe Festival, that is home to live comedy, performance art, and theatre. Basically the things I love just as much as horror. When scrolling through the available shows during my time in London they all seemed incredibly interesting… then I came across a show called Degenerate by This Is Not A Test. Billed as, among other things, a comedy-horror show, I knew what had to be done. Ticket purchased, beer in hand, butt in seat. What I didn’t expect was what I was about to witness.
Calling Degenerate a stand-up show almost feels dismissive of its core concept. Sure, stand-up can have a message or an overall point, and it can definitely be rehearsed beat for beat. Bo Burnham is a great example of the intricacies that can go into planning your bits down to the millisecond. While Degenerate is funny, I didn’t really feel that the point of the show was to laugh, rather that laughing was a side effect of the story (and also very much due to writer/star Maria Teresa Creasey’s performance). Since the show is still labeled as a work in progress I want to shy away from really getting into the whole ideas and themes brought up by Creasey and Rebecca Reeves’ excellent script, so I will try and be critically vague on the story.
What starts as a vampire doing a tight five slowly devolves into truths and madness about the idea of coming to terms with becoming a middle-aged woman. From talks of avocados to different characters, Degenerate takes the audience on a whimsically scary ride of someone else’s subconscious. While the whole show really worked for me, the final 10 to 15 minutes really sealed the deal. Again, trying to be as vague as possible, the finale was beyond grand. Not that I have the inability to put myself in the shoes of others, but I was not quite sure about the idea of a woman coming to terms with being middle-aged would work for me. Thank Dracula I was wrong.
This being Horror Obsessive, I should probably touch on the horror aspects of this whole deal. Right? As stated the show starts with a vampire (basically) doing a tight five. The opening is fun, clever, and perfectly on the nose. This took me a few days of sitting on it to get the actual meaning of it, but we’ll come back to that. The bulk of the show runs more of an existential horror route. Touching on the fears and reality of turning an age where you feel invisible to everyone around you. Wondering if you really do fit in, and if you do fit in, what is your role as this almost-new person? The final 10 to 15 minutes felt like a mixture of Carrie with a heavy dose of Final Girl energy, and a dash of the madness from Mandy. Nearly every audience member gasped at a specific moment at the end, and at that moment I was 110% percent certain I picked the right show to see.
As someone who has an inability to think of anything without relating something to a film, I was getting conflicting ideas on what this film reminded me of. Like I said there’s some Carrie and some Mandy thrown in there (no I didn’t just pick movies that had names of the women from the movies), but there was one comparison I couldn’t escape. Degenerate is the Midsommar of stand-up comedy. With Midsommar you get this intense rising action; Dani’s parents and Maria as a vampire. From there you get the middle section which is the bulk of the film/show. Dani slowly becomes engrained in the cult’s cultures and practice, and here you have Maria slowly working out the trials and tribulations of this new era she finds herself in. Then you get that finale. That singular event the film/show has been building up to. You get the ‘good for her’ moment. Dani overcomes the toxicity in her life and rids herself of it, and Maria… well, you need to see the show to find that out.
One of the biggest arguments I see on film threads between Facebook and Twitter is how horror has no originality anymore, how everything is a remake. Degenerate was one of the most original works of art, in both horror and comedy, I have seen in a very long time. I was shown a perspective I was not necessarily privy to, and it opened my eyes. To me, that is the effect of what art should have on someone. Not everything needs to be groundbreaking or transformative, but when it is, you can understand how special that piece of art is. Whether you’re a horror fan or not, I think this show is a must-see. And if you are a horror fan, I think this piece will really open your eyes to what depths the genre can take us to.
I’m truly thankful for the This Is Not A Test team for what they put together as well as The Vaults for being what it is. Unfortunately, the future is in limbo for The Vaults Festival. They are currently without a location for the 2024 season, and that is beyond sad to hear. If you want to learn more about The Vaults Festival you can check out their site here.
For more information about Degenerate and This Is Not A Test, as well as what other shows they have and where you can see them, you can check out their website here.
Degenerate was written by Maria Teresa Creasey and Rebecca Reeves, directed by Rebecca Reeves, produced by Cynthia Rice Hanson, and the dramaturg/production manager is Rory Trevethan.
