Cannes Frontières Buzz Title ‘Skin Side Up’ Elevates Drag Queen Horror (EXCLUSIVE)  

Cannes Frontières buzz title “Skin Side Up,” the directorial feature debut of “Drag Race Down Under” Season 4 winner Robert Ten Eyck, heads to the Creosote exploring a little visited sub-genre – drag queen horror – as it has pacted a key theatrical distribution deal for Australia and New Zealand with one of their genre champions. 

“Skin Side Up” turns on Bertha Woodhouse, a drag queen who takes a hen’s gig in the middle of nowhere. The moment she arrives, things feel off – the party has only four guests, and their behaviour is unsettling. During a game of ‘affirmations,’ she receives an anonymous note: “I don’t know who these people are. HELP.”

So begins her night of terror, the synopsis runs. 

“This film is deeply personal. As a queer person and a drag performer, I’ve lived the unsettling reality of walking into unfamiliar spaces, not knowing if I’m truly safe.” Ten Eyck told Variety. “I wanted to make a film about that fear — the terror of being trapped in someone else’s idea of who you should be. ‘Skin Side Up’ is dark, disturbing and fucked up in all the ways I love, but it’s also a deeply human story about identity, control and survival.”

A clip for “Skin Side Up,” depicting this very scene, will be unveiled May 17 at the Proof of Concept showcase of the Frontières Platform, presented by Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival and Cannes Marché du Film. 

“Skin Side Up” is produced by Cellophane Studios and Iris Arc Pictures.

Founded by Annie Thiel, “Skin Side Up” which is “all about amplifying minority feelings—with major entertaining impact,” she said. In 2024, the studio debuted its first project, “I’m So Sorry For Your Loss,” a web series co-produced with ABC and Screen Australia.

Headed by Lauren Simpson, Iris Arc Pictures produced “Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism.” An Audience Choice Award winner at the 2023 Sitges Festival, it was picked up for North America distribution by XYZ Films and premiered as a Tubi Original. Sold by The Coven, it has seen theatrical or streaming runs in 12 of the 14 major markets worldwide, also including Germany, U.K., Latin America, CIS, Spain, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand, France and Italy with more territories to be announced.  

“We are passionate about producing bold, elevated genre films that challenge the norm. ‘Skin Side Up’ is incendiary, subversive and wildly entertaining — a film that speaks to the world we live in while delivering a terrifyingly fun ride,” said Simpson and Thiele. “Horror has always been a space for transgression and this film pushes those boundaries in a fresh and fearless way.”

The producers have just secured a letter of intent for theatrical distribution for Australia and New Zealand from Victoria-based Umbrella Entertainment, which is across all of the big Australian genre releases such as “The Babadook,” “Late Night With The Devil” and “Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism.” 

That early commitment in place, they are in a position to unlock Australia’s 40% Producer Offset tax credit, said Simpson. With the Producer Offset tax credit and additional soft money from Screen Australia, Vicscreen and other governmental bodies, the producers can look to unlock up to 50% of “Skin Side Up’s” budget, she added.

With that credit and additional soft money from Big Screen and other Australian governmental bodies, the producers can cover some 50%-55% of “Skin Side Up’s” budget, she added.  

The “fear of being trapped in somebody else’s idea of who you should be” draws on Ten Eyck’s experience of working as a drag queen. “To me, horror is at its best when it mines your fundamental fears. I hadn’t seen depicted this kind of fear that I have when I walk into very classically heteronormative spaces and you think, ‘Oh my God, it’s a trap. It’s a trap.’ As a drag queen, we end up working a lot at wedding adjacent events, hen’s parties, bachelorettes. It’s a very bizarre thing to be kind of popped into the middle of a thing that you’ve spent your life running away from,” Ten Eyck added, noting that he will shoot with “vivid blues and inky blacks.”

One immediate impression left by the proof of concept is the strength of empathy immediately created with Bertha. “I did have a this moment of pause where I asked if we can we really replace, a Neve Campbell, the young scream queen, the Jamie Lee Curtis with a 40-something burnt-out cross-dresser and still have a mainstream audience empathize with that person. “To me, the most heartening moment of putting the sizzle reel together is that, yes, in fact, people do immediately have this, this warmth towards her,” said Ten Eyck.

“It’s crucial, given the current climate, everything that’s happening in America, this intense animosity towards people in my community that I think that there is an audience understanding of these people,” he added.