Phrases / Phil Gomez
Pictures / Sam San Roman
What do you get when a haunted home hooks up with a carnival, slides into the DMs of queer nightlife, and invitations immersive theater over for a midnight séance? You get MONSTROUS—a maximalist, horror-drenched fever dream born from the twisted brilliance of creator and producer Charlie August Kellogg. As quickly as we stepped behind the scenes of Camp MONSTROUS, it was clear: this wasn’t simply an occasion. It was a world. A universe. A queer horror fantasia the place the monsters appear to be us—and that’s the purpose. Beneath the prosthetics, faux blood, and fog machines lives one thing actual: resistance, group, and queer catharsis.
Charlie’s journey to constructing this beast started with two sparks: a post-election disaster of artistic objective, and a Brooklyn yard that already regarded like a summer time camp. “At first, I believed, who cares a couple of get together proper now? However my mother stated, ‘Folks want this. They want one another.’” That one dialog lit the fuse. What adopted was MONSTROUS—an underground celebration of queer legacy instructed by horror, a style whose queer fingerprints have at all times been there, even when hidden. With Camp MONSTROUS, Charlie and their co-conspirators LEXXE and Hannah Gill crafted an ’80s slasher-inspired slayground dripping in nostalgia, lore, and rebel. Suppose Friday the thirteenth meets Now and Then, however gayer. And bloodier.
From the skin, MONSTROUS may appear to be the best Halloween rave you’ve by no means been to—however inside, it’s theater, it’s story, it’s survival. Image this: tarot readings, flash tattoos, gogo dancers in full creature SFX, characters from a ghost story you’ve by no means heard—however one way or the other know. “The killer is the state. The weapon is coverage,” Charlie tells us. “However in our model, the queers don’t die. They battle again. They win.” Each element is hand made, each solid member a personality in an unfolding narrative that fuses trauma with triumph. Even tech fails change into canon—just like the werewolf masks that snapped moments earlier than curtain, inflicting a 30-minute drag improv detour that made the eventual reveal that rather more iconic. Charlie remembers a second from final years occasion, MONSTROUS: Fang & Fur.
In celebration of Pleasure Month, MONSTROUS provides us an unique behind-the-scenes glimpse, reminding us that queer pleasure is loud, messy, political, and unattainable to disregard. Proceeds from Camp MONSTROUS profit the NYC LGBT+ Group Middle and New Options to lift funds and acquire items for queer of us in want, conserving group on the coronary heart of the horror. As a result of queer nightlife isn’t nearly escape—it’s about constructing worlds we need to stay in. “There’s no closing woman on this story,” Charlie says. “We survive collectively.” It’s a mantra, a battle cry, and a promise. The monsters aren’t coming. We’re the monsters—and we throw one hell of a celebration!
