Short Film ‘Genre Flick’ Will Bring Back the Silliness of Queer Comedy

Constantly wearing a multitude of creative hats, Thom Hilton is a sponge of creativity who believes in learning from experience intently and often. As a writer and director, he has brought several short films to life such as the queer horror mockumentary Synonymous With, and as an actor, Hilton starred opposite Udo Kier in Todd Stephens’ Swan Song.

Currently, Hilton is working on his next short film project, Genre Flick, a bawdy, wild, and raunchy queer rom-com about a pansexual movie theater worker who’s invited on a series of dates by his customers, only to find that each one is trapped in the genre of the film they’ve just seen. Throughout 2022, the script was honored at seven film festivals and screenwriting competitions.

In February, Hilton kicked off a fundraising campaign that is being fiscally sponsored by PAM CUT – Portland Art Museum’s Center for an Untold Tomorrow, making all donations tax deductible. A goal of $11,500 has been met, but Hilton is still seeking a stretch goal of $13,500.

Genre Flick will begin shooting in May at Portland, Oregon’s historic Clinton Street Theater, which is home to the longest running Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Hilton took some time to talk more about the film and his artistry with OFM.

Can you begin by telling us how the concept and idea for Genre Flick came about?

I was doing stand-up comedy in New York a few years ago, and I was writing these wacky characters in a Cole Escola kind of way. I stopped doing that and started pivoting towards filmmaking, but then I had this idea of, what if I got these characters out of me? They were kind of this succession of queer dates that could be had, and already, there were genre elements in there. There was a femme fatal character, a sci-fi character, and a rom-com character. So, it grew out of me moving back to Portland, wanting to make a film, and place those characters in the world of the local film scene here.

You are currently fundraising for the short film?

Yes, we kicked off fundraising in February and have raised our goal of $11,500, but we are still seeking our stretch goal of $13,500. The immediate need was to get enough money going so that we can have a very successful production and be able to have good cameras, a good sound team, feed everybody, and all that. So far, nothing has begun in terms of shooting. We have all our locations locked down, an incredible cast and crew, and pre-production pieces like costumes and props are being designed.

What do you hope audiences take away from Genre Flick?

For me, I hope that audiences enjoy a broad, silly, dirty, queer comedy, in the way that there used to be a lot of queer comedies in the late 90s and early 2000s, like Darren Stein’s Jawbreaker and Todd Stephens’ Edge of Seventeen. In this kind of big post-Brokeback Mountain world that we live in, where a lot of queer cinema is rooted in trauma, as Jamie Lee Curtis would say, and those heavy things, it’s important to have fun and be able to create an insular, queer world where everybody is queer, crazy, and having a great time, and that whole aspect of homophobia and shit is outside. That’s what going to a drag club is. That’s what going to a gay bar is, and that’s what this movie is going to be. Twenty minutes, have fun, shut that shit off.

Harrsion Sheean, John Henry Ward, and Carla Rossi have been cast to play the lead characters. What made them the perfect choices for these roles?

I wrote this main character for Harrison Sheehan. He’s a dear friend of mine, and he’s such a fabulous actor. He had this great part in Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats, where he played this boyfriend who is the victim of a hate crime, and he hasn’t really been in anything since, which I relate to as well. I was in Swan Song with Udo Kier and Jennifer Coolidge and haven’t been in anything since. So, it’s fun to kind of pick a friend up, and he was perfect for this too because he’s very handsome, but also has a hard-edged look. It’s a tricky character because it’s someone who’s perpetually single, but always getting asked out.

John Henry Ward, I went to college with him in North Carolina, and I’ve wanted to get him on screen since I started making films. He was originally offered the lead in the most recent film that I made about the couple in the cabin, so he was just a total fit. Then Carla Rossi, who is known as Anthony outside of drag, that’s like the biggest get in Portland. She’s a total superstar here. She hosts the only queer horror screening in the world, other than the one that’s hosted by Peaches Christ in San Francisco.

She’s like our Peaches Christ, and I just thought it would be so fun to have Anthony playing Carla playing a role because that’s so in the tradition of John Waters or Psycho Beach Party, where you get that double or triple persona going on. Carla, the drag character has these traits that work for that femme fatale character, and since the femme fatale character was kind of unnamed in the script, she and Carla are kind of merging together, which is great.

Filming will be done at Portland’s Clinton Street Theater. Why there?

I have been going to the Clinton Street Theater since I was a little kid. The Clinton Street Theater is home to the world’s longest running consecutive screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I host half of the shows there, every second and fourth Saturdays of the month, and it is a real breeding ground for queer art. It always has been. It’s a favorite spot of John Waters, he has an introduction that plays before the films, and they’ve shown his films since the very beginning. It’s a favorite spot of Todd Haynes and Gus Van Sant, and the theater is also a performance venue, so they host drag shows.

The Clinton Street Theater has been very supportive of getting my short films on the big screen for people in Portland to see and help build a community around my films. They try to get as many people involved as possible, which is what I want. I want it to feel like it’s this big neighborhood thing. Also, because it’s 100+ years old, there’s this Russian Doll kind of magical realism thing going on, it has that haunted feeling that’s just perfect.

Do you personally have any ultimate goals with Genre Flick?

Yes. As with all my previous short films, I would love for it to play festivals for a year and eventually end up streaming where people can see it. My hope is that it would play some of those really fabulous gay festivals that I’ve always loved, admired, and gotten the chance to go to. I’ve been very lucky with my previous shorts, and this film has already been lucky with festivals because the script has been acknowledged by seven festivals and competitions so far.

So, I just hope it has a nice, long journey. Maybe it will be something that a programmer would want to put before a screening of Jawbreaker or something. It’s not like a proof of concept for a feature or anything. I tend to be very confident in my desire to make a short film for the purpose of making a short story.

Have you always had a passion for directing and creating short films?

No (laughs). I made my first short in the thick of the pandemic, and it was this queer horror mockumentary called Synonymous With. Then kind of as an after effect, I made a found footage documentary with my father the next year. Then a friend of mine had a script that I had helped him write because I’m also an actor and writer. The script had been laying around for so long, I thought, OK, we need to pick this back up. So, they’ve all been accidental in their own way. I didn’t go to film school, but I’ve been very lucky to have incredible mentors.

You mentioned earlier about being in Todd Stephens’ Swan Song with Udo Kier and Jennifer Coolidge. What was that experience like?

Really, that was the best thing in the whole world. I was a resident guest actor at the School of Visual Arts where Todd is a professor, and he said, “I have this script, and Udo Kier is attached. I said, “OK, I’m, going to come and hand out water bottles.” He always makes his movies in Ohio, so I said I would fly out there and be the boy who hands out water bottles and little crackers for everybody. Then he let me audition, and I auditioned many times over many months, and once I flew out there, I had the best week ever in Sandusky, Ohio.

I have admired Udo forever because I’m a horror person, and he’s in films like Suspiria. They filmed My Own Private Idaho in Portland, so that was a lovely connection because that was the movie that brought him to the states. Also, the incredible treat to get to be around and see Jennifer Coolidge work right before she became this inaccessibly mammoth star. She was just there for two days doing this wonderful, really grounded little part. Unfortunately, she and I don’t share the screen together, but this was the best experience.

If I never get to act in a movie again, I’m so glad that it was that one because the scene that Udo and I do is about honoring queer elders, seeing that generation gap between gay people, and the foundation that older drag queens have set for us all. It was the greatest gift for me.

What are some future goals you hope to accomplish with your career?

I want to make Genre Flick here in Portland; then I plan on moving back to New York to make a couple more shorts and, hopefully, get back into acting. I also kind of have a parallel career of light cultural journalism and food writing, and that opened the door to covering some local queer and historical events in Portland. I would love to continue that, whether that incorporates documentary filmmaking or whatever, but I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Like with Swan Song, if I never act again or make enough money to make a short again, I would love to do everything I can to blog, honor, and help queer spaces stay alive.

Stay up-to-date and connect with Hilton by following him on Instagram @thomjh. Click HERE to donate to Genre Flick.

Photos courtesy of Brian Clavel and Jr Gonzalez