by Nick Taylor
Alaska, Dracmorda, Swanthula, and David Dastmalchian on the judge's panel
Dragula: Titans gives us the first of the series’ traditional floorshows, allowing its creatures to strut their stuff on the main stage with smoke and strobe lights dancing in their ears as the horror-techno score plays on. Asking the queens for their interpretation of science fiction horror results is a wildly broad prompt, and the results range from cosmic horror to space aliens to robot monstrosities. There’s no lip syncing, no acting, no other requirement but owning that stage the way only they can. And boy, did they deliver...
No eliminated queen pops up again for funsies. Poor Yovska was not re-resurrected by the Boulets, and it looks like from now on a bitch will stay buried in the ground if she’s sent home. At least she’s posting her looks on her Instagram. This week’s guest judges were two very recognizable faces: RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant and All-Stars winner Alaska Thunderfuck 5000, and character actor David Dastmalchian (The Dark Knight, Dune), currently among the most in-demand interpreters of shifty weirdos working today.
Before the rankings, allow me to vent about the drama real quick, since Dragula’s fixation on its queen’s rivalries has worn out not just the audience but the whole cast -- I cannot wait for the show to drop the weird triangle between Abhora, Astrud and HoSo. The queens themselves are trapped in a hellish purgatory of not wanting anyone to bring it up even as they cannot stop bringing it up apropos of nothing whatsoever. I don’t envy Abhora any of the bullshit she’s dealing with, to include other queens pressing her about HoSo and then acting shocked, shocked when she spirals over it, especially since it seems to be directly impacting her work. Spend more time showing how they build their monsters! (Nathaniel was enraged that it took 22 minutes before we got to the actual craft and creatures - we'll alternate posts from now onward). Or hell, spend more time on the Cauldron conversations if we must have drama.
Now, to the rankings!
01 VICTORIA BLACK (last week: 4. Challenge placement: Co-winner)
Quick caveat: Should riffing on The Thing (1982) dock points for the “originality” requirement, no matter how excitingly that riff is realized? That said, we agree with the judges pick of winners (well, halfway at least) and single out Victoria as the best look of the night. Did she have this challenge sewn up before she even turned to face the camera, with her extra arm being the only identifiable body part of her demented silhouette? Even her head looked like a prop on this monstrous, many-limbed creature, though I love that she’s serving so much face along withtop-tier prosthetics. Wearing that long, brunette wig and watching it get caught in her chest fangs and wild protrusions? What a choice. And Alaska loved that Victoria found a way to wear flats onstage! Love an innovator.
02 KOCO CAINE (last week: 10. Challenge placement: High)
A complete turnaround for Ms. Koco Caine, delivering a level of conceptual and aesthetic polish that’s been heretofore missing. The heavy metal chrome-and-glitter glam of her intergalactic sex worker is utterly on point, and her standby of skimpy clothes and bodacious padding feels very of a piece here. Love the blaster arm, serving Metroid realness with a Cronenberg-esque vaginal slit on the top that’s perfect for grinding on. The blaster’s even got a mirror on it, so a bitch can fix her hair before committing mass murder. Props to Koco for officially outlasting her original run on season 4 (a feat Astrud accomplished last week), and the more I sit with this look the more I wonder if it’s my favorite.
03 ASTRUD AURELIA (last week: 3. Challenge placement: High)
Too few of the queens went for cosmic horror, so we appreciate Astrud going that route for her asymmetrically aligned, many-eyed chthonic beast. She’s got a great eye for silhouettes, and the sleekness of her design contrasts nicely with how many different textures are on that bodysuit. The Boulets again had critiques on Astrud’s floorshow performance but it's at least nice to see consistency from her.
04 HOSO TERRA TOMA (last week: 2. Challenge placement: Co-winner)
For this challenge, The Boulets rewarded two queens as a nod to the science fiction double feature, with HoSo announced as the winner before giving the prize to Victoria too. It’s a deserving choice, if not the best look HoSo has ever served. It almost feels beside the point to clock her drag as "busy" at this point. There’s so many moving pieces though each is tremendously well thought-out, and her ferocity onstage sells it completely. Nevertheless it was very revealing that the judges praised virtually every aspect of her craftsmanship, character, and originality without even hazarding to guess what the fuck she is. Cyborg Ninja Schoolgirl?
05 EVAH DESTRUCTION (last week: 1. Challenge placement: Low)
The Boulets were very unforgiving of Evah buying a mail-order robot bodysuit for her floor show. I didn’t clock the look as mail-order during the floorshow and didn’t feel offended by this revelation. I’d also wager that the suit’s two most striking design elements - a red laser lodged in the back of her mouth and those bright blue contacts - were entirely Evah’s additions. Either way, her performance was great, with uncannily perfect physicality to every twitch, slash, and pause. Bonus points for everything she did with her eyes; Evah knows exactly how to perform for the camera.
06 ERIKA KLASH (last week: 7. Challenge placement: Safe)
Drag is art and art is subjective. To judge Erika’s drag as it relates to this competition, her Ghidorah riff is absolutely her most successful attempt at merging her style of drag to the Boulets’ demands with wonderful facial prosthetics including a bloody maw. The use of primary, saturated colors kept the look vibrant and simple even amongst the floorshow’s stylized lighting. Other queens should use color this way! Still, it’s distracting to see how much work went into those dragon-head gloves only for them to have no tapering whatsoever onto her arms, reducing the look to "costume parts". Erika’s not quite wearing a winged leotard again, but it’s too close to that to stay excited about her look aside from the neck and forearms up. Declaring her safe with special praises while noting the very real issues with her tailoring was the right move. But Erika needs to deliver a knockout very, very soon.
07
MELISSA BEFIERCE (last week: 5. Challenge placement: Safe)
On the one hand, a bedazzled, femme-faced, death-dropping Predator is undeniably fierce as fuck, nevermind that she’s spinning her blades better than some of those bitches can dance. On the other hand, it’s very hard to square this look with the demand for originality no matter how good the floor show is. Dangerously close to outright cosplay if it isn’t that already.
08 ABHORA (last week: 6. Challenge placement: Bottom 2)
Could I be persuaded that her peaks were higher than Melissa’s? Sure. But as with week one, Abhora’s unhealthy mental state and unbridled creativity left her with a conceptually striking angle on the challenge that ultimately didn't go anywhere. Using an angel as an example of cosmic horror is a potentially rich choice, but her outfit became less interesting as she removed her headpiece and chains. Thematically integral to the performance, sure, but is it fashion? She would be in an ideal place for a redemptive arc siimilar to the one she ... facilitated in season 2 if she hadn’t boiled over at her castmates. One wonders how long she’s got left.
GRANDMOTHER BITCH!!!!
09 KENDRA ONIXXX (last week: 08. Challenge placement: Eliminated)
Had her competitors been allowed to vote for who went home, I’m sure Kendra would have lived to fight another week. But as fun as Kendra’s floorshow was, her version of a spoiled, rich-bitch space girl was handily the worst look of the night, lacking the creativity in conception and execution demonstrated by the other queens. Hard to really argue the Boulets’ made a bad call, but she will definitely be missed.
P.S. A Quip to Wrap Up
She definitely mistook sci-fi horror for sci-fi whore.