It seems like just a few weeks ago we were heralding the Washington Psychotronic Film Society‘s return to the District. Wait, that actually was just a few weeks ago. After a scant six week run at The Meeting Place downtown, it seems that the film society has been given the boot by the bar.
WPFS posted an understandably miffed missive online regarding their ouster:
The people at the bar complained to the owner and he was afraid that his regulars were going to boycott his club. There was one church lady who approached me one night and said, “You the movie man? Last week ya’ll showed an R rated movie. I mean a real R rated movie.” and then she shook her head. She may have been talking about the scene from the movie: ‘Isle of the Damned’ where the cannibals have their way anally with the villain…The owner told me, “My regulars are afraid of movie night”…We’d only been there for a month and a half and the WPFS crew outnumbered the bar regulars 20 to 7. For our Russ Meyer appreciation night, there was standing room only…The WPFS has always considered itself a cash cow – the club keeps all the profits from the tables that we fill, we keep only the donations. So it’s always been a win/win situation for the club. I don’t see the logic in our dismissal.
Of course, it’s The Meeting Place’s prerogative to run their business as they see fit, but it’s a shame that the decision had to come at WPFS’ expense, since they were enjoying some of their best attended films in years now that they were so readily accessible to Metro and to larger numbers of people downtown. Also, we have to question the judgement of the complainers. After all, the anal rape in Isle of the Damned is of the villain, not of the good guys; this sends a wholly appropriate message that wrongdoers will be punished, a sentiment we figure the moral majority can really get behind.
Be that as it may, WPFS is looking for a new home, and wants your suggestions! If you know of a good divey bar whose regular patrons might be a little more accepting of cannibalistic islanders, radioactive monsters, nymphmaniacal nuns, or whatever other choice bits of camp cinema WPFS can dig out of the vaults, give them a shout. In the meantime, you have one more chance to get your trash on before the forced hiatus, tomorrow night at The Meeting Place, when they’ll screen MegaForce, a one-stop-shop for everything that is most horribly and wonderfully wrong about bad 80s sci-fi action flicks.
