When an upstart drag queen (Lars Berge) makes her onstage debut at nightclub Cherry Pop, she faces hostility from the more seasoned queens, and is thrust into the limelight when headline act Lady Zaza (Tempest DuJour) refuses to perform.
Cherry Pop is vastly superior to either of the Hurricane Bianca films, with Nick Landa’s excellent script peppered with jokes which really werk, and a self-contained premise that doesn’t stretch its limited budget to breaking point. It features great performances from the whole cast, including RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni Tempest DuJour, Detox, Latrice Royale and Mayhem Miller, some of whom have been less than excellent in other things, suggesting skilled direction from Assaad Yacoub.
The film features a lipsync performance from each queen, but ironically for a film starring professional drag queens, this side of the film really drags. In the absence of budget they lipsync to admittedly funny original compositions, but for some reason this is mostly while standing still behind a microphone.
Given lipsyncing is the one thing all American drag queens can do par excellence, anything less than a jump and split and they might as well sashay away. But Cherry Pop is still an entertaining watch and for that it deserves condragulations.
