Few broad comedies are as agreeably unfunny as Psycho Beach Party, Charles Busch's loving but hilarity-free spoof of '60s beach movies and '80s slasher films. The film's worst flaw was that it spoofed genres only a gentle nudge away from self-parody to begin with, a problem that also afflicts Busch's screenwriting follow-up Die, Mommie, Die. Trading one set of goofy genre conventions for another, the film satirizes '50s melodramas, convoluted whodunits, and '60s show-biz sleazefests like Valley Of The Dolls, failing miserably where Russ Meyer's transcendently trashy Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls excelled. Once again adapting his own stage play, Busch also stars in drag as a boozy, promiscuous has-been locked in an unhappy marriage with Philip Baker Hall, a producer of earnest message movies whose films have fallen out of favor with radicalized, turned-on audiences. When not romping about semi-incestuously with her flamboyant son, Busch consorts with Jason Priestley, a sexually voracious playboy with designs on Busch's dim-witted son and sullen, spiteful daughter Natasha Lyonne. The discord brewing within the family erupts with the murder of Hall, followed by the killing of the family maid. Mean-spirited and stagy where Psycho Beach Party was cinematic and charming, Die, Mommie, Die recycles gags from Busch's screenwriting debut–from transparently phony rear projection to a character's crippling constipation–and the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty hard. While the cast of Psycho Beach Party looked like it was having a ball, it's hard to feel anything but pity when Hall crawls around on his hands and knees after being slipped a tainted suppository. A repeat offender of crimes against camp, Busch steadfastly refuses to learn from his mistakes.