Psychobilly Monsters: The Cramps’ Threefold Relationship with Horror Cinema

An intentionally amateurish garage band. Soulmates side by side, feeding off of each other’s dark, provocative energy. A sonorously tremorous voice layered over a minor-toned psychobilly melody. Macabre and esoterically sexual lyrics about the monsters under our beds, the monsters in society, and the monsters in ourselves. A campy, Halloweenish image. Animal print, dripping font, skulls and fangs, sadomasochistic lace and leather, and all.

The Cramps, a punk rock band formed in 1976, are not just inspired by horror culture — cinema, literature, music, etc.; they are horror culture. Lead singer Lux Interior, his soulmate and lead guitarist Poison Ivy, and other impermanent members reign over all that is horror, the month of October, and Halloween. The Cramps’ songs appear on nearly every Halloween hit compilation album alongside “This is Halloween,” “Monster Mash,” “Ghostbusters,” etc. However, The Cramps have a purpose that is deeper than a feature on Kidz Bop Halloween Hits! (2012). The Cramps draw from the aesthetic and the ideology of horror culture, specifically horror cinema, to make music that “isn’t just the soundtrack to a horror movie,” says rock critic Paul Rambali, but that “is a horror movie.”

The Cramps’ relationship with horror cinema is threefold. In one sense, The Cramps draw inspiration from the aesthetic and the ideas of older kitschy B-horror movies, which typically play out as follows: vampires, werewolves, zombies, or monsters terrorizing small towns of ignorant humans until all are dead. They are usually splattered with as much blood and gore as possible, expectedly, and littered with as much trash and junk as possible. Arguably, trash and junk — physical trash and junk as well as a trashy/junky production — are what give these B-horrors their character.

In a 1997 interview, Lux tells Sal Canzonieri that The Cramps’ lyrical and artistic inspirations are “mainly horror movies” and “old horror comics of the fifties.” Lux and Ivy collect endless numbers of horror movies and comics, pulling lines from the scripts and the pages for their lyrics. Think of the songs “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” “Zombie Dance,” “Goo Goo Muck,” and “Human Fly.” The Cramps also model their album covers after horror comic book covers. With its black and white, thickly-outlined, cartoonish depictions of the band and Halloween staples like skulls, knives, and candles, the album cover for Off The Bone (1983) looks like it comes straight off of a comic stand. To make it more obvious, the album Stay Sick! (1989) is an ode to Ghoulardi, a sixties horror host. Everything that is The Cramps is handpicked from a pile of horror VHSes and comics.

In a 1981 interview, Lux, Ivy, guitarist Kid Congo, and drummer Nick Knox tell Paul Rambali about their favorite movies. Almost all of them are old fifties, sixties, and seventies slashers and thrillers. One of their favorites is Charles Kaufman’s 1980 slasher Mother’s Day, in which two sons find young women for their mother to brutally murder. It is a favorite, not because it is a work of art, but quite the opposite. “There was a real epidemic of these horror movies just made by amateurs,” says Ivy. “None of them ever gets a feature run. They get shown in bills of three movies and it only costs two dollars to get in.” It is a favorite because it is cheap in production, unoriginal in thought, and most likely forgotten in the horror cinematic world. Men with crooked teeth covered in dirt and dressed in junk slashing and assaulting young women who were warned to stay away: Mother’s Day is as sick, and as predictable, as possible. The Cramps use the amateurish production, trashy and gory aesthetic, and clichéd themes of the Oedipus complex and the loss of innocence as material for their music. That is to say, they use their aesthetic and thematic obsession with the genre of schlock horror — think Sleepaway Camp (1983), Chopping Mall (1986), and Night of the Creeps (1986) — to drive their image and sound. The lyrics “when the sun goes down, and the moon comes up/I turn into a teenage goo goo muck/I cruise through the city and I roam the street/Looking for something that is nice to eat,” with their double entendre of a “blood-sucking” teenage vampire, scream schlock horror.

Other favorites include Ship of Zombies (1972), an hour and a half of zombies chasing girls in bikinis, Blood Feast (1963), about human sacrifice, and Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), about vengeful Civil War ghosts, as well as early sixties West German horror movies. Without a doubt, Ship of Zombies inspired the song “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns.” However, the worst of all (actually known as one of the worst of all time), meaning the best of all, is The Creeping Terror (1964). A googly-eyed monster from space, made out of a rug, preys on girls in bikinis and heels, teenagers making out in cars, and record hops, killing them slowly but brutally. And, “like all good B movies,” says Lux, “it just kinda peters out.” The Cramps most definitely draw inspiration from The Creeping Terror, specifically the record hop scene, to write songs like “Ultra Twist.” The music video says it all. The Cramps capitalize on not only the kitsch of The Creeping Terror, but also the fashion, stealing the trends of beehive hair, lurex, and stilettos. While one of Lux’s favorite looks are the lurex pants from The Creeping Terror, Ivy’s favorite look is Elizabeth’s gothic gown in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961).

With their repertoire of horror movies, The Cramps make their own, but through music. On the foundation of classic rockabilly chord progressions in garage punk style, they build entire horror scenes. The obvious ones: a pubescent werewolf, a zombie record hop, a hungry vampire, a human turned fly linked to Kurt Neumann’s 1958 film The Fly, an eyeball in a martini and on a plate of linguini, the devil, the list goes on. The Cramps flesh out the most integral elements of horror schlock — textbook evil creatures, kitsch, trash, junk, sex — in all their songs, especially in “Elvis Fucking Christ,” “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns,” “Garbageman,” “Don’t Eat Stuff Off The Sidewalk,” “Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?,” “Rockin’ Bones,”  and “Sinners.”

However, The Cramps have more to give than a soundtrack to a costume party or to a trick or treat candy trade. They sing the way they sing, write the way they write, and dress the way they dress, because they are fascinated by horror culture, but also because they are interested in the horrors of real life: societal norms, political oppression, sexual repression, poverty, growing up in the suburban Midwest, body image, nihilism in the face of the cosmos, etc. A quintessential example is “The Natives Are Restless,” a possible reference to a 1868 parliamentary statement about aboriginals and to a common microaggression. The lyrics “yeah, they’re doin’ a dance no one’s ever seen/and they’re barbecuin’ real human beans” seem to address the real-life horror of discrimination against indigenous people, and the lyrics “but in my neighborhood, there’s somethin’ you should know/when the drum beat starts, it’s time to go” seem to get at the issue of racism in our streets. The Cramps’ music, lyrics, and image are masked by horror cinema ideology and aesthetic to unmask the horrors of real life.

In addition to the horrors of real life, The Cramps are interested in what it means to like horror movies. “When I see an old horror movie,” Lux tells Peter Gilstrap in a 1995 interview, “it really strikes a chord in me, and it’s because I’m connected to the same thing that the person who wrote the movie is connected to.” That is to say, he — the watcher — connects to the horror writer because both are familiar with the “Jungian archetypes,” which come from the collective unconscious, that the writer includes in the movie, like furry monsters, bald, bug-eyed aliens, U.F.O.s, robots, etc. A horror writer bases his/her work on some emotion/feeling/experience; the watcher likes the horror movie because it evokes that same emotion/feeling/experience. That is because that emotion/feeling/experience has its roots in the collective unconscious. Lux’s interest in Jungian archetypes reveals The Cramps’ deeper meaning. The Cramps draw from older kitschy B-horror movies not only to comment on the horrors of real life, but also to learn about how the mind and the universe works.

Yes, play The Cramps at your costume party or your trick or treat candy trade. But also listen to them year round, because they are getting at something bigger and better than your favorite B-horror. They are questioning reality and, even further, protesting.

Written by Sophie Turovsky