Rainbow Cult Expands to Offer More Than Movies

It started out as a COVID response, a backyard gathering of safe-distance human contact in a time of scant socialization. Post-pandemic, it grew into an interactive cinematic event with an LGBTQ+ focus. It invited film lovers of all communities — a purposefully inclusive and celebratory group — to experience cinematic awesomeness with the same joy and eager participation as the grand midnight-movie tradition of Rocky Horror Picture Show.

And now, Rainbow Cult is becoming a community unto itself.

Or such is the plan of its progenitor, Andy Scahill, who is also an assistant professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. The event was born out of Scahill’s research work through community engagement — one of the hallmarks of any good institution of higher learning, but especially for an urban campus such as CU Denver. “It’s part of my job as a professor to bring film, film appreciation, film conversations, to the world," says Scahill. "That’s part of our mission as academics: to work not just to raise the level of discussion in the classroom, but in the real world.”

Rainbow Cult was an idea that saw its first iteration at the Sie FilmCenter back in the summer of 2022, with the cult-favorite movie Troop Beverly Hills. The 1989 film starring Shelley Long had become an underground favorite not only for the GenX audiences that caught it on cable as well as in the theaters, but especially for lovers of campy film goodness, particularly in LGBTQ+ circles. “The films have a sort of currency in the gay community,” Scahill says.

“Film should be a communal experience,” Scahill said when we first interviewed him in September 2022. “During quarantine and COVID, we all got siloed, watching TV by ourselves.” One of the important differences between film and television, he says, is that “film is something you do together, something you do with strangers, often. You’re in the dark, and you’re gauging your reaction to something on screen against other people’s. And there’s something cathartic about laughing together. One of the things I love about cinema is that it engenders those sorts of experiences.”

The project went on to screen fourteen other movies throughout 2022 and 2023, and continues in 2024 starting with A Tribute to Sister Act, this time hosted at a larger venue — Meow Wolf’s Perplexiplex — on Sunday, February 4. "I am a Meow Wolf super fan," Scahill enthuses. "I've been to three of the four locations, and I think their brand embodies so much of what we're trying to do at Rainbow Cult, with celebrating creativity and playfulness and different ways of thinking. When I proposed The Fifth Element [the first show at Meow Wolf, last November], there's no place else I wanted to go. It's my dream venue."

Appropriately enough for a screening of Sister Act, Rainbow Cult has embraced religiosity in form, at least. There will be a pre-show "sermon" by Adams County Poet Laureate Kerrie Joy, greeters from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and several charitable beneficiaries from the proceeds, such as Black Pride Colorado/YouthSeen. "For me, Sister Act is about seemingly lost souls finding themselves," says Joy, "through music, community, and their audacity to be different."

And to be clear: Rainbow Cult still brands itself as a "cinematic sanctuary" for the LGBTQ+ community, including its allies. So the movies — as well as the communal love for them and what they provide — are still center stage. But Scahill wants Rainbow Cult to be more than just a film-screening event. "The project was always about joy," he says. "And it occurred to me that the idea of worship can take many forms. For queer people, a lot of us were excommunicated from a church or felt rejected by it. But church is really about coming together — shared joy. All the things we were already doing with Rainbow Cult."

Art to promote the event drew from the pop-culture-based queer iconography inspired by religious stained-glass windows. Scahill drafted such community artists as Alejandro Trejo and Phil Ray to create votive candles (available only at shows; other merch, including T-shirts, is available on the website) to celebrate the intersection of religion, film and sexual and gender identity.  One of these candles — a Rocky Horror spin-off depicting Dr. Frank-N-Furter ascending into a rainbow-lit flying saucer — was inspired by a memory from Scahill's childhood elementary school. "I got sent to detention because I told the nuns that [a stained-glass window] looked like Christ was going up in a UFO. It was in that detention I met my first girlfriend — a girl who'd grow up to be a very butch lesbian," he laughs.

But the connection between Rainbow Cult and a quasi-religious experience really formed in Scahill's mind when he was at a yoga studio, where he recalls thinking, "Why isn't this a church?" In terms of what a church should be, it hit all the marks: a sanctuary, a place of healing, a place of safety. "So it's about creating those safe spaces for queer people," he says.

The safe spaces Scahill is talking about will move far beyond the film focus he's established. Rainbow Cult has expanded its offerings to include things like self-defense trainings, weekly free yoga classes, a tabletop gaming group and a queer book club (currently reading The Velvet Rage for February). "The book club is interesting to me, since I used to work at a gay and lesbian bookstore," Scahill recalls. It was how he supported himself during his undergraduate studies in Columbus, Ohio. "It was the late ’90s, and the bookstore very much served as a community center. The bulletin board was where you found out what was happening in the city, and we had a meeting space in the back where groups could meet." A book club grew out of that space, and its members met at places that weren't necessarily queer-identified spaces. "That was part of the idea, to get queer people into other spaces in the community," Scahill explains. "To say, 'Hey, these are our spaces, too.'"

Scahill describes it all as creating a "third space for queer folks" that's not just at a bar and fueled by alcohol. Scahill himself quit drinking during the pandemic. "In terms of offerings for queer people that aren't bars, there's really not that much out there," he says. "I wanted to help fill that need, as well." To that end, he's partnered with organizations such as Sober Hangs, creating sobriety-friendly events.

To support all this expansion, Scahill has brought on board a whole staff for Rainbow Cult as it moves forward: Gary Adrian Randall in operations, Tori Toney in outreach and strategic partnerships, and Tiffany Brett in fundraising and sponsorships, to name just a few. The organization has applied for 501(c)(3) status and is also moving to a sponsorship model. (For more information on that, check out the sponsorship page on the Rainbow Cult website.)

It's not that Scahill is starting a religion, mind you. As the website announces, Rainbow Cult is "here to rethink and reclaim worship." But the idea of a fellowship, a congregation of like minds — that is the key to his vision, which he very much wants to share.

"We're asking people in the queer community what they want to see," Scahill says. "'What sort of resources, events and the like do you wish existed?'" It's all part of his work, he says, "to extend our love beyond the screen."

Rainbow Cult presents A Tribute to Sister Act on Sunday, February 4, at Meow Wolf's Perplexiplex, 1338 First Street. Tickets are $25. The next movie event will be Everything Everywhere All at Once on April 15 at Meow Wolf. For more information on Rainbow Cult's expanding offerings, see its website.