Shakespearean Raves

Rave Macbeth

A Midsummer Night’s Rave

Come hither, and no need to dither, my poetic readers. If you’re still feeling slightly spaced out from last week’s sampling of stoner cinema, you’ll be happy to learn that this week we’ll be discussing a more refined subject, an antiquated auteur who crafted timeless tales full of humor and heartbreak and homoeroticism that forever shaped the way stories are told: William Shakespeare. There are a myriad of filmic adaptations of Shakespeare’s works—some devoted to historical and textual accuracy and others reveling in the ability to subvert the standard structure—so it’s only natural that I have covered a Shakespeare story‍ ‍or‍ ‍two, and perhaps even more that I’ve neglected to connect to Shakespeare, because the homage paid was subtle enough and his influence is just that ubiquitous in pop culture. As someone who attended school(s), I had Shakespeare’s greatest hits shoved down my throat, connecting to virtually none of it, struggling to understand the messaging, let alone the confusing rhythm of iambic pentameter when assigned to create our own soliloquies in class. The light at the end of this tunnel was watching the cool, at-times edgy film adaptations of Shakespeare, that only the cool teachers allowed as a treat upon scanning and analyzing every inch of the dense text. We’ve all seen Leonardo DiCaprio’s icy blue eyes weep in Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet, and if you’re lucky you’ve experienced Amanda Bynes’ comedic masterclass in the Twelfth Night-inspired film She’s the Man, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of other cinematic, Shakespearean adaptations. One of the more unique takes on the the Shakespeare Cinematic Universe comes from tonight’s two films, which both had the idea to take famous stories by the iconic Bard and set them inside of a rave. It’s fascinating enough that one filmmaker decided to set a Shakespearean play inside of a chaotic, colorful community of ravers, but the fact that two, separate filmmakers had this same idea, is absolutely absurd. They are part of a cinematic phenomenon referred to as “Twin Films”, where two movies with the same or similar plots are produced and released within a (close) proximity of time by two entirely different creators. (Which may or may not be explored in the future on this blog…) I can only assume, because there is very, very little written about either of tonight’s selections, that these films were designed to follow the energetic style, youthful freedom, and (in theory) success of Romeo + Juliet, which firmly grabbed a hold of the cultural consciousness, and truthfully, even in 2026, still hasn’t let go. That was not, in reality, the result of these two bold films, but I am genuinely intrigued and impressed by their (kinda) creative efforts. Warning: tonight’s double feature includes heavy strobe, loud music, and Michael Rosenbaum with hair.

Up first is a film that didn’t even try to create a clever take on its title, a film that is as underground as its setting, because it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page: this is Klaus Knoesel’s 2001 film titled Rave Macbeth. A weirdly ambient, oddly creepy laser light show of credits opens up Rave Macbeth, with the gloomy but electric aesthetic of Batman Beyond or The Matrix or any other neon-binary-code-infused retrofuturism that bled from the 90s to the early 2000s. A voiceover explains how this will be a story of rage, power, greed, and love, how witches and warlocks still exist, but can operate more covertly with new tricks and tools like pills and pulsating music. A cluster of young ravers exits their hotboxed car and head into the rave, led by Marcus (Michael Rosenbaum) and Troy (Jamie Elman), who seemingly work for the shady boss man who runs this strobe-soaked establishment, a man named Dean (Kirk Baltz.) Three ethereal club girlies appear in front of Marcus and inform him—or warn him—that he could be crowned King of the Rave, but Marcus just grabs his gal, Lidia (Nicki Aycox), and they begin dancing with Troy and his girlfriend, Helena (Marguerite Moreau.) But they are interrupted to go behind the velvet rope and meet with Dean the boss man, who cryptically invites Marcus and Troy to be his number 2s, despite a vague reference to a recent bad business deal wherein Marcus may or may not have killed someone. Dean explains some ground rules, hands them some weapons as gifts, welcomes them into his seedy underworld, and thanks them for their service, but Marcus remarks, “Honestly, I do what I do to rave. As long as I have that, I’m happy.” Those famous last words are followed by Dean’s request that his two new henchmen dispense some new product for him—a strong form of ecstasy that he wishes to record the effects of. Naturally, they give the pills to their girlfriends to sample, which doesn’t exactly produce the usual, fun, rave-y results. Marcus and Troy try to balance partying and work, pleasure and principals in this environment full of glowsticks and booming music and costumed people on stilts, and fairly quickly they lose control. Lidia in particular is hypnotized by the ecstasy, unknowingly under the spell of Hecate’s witches, who whisper that behind every good man is a great woman. She becomes seduced by the idea of power, of the rave being under the control of Marcus, and by extension, her. The only thing standing in their way are their besties, Troy and Helena, who will be dealt with more gruesomely and brutally than you’d expect for such an otherwise campy movie. Rave Macbeth was insanely constructed, oddly-paced, somehow both compelling yet meandering, gritty yet corny. I’m not sure which was funnier: the bad acting or the bad dancing, but all of it held my attention and kept me guessing—though I technically know the way Macbeth goes, or is supposed to go. The hypnotic, melodic, monotonous music vibrating throughout the film was more intelligible than the dialogue—a fact that Michael Rosenbaum discussed on his podcast, and explained how most of the audio had to be completely re-dubbed in ADR. (This is also the only fact I was able to dig up about this movie, and I can just tell there is a lot more tea to spill...) By the end of this psychedelic spectacle, there are multiple murders on the dancefloor, and while this rendition of Macbeth is not written in the original King James English, this film is just as confounding as the iambic pentameter we were all once forced to translate. Though I’m often charmed by the low budget quality of certain films—I could spot a boom mic in last week’s viewing of Bongwater, for example—I felt like Rave Macbeth might’ve actually been more of a success if it had been afforded a bigger budget, a coherent interpreter, and a director who understood that filming at an actual rave may produce unusable dialogue and perpetually-sweaty performers.

It does make some sense that a story as cursed as Macbeth would have such messy interpretations (they can’t all be the “Macbeth in Space” featured on Jimmy Neutron), but as chaotic as this story is, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is somehow even more bizarre and frenetic—but, in my opinion, actually translates to a rave environment. Gil Cates Jr.’s 2002 film A Midsummer Night’s Rave introduces us to a quirky group of club kids, all played by actors whom you’d likely recognize but are unlikely to know the name of, each one representing a different kooky character from Shakespeare’s play, with the names only slightly modernized. Lysander became “Zander” (played by Andrew Keegan, in yet another Shakespeare setting), Helena became “Elena” (Lauren German), Demetrius became “Damon” (Corey Pearson), Hermia became “Mia” (Sunny Mabrey [whom I, personally, know from Vine]), Oberon became “O.B. John” (Jason Carter), Nick Bottom simply became “Nick” (Chad Lindberg), Titania became “Britt” (Nichole Hiltz), but Puck remains “Puck” (Glen Badyna) for some reason. The film also stars several other familiar faces that never quite became household names like Jason London, Chris Owen, Will McCormack, Keri Lynn Pratt, Matt Czuchry, and Sean Whalen—it was a real who’s-who of “…who’s that again?” And, most puzzlingly of all, this movie features the quickest, most blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from Carrie Fisher, who plays the debutante mother of the richie rich Mia. We mostly follow Zander, a cute, young rave boy who accidentally becomes embroiled in some dangerous business when he borrows the jacket of his roommate, Stosh (London), a jacket with a shocking amount of cash hidden inside. Thank god there’s also a lack of iambic pentameter here as well, only utterances of “dude” and “man” and “off the hook” and “really had it going on” as we meet this cast of characters, who are all trying to make it to a mysterious and mythic rave, way out in the woods. Zander likes Mia, who is dating Damon, who used to date Elena, who now has a thing for Zander, whom Mia also secretly likes but is too rich and unaware to realize his mutual desire. Puck, dressed in a colorful fairy costume, is the prince of the party favors, as the mystical O.B. John directs him to give certain potions to certain people in order to make the right people do the right things. It’s an unserious, operatic mess of exasperated people, high off their tits, professing their love for one another, miscommunicating and misunderstanding each other. Mix that in with a little casual misogyny and homophobia and it becomes harder and harder to discern where the Shakespeare-talk ended and the early 2000s sensibilities began. Unlike Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is full of humor—not all of it cogent or funny—but when translated through this hazy, Y2K filter, it sort of worked! Its jovial, whimsical nature makes it far less bleak and serious than Rave Macbeth, which lent itself well to the rave setting, particularly when substances are consumed and relationships are jumbled and characters are already named “Snout”. I’m not much of a club kid, but I found the music in A Midsummer Night’s Rave to be more enjoyable as well, and this is to say nothing of the fuzzy, pastel, bubble-furniture-centric aesthetic which made me incredibly nostalgic. Everyone in this is cute and young and full of frantic, rave-appropriate energy, and made the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream more self-aware and far easier to understand. Randomly, the credits lasted like 10 minutes and included intermittent, unused footage, leading me to wonder if I had taken a potion and got caught in some never-ending loop, but it was mostly very fun for a movie split up into parts and posted on YouTube. I haven’t been out dancing in the clurb in awhile, and I think I’ve only been to one rave (Shirley’s Temple, shoutouts) but I’d take my worst, sweatiest, not-fun-drunkest night of clubbing over reading Shakespeare any day, sorry, Willy. I may consume a lot of art and books and movies, but that doesn’t mean I’ve evolved into a person who can enjoy Shakespeare in its raw, untouched form. Sometimes you need a little turn-of-the-century, nonsensical nightlife to make these stories interesting, so thank god these goofy movies exist. I’m not sure if either one of these particular films are appropriate to show a middle school class, per se, but I do think a middle schooler with a penchant for pirating films (which is who I was, at least) would get a real kick out of these on their own. Thanks for reading along and experiencing the ecstasy of non-boring Shakespeare with me, dear reader. Movies are the east and you are the sun and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow I will watch more movies, that is a promise. Ciao for now!