The first footage of Stop! That! Train! that I saw was a visual gag where train stewardess DeeDee (Jujubee, RuPaul’s Drag Race season 2, All Stars season 1 and 5, UK vs the World series 1) directs a passenger to their seat, saying, “You’re sitting next to the beautiful redhead over there.
The camera cuts to a red-headed rag doll buckled up in her seat.
What follows is a full musical routine to inform the passengers about safety instructions for the train (à la early-mid ‘00s Virgin America Airlines). All the while, we are introduced to characters played by a barrage of RuPaul’s Drag Race alums. In addition to DeeDee, the roster of train stewardesses includes Tess (Ginger Minj, Drag Race season 7, All Stars season 2, 6, and winner of season 10), Amber (Brook Lynn Hytes Drag Race season 11, Canada’s Drag Race host), Ayshleiygh (Symone, Drag Race season 13 winner), and Ali (Marcia Marcia Marcia aka Marty Lauter, Drag Race season 15). The Adam Shankman-directed comedy also features appearances from Latrice Royale (Drag Race season 4, All Stars season 1 and 4), Monét X Change (Drag Race season 10 Miss Congeniality, All Stars season 4 winner) Angeria Paris VanMicheals (Drag Race season 14, All Stars season 9), Drag Race judge and former member of iconic pop trio Seduction Michelle Visage, and, of course, mother herself, RuPaul Charles as President Judy Gagwell.
RuPaul is brilliant for launching this cinematic universe. With 18 seasons of Drag Race in the books, the self-proclaimed “supermodel of the world” has an army of drag queens in her corner (most of the time). Stop! That! Train! is a benchmark moment in Drag Race herstory and adds to its Hollywood lore. It’s a film that expands the scope of the Drag Race world in hopes of spreading more camp, queerness, and cuntiness beyond the main stage of RuPaul’s Emmy-winning franchise. In other words, it aims to make the world a gayer place with a capital “YOU BETTER WERK!
In the spirit of films like Airplane!, Top Secret!, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka!, The Naked Gun, and other skewered cinema, Stop! That! Train! brings the disaster movie parody to a new level of enlightened absurdity and celebratory queerness. Like Airplane!, Stop! That! Train! also uses an exclamation point in its title. And just like the 1980 classic, the movie is a rapid-fire machine of jokes and visual gags. It also sticks to the tradition of planting random and hilarious cameos of a pu pu platter of enjoyable actors, comedians, and icons like Sarah Michelle Gellar. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Simply Irresistible legend stars as herself in a running bit where no one on the train knows who the hell she is.
The rogues gallery of cameos also includes Nicole Richie, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Matt Rogers, Rachel Bloom, Joel McHale, Guy Branum, Natasha Leggero, Raven-Symoné, Missi Pyle, Chris Parnell, Mayan Lopez, Drew Droege, Daniel Franzese, Riki Lindhome, June Diane Raphael, Paul Scheer, Jerry O’Connell, Evan Mulrooney, Jai Rodriguez, Nicole Sullivan, Lissa Rinna, and last but CERTAINLY not least, Charo. Many of whom were at one time or another a guest judge on Drag Race.
If you are a fan of Drag Race, you’ll fully bask in the enlightening stupidity of Stop! That! Train! More importantly, the movie will introduce the Drag Race world to a new audience and influence a new vanguard of drag queens to rise up and prove all those conservatives right: the queers are here to take over the world.
In addition to being a modern camp classic in the making, Stop! That! Train! is part of a legacy of film parodies that humbles Hollywood. They are movies that say, “We work in the business of make-believe. Why wouldn’t we do some intentionally stupid shit?” In a time when the world is a turd bubble of festering garbage, a little lampooning and unseriousness are needed to combat feelings of hopelessness — or at least make us forget about them for a minute.
Stop! That! Train! isn’t the only parody of its kind out in the wild. There’s a small resurgence of the genre bubbling up amidst the awards season bait and tentpole blockbusters. In 2025, a reboot of the classic spoof The Naked Gun came back into our lives with actors Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson and Lonely Island maestro Akiva Schaffer in the director’s chair.
More recently, the Wayans family brought the beloved Scary Movie franchise back into the fold, introducing a whole new generation to their brand of humor and teaching folks that it is okay to laugh at inappropriate jokes.
In 2025, the late, great Rob Reiner released a follow-up to the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. In the same year, Bleecker Street released a send-up of the dramatic series of the Downton Abby ilk titled Fackham Hall (reminiscent of the Comedy Central series Another Period).
The parody is even hitting the indie movie scene with movies like Maddie’s Secret, written, directed, and starring John Early (Opening in NY on June 19; LA on June 26). Marking his feature directorial debut, Early follows a path created by the subversive king of parody, John Waters, telling the story about an influencer with an eating disorder in the style of the exquisite 1986 made-for-TV film Kate’s Secret starring the inimitable Meredith Baxter Birney. Maddie’s Secret isn’t necessarily skewering the serious subject of bulimia; instead, it is celebrating the dramatic and enjoyable interpretation of a movie like Kate’s Secret.
One of the most popular spoofs of all time, Spaceballs, will see its return in 2027. The sequel to the space opera parody will be celebrating its 40th anniversary and will have Mel Brooks, Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman, George Wyner, and Daphne Zuniga reprising their roles from the 1984 original. (RIP John Candy)
Regarding this return of the absurdist parody, Jon Glickman, CEO of Miramax, the company behind Paramount’s Scary Movie, recently told The Hollywood Reporter: “Starting with the Marx brothers and working your way upwards, there’s always insane, anarchic comedies during tough periods in history. He mentions how Brooks’s films provided a comedic salve during the Vietnam War.
“People want to be able to laugh together at the same stuff. It’s very meaningful at this moment to have this opportunity.”
Stop! That! Train! isn’t exactly an awards season film. In a perfect world, it would be a frontrunner for the Oscar for Best Achievement in Parody in Film. Awards season bait it is not, but it is one helluva a stupid time that provides laughs and the serious unseriousness we need. If we didn’t have this kind of stupidity in our lives, we’d just be left with a cluttering of IP that has been carbon-copied to death.
