There was a phase in the late 2000s when a group of my friends was slightly obsessed with a reality TV show called From G’s to Gents. The show’s logline says it all: 15 G’s are taken and placed in a posh mansion in an attempt to turn them into gentlemen.
It’s one of those “classic” shame spiral reality shows that are delightfully if laughably stupid in terms of premise and yet “somehow” ends up sucking you into the show’s highly produced and deeply weird contours.
We became particularly enamored with the entity who referred to himself as Riff Raff. Riff Raff, a.k.a. Horst Christian Simco, is “a Texas-born rapper and entertainer with a distinctive style,” via Google “knowledge graph” overview. Distinctive… to say the least. If the rap duo LMFAO had a child and raised him on Red Bull, Vodka, and overly lavish praise is another way to describe him.
Cut to 2012, when the movie called Spring Breakers became something of a sensation, in part based on James Franco’s standout role as Alien. Based on my experience with From G’s to Gents, it was crystal clear that Franco had based his performance on that of Riff Raff’s persona – and he nailed it.
Now, follow me along to 2020, when a movie called Zola was released and went on to make just over $5 million, roughly breaking even according to The Numbers. I completely missed out on Zola at the time, so let’s fast forward to 2026, whereupon the movie will be released on Netflix on July 10th.
Zola concerns the doings of a stripper “on a wild road trip to Florida.” If “wild road trip to Florida” rings some Spring Breakers bells for you, the trailer will turn those bells into glaring alarms – replete with rave-centric bleeps and drum machine effects.
From the MTV video vibes to the girls gone wild vibes, Zola looks very much to Spring Breakers as its spiritual forebear, with Colman Domingo perhaps standing in as a quietly unsettling version of Alien in this go-round.
There’s also a rather fascinating real-world background to Zola: it’s based on the mostly true story as originally tweeted by Aziah Wells – who went on to executive produce the movie – in 2015:
The saga got hashtagged #TheStory and trended worldwide. Missy Elliot, Keke Palmer, Solange Knowles joined the legions obsessing online. “Drama, humor, action, suspense, character development,” Ava DuVernay, the director of Selma, tweeted. “There’s so much untapped talent in the hood.” (“I’m not from the hood tho Ava,” Zola replied. “Ima suburban bitch. Still love you tho”).
Zola also looks like it might be a genuinely fun and wild ride, with Taylour Paige playing the titular character and Riley Keough, later a standout in Daisy Jones & The Six, as sidekick-in-arms Stefani. And then if that’s not enough, throw in a Nicholas Braun character that is wildly different than his Cousin Greg from Succession.
The trailer quotes Tonja Renee Stidhum from The Root heralding Zola as “a hilarious, crazy-ass ride. Get ready, y’all.”
I think all that’s left is uncover what kind of residuals Riff Raff is pulling down.