Girls Will Be Girls starts out with a kitschy Wonder Woman-esque opening title sequence, alerting the audience that they are going to be in for a hoot, if not a holler. Campy is the appropriate word to describe this wickedly funny comedy, which focuses on the lives of three different women — all portrayed by drag queens. Usually movies about drag queens are in the vein of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, or To Wong Foo — rife with the predictable “boys as girls” trappings. But these girls buck this trend, and are completely convincing as the downtrodden souls they portray for both laughs and pathos. They seem like bastard — I mean bitchy — children from The House That John Waters Built.

Take a dash of All About Eve, a pinch of Valley of the Dolls, set the blender to mince, and you have yourself a very bitter — perfect concoction. This movie must have been filmed in 3-B, because it’s all about bitchiness, backstabbing and barbs. The movie’s strength lies both in the lightning rapidity of its snappy repartee and arcane pop culture references. The movie is steeped in references from television shows fallen by the wayside, like the Don Rickles mid-’70s comedy, “CPO Sharkey” (Anyone? Anyone? Am I the only one that remembers this show?), or the more audience-friendly “Facts of Life Goes To Europe” television movie and are used to full effect to highlight the main character’s fall from Hollywood hierarchy.

The movies centers on Evie Harris (Jack Potnick), a z grade actress who’s more of a never was than a has-been. She’s completely deluded as to her place in the Hollywood food chain — having hobnobbed with the likes of Rip Taylor in the ’70s, and having her career peak with star turns on “Battlestar Galactica” and the short-lived “Bewitched” spin-off, “Tabitha.” Evie is all about keeping up appearances; her house is a garish shrine to her accomplishments and is still resplendent in its ’70s glory (including orange Brady Bunch Formica). Her beauty regimen in the morning consists of popping in her glass eye and false teeth, then topping it all off with a wig that could have been one of Phyllis Diller’s tamer castoffs. Evie is hungry for a comeback; she’ll do anything short of porn to reclaim her long-lost “stardom.” But, as one character points out, if Evie were to do porn it would be better described as a horror movie. She always has her bottle at the ready, trying desperately to bridge the gap between reality and yesterday. Her hunky son, Stevie, feels that she was an unfit mother. This point is clearly illustrated when a potential love interest of Stevie’s is told in a not-so-roundabout manner that Stevie’s nickname might as well be Shrinky Dink in relation to his endowment. But Evie wants to bask in the spotlight, in the high-beamed glow that she had in her groundbreaking role in Asteroid. And she’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Coco Peru (Clinton Leupp) is Evie’s downtrodden roommate/maid/whipping girl, who feels that her time for happiness is very much in the past. Since she has no man who loves her and no children of her own, she goes through a succession of canine companions that meet with unfortunate endings. She longs for her dream man, Dr. Perfect, who performed two abortions on her long ago, but she’s willing to settle for the doctor who drugs and rapes her.

Varla Jean Merman (Jeffrey Robinson) is a plus-size gal who has a penchant for gargling with Easy Cheese and dreams of being discovered at Schwab’s Department Store, like Tina (not Lana) Turner. Her “look” is more than a little reminiscent of John Lithgow’s transgender former linebacker from The World According To Garp, only with a makeover. She moves into Evie’s home and it just so happens that she’s the daughter of Evie’s biggest competition from back in the day. Varla Jean is so seemingly naïve that she believes the promises of a “producer” who is nothing more than a low-grade pimp with highly offensive body odor. When she starts winning roles, it really gets under Evie’s botoxed skin, which sets the stage for Evie to launch her comeback vehicle, an info special — part infomercial and part variety special — aptly titled, All About Evie.

For all intents and purposes, Girls Will Be Girls plays out like a cautionary tale with caustic dialogue. But there is a deeper message at its heart. It’s about living in the moment, having no regrets, and making sure to always have the perfect snappy retort.