Multiple Maniacs

Positively revolting!! A tasteless piece of low-budget garbage, with not one redeeming value. It's just too bad John Waters doesn't make them like this anymore. Not that he ever really did. Multiple Maniacs is a bit different from the other Waters trash classics of the 70's. A bit more bizarre, and unpolished, and just a tad more unrealistic. Multiple Maniacs mostly comes off as a rough draft for Waters next and most famous trash epic, Pink Flamingos. Multiple Maniacs is the first real example of what this John Waters guy was all about, rubbing you the wrong way. Meet the cavalcade of perversion. Posing as a traveling freak show, an odd gang of criminals, led by Diving rob and/or murder unsuspecting shock enthusiasts, just looking for a thrill. Divine is an irritable, outlandish hog of a woman just looking for a reason to off someone... anyone. Lately, that boyfriend of hers, Mr. David has been a real pain in the ass, and today, he just might get it, that is, if he doesn't get her first. As the would-be love birds plot on each other, and cheat on one another with their new girlfriends, we, the audience are subjected (treated) to vulgar atrocity after outrageous one-liner after obscene sex act. A delightful little movie indeed. We got all our Dreamland favorites, Cookie, Mink, Mary, David, Divine, and even our pal, Edith pays us a visit. Everyone brings their A games, A, of course standing for amateur, really, unpolished doesn't even begin to describe what's going on here, but out here in Exploitation Country, flaws such as screwed up lines should be expected and embraced, if you didn't know, then now you know. Multiple Maniacs was Waters' first film that wasn't silent, as well as his last black & white. For more colorful trash check out Female Trouble and Desperate Living. As unpolished and inept as it might be, this is one of the most mean-spirited, unflinching, and flat-out rebellious comedies I've seen, and I passionately recommend it every bit as much as Pink Flamingos, unless you're Catholic, in that case, never mind. 9/10

Lady Divine is the star attraction and the leader of a traveling freak show. As a finale, she robs the square patrons but this time around, she starts killing and taking hostages. In the chaos, she escapes to her daughter Cookie and her new Weather Underground boyfriend Steve. She gets raped. She's led by a child king to a religious figure.

This is true outsider art from John Waters. I love his outrageous attacks on the conventional. That's why I love the opening freak show. It's rather short, too short in fact. The plot turns into a muddle. I get dizzy with Waters panning back and forth in every conversation. He keeps zooming in and out. He's never been a great camera operator. He's trying too hard and not good at it. On the other hand, the movie never stops being fascinating. His wild characterization never allows the movie to be bland. It is a bloody mess. I'm not quite sure who the other characters are sometimes. This is simply weird. It is wondrously weird.

The films of John Waters aren't to all tastes, but if you like, say Pink Flamingos, then you'll love Multiple Maniacs.

Waters' film-making career can be divided roughly into four categories:

• unseen first works (Roman Candles, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Eat Your Makeup)

• early filthy works (Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble)

• more mainstream works (Polyester, Hairspray, Crybaby)

• later missing-the-mark works (Serial Mom, Pecker, Cecil B. Demented)

In my opinion, there's no question that his early filthy works are the best and that Multiple Maniacs is perhaps the best of the three (or at least tying with Pink Flamingos).

Some of the reviewers here criticize the film for being badly acted or low budget. That's missing the point. Waters' films were never meant to couple the acting of Olivier with Industrial Light and Magic special effects. These are low budget gems that deliver equal amounts of shock and laughter.

Multiple Maniacs is one of Waters most perfect films in terms of the dialogue. The continual arguing between Lady Divine and Mr. David (the wonderful and elegant David Lochary) is almost operatic. The rest of the characters (most from John Waters early ensemble, the Dreamlanders) is absolutely outstanding. Mink Stole and Mary Vivian Pearce are pin-point perfect and Edith Massey is a gem in her screen debut. The late, great and much-missed Cookie Mueller gives the best performance of her career as the free wheeling daughter of Divine.

A black and white treasure from John Waters early career. Brilliant dialogue, hilarious scenes and a bravura climax make Multiple Maniacs a cinematic masterpiece.

The key to understanding this, John Waters' most profound film, is a understanding of its Roman Catholic content and allusions. Divine's long interior monolog inside the church, essentially a long meditation on being different, the Way of the Cross, and the crucifixion scene are all keys to the film's message. Notice that the actors who play the Way of the Cross and crucifixion scenes are the same ones who played in the Carnival of Perversions which opens the movie. And who plays Christ? The heroin addict. Now Waters doesn't use these actors again just to save on budget. The meaning is clear: those people that you smug, suburban do-gooders rejected and made fun of are Christ and his followers. Remember that Christ didn't hang out with sanctimonious, middle class people, but rather with whores, fallen women, the sick, the rejected, the stigmatized, the sinners. Waters draws the parallels very clearly, but most people view the film in such a middle-class way that they can't see Divine and Waters' troupe of hippie- weirdos as allegorical Christ figures. The real giveaway to this interpretation is the actual text of St. Francis's late medieval Way of the Cross which Waters quotes verbatim in the film. And of course, did you ever think about the literal meaning of "divine." Poor, abused Divine's symbolic sacrifice at the claws of Lobstora is yet another variation of the Passion theme. A very literary film indeed.

I love the grainy, inky black and white look of this movie, the bad cuts and scratches and even all the jumps in sound. It's just so gorgeous and couldn't be duplicated today...just a strange feeling is captured here, amplified because it's populated with so many hedonistic weirdos and perverts. Of course, these perks only exist because Waters and his crew were completely inept in the technical ways of cinema, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Content wise...this has at least a flash or two of brilliance, which is impressive for a film that cost around "5000" bucks. The opening at the Cavalcade of Perversions is great ("She is an auto-erotica copraphrasiac and a gerontophiliac!"), but modern audiences might not know what to make out of all the dated cultural references (too much Manson/Tate stuff)...then there's an incredibly tedious and overlong delusion with Divine narrating her version of Christ. Even more time is padded with endless scenes of characters sitting and/or lying in bed talking (and often forgetting their lines), plus topless jitterbugging from Cookie Mueller, people riding around in cars and Mink Stole ("the religious whore") and Divine walking down the street.

Despite all that, the closing sequences (starting with Lobstra) make up for it and are just priceless. Best use of the song "God Bless America" right here folks! And the film is still completely unique and original 30+ years later, so you really have to admire it on that front as well.