"Multiple Maniacs" is my first John Waters' underground film and I wasn't sure what to expect. I have read extensively about these films' gleeful willingness to offend, the dirt cheap quality of his productions, the way his movies used real locations and comprised the screen with performers with limited acting skill. The reputation was to me quite intact as "Multiple Maniacs" follows the descriptions I had read about to a tee. Waters doesn't strive to shoot his movie extravagantly and he must have directed his movies with little rehearsal or preparation as his actors/actresses stumble/fumble over their lines(and look to, I'm guessing, cue cards of dialogue they might forget off screen)quite a bit. But, Waters' films seem to thrive on the ugly quality of all I have mentioned above, in particular, the subject matter and unpolished narrative(what little there is).
The movie focuses on Lady Divine, her boyfriend Mr. David, and other deviants who embrace a sleazy lifestyle of habitual sex, drugs, and murder. Divine is the star attraction of a "carnival of freaks" show where those involved in the act lure curious suburbanites, with the customers not knowing they are bait to be fleeced by them. Mr. David, who has become fed up with Divine and her increasing hostility(and penchant for impulsive violent outbursts), has become romantically linked with Bonnie(Mary Vivian Pearce), a girl who desperately wants to become part of the Cavalcade Pervert. As Divine plans to murder David, he and Bonnie prepare to gun her down when she arrives home!
Certainly memorable is the image of an overweight transvestite Divine stabbing her former lover over and over with a butcher knife, pulling organs from his torso, complete gratification for her sadistic deeds on her face. Oh, and how she gets so worked up she starts not only fondling his guts and heart, but chewing away on them without restraint! The way she gets caught up in her ecstasy of violence, plunging the knife in multiple times, foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal, it's all so surreal and hilarious. There's this really warped scene where Waters, in his Herscell Gordon Lewis moment, shoots a crime scene, Divine's grisly handiwork, repeatedly from several angles, or back and forth, his camera dwelling on what had just transpired. Other completely bizarre scenes include Divine being assaulted by a giant lobster(!), a lingering close-up of Divine(..with smudged make-up, eyes crazed, wig disheveled) venting mania, and Divine walking out into the street (after finding her dead daughter, wearing nothing more than a robe and undergarments!) in a daze of hysteria, utterly unstable. Waters just follows Divine as she goes on a rampage, jerking a woman and her groceries from a station wagon(stealing it!), going ballistic with a sledgehammer on this Plymouth which contained a smooching couple, charging toward city folk like a rhino as they form a frightened herd running for dear life, and the climax where National Guardsman reign her in for extermination. MM also has a lengthly portrait on Jesus Christ with Divine quoting scripture from the bible(I kid you not!)as he is being led to the crucifix(this as Mink Stole, with an unhealthy appetite for inducing sexual relations in churches, also using them as places to bed herself, is engaged in a lesbian tryst with Divine, Waters juxtaposing these different scenarios!)and Divine's always naked daughter Cookie shacking up with a hairy chested man she had just met while mama carries on a conversation with them while they are in bed! The essence of perversion, MM is quite a starting place for me in regards to understanding Waters' style and content..now I know what I'm ultimately in for. In Waters' trashy screenplay, littered with foul, profane exchanges between the principles, there's mention of the Tate murder, which was hot off the press, insinuating Mr. David's involvement and how Divine is using this as blackmail! I'm simply amazed at Divine's eagerness to go wherever Waters so desired to shock an audience.
The movie focuses on Lady Divine, her boyfriend Mr. David, and other deviants who embrace a sleazy lifestyle of habitual sex, drugs, and murder. Divine is the star attraction of a "carnival of freaks" show where those involved in the act lure curious suburbanites, with the customers not knowing they are bait to be fleeced by them. Mr. David, who has become fed up with Divine and her increasing hostility(and penchant for impulsive violent outbursts), has become romantically linked with Bonnie(Mary Vivian Pearce), a girl who desperately wants to become part of the Cavalcade Pervert. As Divine plans to murder David, he and Bonnie prepare to gun her down when she arrives home!
Certainly memorable is the image of an overweight transvestite Divine stabbing her former lover over and over with a butcher knife, pulling organs from his torso, complete gratification for her sadistic deeds on her face. Oh, and how she gets so worked up she starts not only fondling his guts and heart, but chewing away on them without restraint! The way she gets caught up in her ecstasy of violence, plunging the knife in multiple times, foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal, it's all so surreal and hilarious. There's this really warped scene where Waters, in his Herscell Gordon Lewis moment, shoots a crime scene, Divine's grisly handiwork, repeatedly from several angles, or back and forth, his camera dwelling on what had just transpired. Other completely bizarre scenes include Divine being assaulted by a giant lobster(!), a lingering close-up of Divine(..with smudged make-up, eyes crazed, wig disheveled) venting mania, and Divine walking out into the street (after finding her dead daughter, wearing nothing more than a robe and undergarments!) in a daze of hysteria, utterly unstable. Waters just follows Divine as she goes on a rampage, jerking a woman and her groceries from a station wagon(stealing it!), going ballistic with a sledgehammer on this Plymouth which contained a smooching couple, charging toward city folk like a rhino as they form a frightened herd running for dear life, and the climax where National Guardsman reign her in for extermination. MM also has a lengthly portrait on Jesus Christ with Divine quoting scripture from the bible(I kid you not!)as he is being led to the crucifix(this as Mink Stole, with an unhealthy appetite for inducing sexual relations in churches, also using them as places to bed herself, is engaged in a lesbian tryst with Divine, Waters juxtaposing these different scenarios!)and Divine's always naked daughter Cookie shacking up with a hairy chested man she had just met while mama carries on a conversation with them while they are in bed! The essence of perversion, MM is quite a starting place for me in regards to understanding Waters' style and content..now I know what I'm ultimately in for. In Waters' trashy screenplay, littered with foul, profane exchanges between the principles, there's mention of the Tate murder, which was hot off the press, insinuating Mr. David's involvement and how Divine is using this as blackmail! I'm simply amazed at Divine's eagerness to go wherever Waters so desired to shock an audience.