Multiple Maniacs (1970)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply A Masterpiece

Great Film overall

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

"Multiple Maniacs" follows Lady Divine's Cavalcade of Perversion, a wayward traveling group of sideshow freaks who have a penchant for the perverse, which includes murdering their audience members. I've always considered John Waters something of a less pretentious Andy Warhol, and this film-his second directorial feature-reiterates the sentiment in my mind. "Multiple Maniacs" is patent garbage, and I mean that in the most loving way possible. While watching it, it is obvious that Waters and his crew were fumbling their way through learning to make a movie. This is especially clear in the cinematography and performances; actors continually flub their lines, look into the camera, and chew the scenes apart-there is better acting in high school plays. At the center of it all is Divine, who has rightly attained a cult following of his own, playing his signature character, and his performance, though by no means stellar, is what will inevitably draw the audience in.For all the rough edges present, there are themes and ideas circulating throughout the film that are by turns bizarre and unique, and it has rightly earned a reputation for containing a particularly blasphemous montage. The last fifteen minutes ostensibly contain the film's most well-orchestrated moments, with Divine alone descending into madness and chasing civilians through the streets. I don't think anyone could classify "Multiple Maniacs" as a masterwork of filmmaking by any stretch of the imagination-but it does stand as a celluloid capsule of Waters quite literally learning how to make a film, and there is enough wackiness, debauchery, and utter madness to please the most jaded of trash cinema fans. Good or bad, there is really nothing else quite like it. 7/10.

F.Y.I. - Before there was John Waters' "Pink Flamingos" - There was John Waters' "Multiple Maniacs" (released in 1970) which (IMO) should really be re-titled "Multiple Morons".With the word "AMATEUR" clearly written all over it - This regurgitated exercise in low-budget/low-life sleaze (Baltimore-style) tried way too hard to shock and disgust.And, in its feeble attempt to accomplish its atrocious mission - "Multiple Maniacs" quickly deteriorated into a tiresome bore with a decidedly "white-trash" mentality tacked on for good measure.Filmed in gritty b&w - This celluloid atrocity is truly a perverted novelty of early-1970's cinema that (I found) only really came to life in its final 15 minutes of outrageous insanity.

"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 very best John Waters film! Great performances by Mink Stole and Divine in particular. A collection of circus freaks gather locals into their various tents and then go about murdering them. Filmed in a beautiful black and white, and full of fantastic and original performances that will stay in your memory for quite a while. Divine is on quite a religious adventure in this one, and Mink Stole is very devilish and strange as an epic whore of sorts. The supporting cast consists of the classic John Waters regulars, so if you haven't seen this film before, go about renting it or purchasing it. And also, the ending of this film is one of the most surreal movie watching experiences I have ever had! Beware of the lobster!