Good concept, poorly executed.

As Good As It Gets

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Blistering performances.

The iconic filmmaker John Waters told the capacity audience at the Charles Theatre that in 1969, he had to borrow money from his dad to make the trashy cult classic, "Multiple Maniacs." It didn't go over that big with moviegoers when it was released in 1970, but it did somehow slide by the Maryland Censor Board. Waters then had a running feud over censorship with the Board and its then chairlady, the late Mary Avara. How this film, with its scenes of sickening depravity, serial murders and shocking blasphemy, got pass her could be the making of yet another flick. But, "Multiple Maniacs," has always had its niche audience with comedy/horror lovers. In any event, the movie featuring the late Divine has been restored and is headed for national re- circulation, via Janus Films.Divine was played superbly by the actor Harris Glenn Milstead. He was a boyhood buddy of Waters. He died on March 7, 1986. Milstead was known not only as an actor but also as a singer and drag queen. Before launching his acting career, he had been a hairdresser in Baltimore. He's buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Towson, Maryland.The movie was filmed mostly in and around the Baltimore area. Fell's Point, a wee bit trashy itself in that bygone era, was in a lot of the shots. It brought in just over $25,000 at the box office. Some of the opening scenes, Waters said, were filmed in his back of his parents' home in Baltimore County.At the showing on Monday, September 12th, there were some talented folks, like Pat Moran, Susan Lowe, Mink Stole, Vincent Peranio and George Figgs, in the audience. They had worked on the film in various capacities and were known as the "Dreamland" acting troupe.George Figgs took on the role of Jesus Christ - a high calling - under any circumstances. He was more than adequate. And, Mink Stole nailed it as the Religious Whore. While, Divine carried the flick in the demanding, hilarious role of Lady Divine.As for Peranio, he also designed the giant lobster, known as "Lobstora," for the movie. They said it cost about $20 for the material. It looked real to me and that's the bottom line.Waters introduced each of actors present to warm rounds of applause. To learn more about the film's restoration, check out the article in "Variety" dated, August 6, 2016.Rotten Tomatoes, a movie review website, Walters reminded the audience, has given "Multiple Maniacs," a hundred percent rating. It is his "highest rated film." Who knew?The restored version will carry the tagline, "Restored! Reviled! Revolting." It opened in early August of this year at one of the Waters' fave hangouts, the Provincetown Film Festival. You can still catch this "celluloid atrocity" at the Charles for a 9 pm showing on this coming Thursday evening, September 15, 2016. This is your final warning!What kind of reaction did "Multiple Maniacs" get on September 12th? Let me put it this way: It was a non-stop laughing event.(By way of full disclosure, this writer has had cameo roles in two of Waters' films, "Dirty Shame" and "Pecker.")

"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.

I'm not some nut who will throw himself off a building for Waters or lick shoe polish from the Master's boots. I have rather fixed opinion on the different stages of the director's career. The early Super-8's (the few I've seen) are short, crude and original; the first features, including "Multiple Maniacs", "Mondo Trasho", "Pink Flamingos", "Female Trouble" and "Desperate Living" are all very interesting, though not all classics; the films that followed from "Polyester" are Waters Lite, strange birds documenting Waters' struggle to please the mainstream financiers and broaden his own creative output. Naturally, I like the middle period.When I think of "Multiple Maniacs", I think of David Lochary inviting conservative punters to come and seeing the most disgusting show of their lives. "See Puke Eater!" he screams with pride, and in that solitary invitation, he sums up why we loved the 70's and early 80's John Waters. Waters showed us filth without the sermon, without the hypocrisy. He acknowledge our love of sleaze, our passion for the putrid, and our lust for freaks. He came across as honest, as a misfit himself, an artist determined to rub our noses in the dirt we secretly craved.Well, some of us did.I prefaced this review with my declaration that I'm not a Waters brown-noser. Far from it. Despite its admirable desire to shock and sicken, "Multiple Maniacs" is also very boring at times and in dire need of a ruthless edit. The Lobster scene goes on forever and the trek to Calvary is almost as long as Gibson's "Passion of the Christ".The beauty of "Multiple Maniacs" is its pus-filled heart, not its aesthetics. The aesthetics would come later with "Female Trouble" and "Desperate Living" and seem counterfeit with truly awful trash such as "Cecil B. Demented", a film I want to murder.

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 Calvacade 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.