Reviews: Pink Flamingos, Multiple Maniacs and Mondo Trasho

1) Pink Flamingos Review: John Waters’ unique and individualistic style can add an adjective like ‘great’ to a noun like ‘garbage’ to form ‘great garbage’. Now that’s an achievement.

Pink Flamingos – The Movie is a rare bird that not only makes for a nice trash but also a good movie. Just one clip of trashy reality shows Jerry Springer or The Maury Show on YouTube and what we witness is a continual display of vulgarity, sleaze and uncontrollable behavior. On the other hand, we have a plethora of terrible movies like The Room, the entire Friday the Thirteenth series, Caligula, etc. that are unintentionally funny but generally unwatchable. Pink Flamingos is a sure delight for voyeurs of violence, sex, deviance, vulgarity, and trash, yet it’s made with amazing skill. John Walters is the small-scale Quentin Tarantino who can conjure up unique and quirky characters and turn them into cult figures; we are not disturbed by the misdeeds of the characters and usually end up encouraging them to commit another misdeed.

The story here is narrated in an androgynous way, probably by a burning gay man or a transsexual, which takes us to Divine’s tawdry, ramshackle pink trailer (who lives as Babs Johnson to evade police attention) and his family, his pretty, lusty blonde traveling companion Cotton, who has the looks of a yesteryear star, her chicken-loving son Crackers, with long hair and protruding teeth, and his egg-obsessed mother Edie. Divine has long stood as the undisputed, undefeated ‘dirtiest person on the planet’, unchallenged by anyone and is a small-time cult figure featured in trashy newspapers. She is now settled and does no harm to others other than heating beef between her legs to save money. Her son seems more rebellious at first, but only in sex (chickens are her favorite partners, apparently). Cotton exhibits only voyeuristic tendencies and likes to hang posters of beefy men by her bed, but that seems acceptable. And sweet Edie only thinks and talks about eggs, their shape, size and color, the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme, what if all the chickens disappear, when will the egg-man come, etc. No one seems to illegally transgress modesty, except maybe Crackers. But all this changes when the team is challenged by Raymond and Bonnie Marble, a husband and wife team who live to steal the esteemed title of Divine (at least according to them). Raymond exposes himself to unsuspecting souls, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg: the pair discreetly order their homosexual servant Channing to impregnate the kidnapped women, so the newborns can be sold to happy lesbian couples. The pitiful kidnapped woman with tattered clothes and messy hair punishes Channing every time she enters the basement; she hasn’t even seen the real perpetrators of her misery. When this terrible couple takes on Divine and her flamingos, it’s WAR!

I think the degree of delinquency committed by Connie and Raymond automatically makes them antagonists; while most of Divine’s victims are simply killed without much introduction, we are constantly updated on the sufferings of Connie’s victims. Even the effect of the disturbing chicken scene with Crackers and the spy Cookie is mitigated by the earlier scene where Cookie’s deception is told. Divine and his gang shoot, cut and eat their victims in one scene, but it’s just too hilarious. the top to be offensive. Sexuality, on the other hand, is something that is sure to gross out or anger certain audiences, with the idea of ​​incest itself being unnerving to many, but then again, who finds Divine as a role model or even a female? ? , with her androgynous look and playful makeup on her (real name: Harris Glenn; yes, a man!).

The entire setup looks like footage from a shoddy reality show, the movie’s budget is so tight that the entire product was the master copy. We see choppy editing, shadows often creeping in the background, cameras shaking furiously as they close in on a person, and bystanders gawking at Divine’s appearance as if unaware of the film. However, it is this low quality that makes the action seem more authentic, as if Divine is a true C-grade celebrity who has made a name for herself through evil. The songs, a mix of rock and roll and country, make the scenes more lively and enjoyable, and also mitigate the actual violence that occurs when the music is played.

Watch Pink Flamingos if you want to see a shoddy exploitation movie. It’s hilarious at times (the ‘trial’ scene) and delightfully (in a slightly gross sort of way), wicked and divinely entertaining.

My Rating: 7.4 out of 10

2) Multiple Maniacs Review – The misleading title should have been called ‘We don’t have enough money to make pink flamingos, but we’ll give you this shit until then!

The reason Pink Flamingos has been recognized as John Waters’ signature film of the ‘exploitation’ genre is because of the uncomplicated script with the sole purpose of titillating with acts of depravity. It is a film that shocks, although it does not make any particular reference to any event of the time in which these films were made. Almost everyone who sees Pink Flamingos will have heard of transsexualism, cannibalism, foot fetishism, voyeurism, bestiality, coprophilia, etc. and therefore the film can be enjoyed by a person who was not born in the seventies. The script has been written with diabolical insight, incorporating exaggerated sequences and cheesy humor to tone down some of the objectionable content. The film was shot in color and thus could bring out some of the outrageous palette John Waters used for Divine’s house and wardrobe. All of these reasons give Pink Flamingos its prominent status in the trash world, not just the singular coprophagous moment.

Multiple Maniacs was released about two years before Pink Flamingos and was made on a shoestring budget (although the latter itself was a low-budget movie) of around $5000. So one actor takes on multiple roles and we have to believe that a different hairstyle implies a different character (by the way, read an intriguing explanation from a reviewer who elaborates on the religious connotation of the movies. Sounds believable at first, but I prefer to stick to the general belief that Jesus and his followers did not represent Divine and its tramps. Edith, who plays both a bar owner and the Virgin Mary, was not part of the Cavalcade, otherwise the reviewer’s explanation would have had more credence). the film is shot entirely in black and white on 16mm and the camera shakes horribly at times and is sometimes so overexposed that you can barely see the bodies of the actors. The horrible white circle (indicating real change) flashes brightly like an alien signal. Honestly, this movie is terrible and pretty introductory to John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, a very polished effort compared to this shoddy junk.

When I read the plot, my mind swirled with images of a colorful circus with Divine and her crew treating the audience to their acts only to slaughter them at the end. This happens at the beginning of the movie, but veers off into a completely different act that massively focuses on ‘Divine’, contradicting the title of the movie itself. What happened to the vomit-eating boy or the foot-fetish girl or the gays remains unknown and the focus suddenly shifts to Divine, his promiscuous daughter, her estranged boyfriend David, their brief lesbian Mink, and a nemesis Bonnie. In fact, while Divine and Mary Vivian Pierce (who plays Bonnie) squared off against the duo of David Lochary and Mink Stole in Pink Flamingos, the characters are simply swapped here. This makes the film feel like a pre-release version of PF, rather than continuing the circus act for added commotion value.

The movie also makes references to Sharon Tate’s mother and the Weatherman Underground organization, but I was passed over because I wasn’t born then (plus I’m not from the US). At the time, such a jocular approach to incidents like these would have caused a storm (I read about the Mrs. Tate incident later and found the movie’s version of the event offensive), but now they seem irrelevant. The blasphemous religious sequence here would have made Lady Gaga blush (at least Gaga puts the rosary beads in her mouth). The last fifteen minutes is just bullshit and nonsense.

Had the film been developed along the lines of Freaks (a 1932 classic), but racier, ruder, vulgar, and cheesy, it might have worked. Instead, it succumbs as Rob Zombie’s first attempt at ‘House of 1000 Corpses’, which was completely overshadowed by the evil ‘The Devil’s Rejects’.

My Rating: 0.8 out of 10

3) Mondo Trasho Review: 95 minutes in and we still can’t figure out if the movie wants to entertain or shock. very useless watch

John Waters’ first offering is not intended to have any purpose, unlike his third Pink Flamingos, which sublimated the effect of shock and disgust into laughter. Multiple Maniacs, his lousy second film, only offended with its objectionable religious references, but at least it provoked some response from viewers. Mondo Trasho seems like a void that generates absolutely no definitive answers. How should we, how does the public react? Should we laugh at the characters’ plight or avert our faces in disgust? How the hell should we feel?

The plot is obsessed with Mary Vivian Pierce’s feet, and it starts off quite interestingly with her character Bombshell getting licked by a foot fetishist. Not forgetting the opening sequence that highlights John Waters’ emotion over animal cruelty. As Bombshell begins to moan and gasp, she visualizes herself as Cinderella being rescued by her Prince Charming (played by the foot fetishist). The explicit Cinderella sequence is a good allusion and Waters could have progressed with an erotic romance angle that revolved around Bombshell’s pursuit of the foot fetishist. Rather, John Waters brings his trademark Lady Divine, who strikingly looks feminine as opposed to her androgynous appearance in the later films. The bad girl is ogling a naked hitchhiker when her car hits a stray Bombshell who is critically injured. Divine helps her by visiting a discount house, stealing a dress from there, and then breaking into a laundromat, where she changes Bombshell’s bloody clothes. Bombshell is miraculously still unconscious like those Shakespearean characters in Midsummer Night’s Dream who manage to fall asleep in a heartbeat, and the blood on her face disappears. There are sporadic appearances of Mother Mary and her ‘apprentice to her’ of her what-can-I-say purging Divina of her sins. Also, a rather strange visit to the asylum where we find that foot fetishist again, but this time he murders a fellow inmate, and to a sadistic hospital that operates on patients with knives and saws.

The only surprising aspect of the film is Divine’s kind nature, as we have never seen Divine help someone at the risk of her own life. But everything else is unexplained, even the Wizard of Oz-inspired resolution. The camera moves less than in Multiple Maniacs and the sex is less obscene. The choice of music, a variety of rock and roll and classical, managed to keep my attention on otherwise useless sequences. If the movie had worked to have a plot, it would have gained a better reputation today.

My rating: I won’t rate this work as I don’t even know what kind of response it points to from its audiences.