Multiple Maniacs

Dir. John Waters. 1970, 91 mins. DCP. With Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce.
“Showcasing a rosary job in a church between Mink Stole and Divine, puke eating, and a giant lobster rape scene (to name but a few choice moments), the outrageously subversive Multiple Maniacs could easily be mistaken as mere freak show sentiment and gross-out comedy, but at heart it’s a defiantly angry rejection of all things mainstream. Shot in the summer of Stonewall in Baltimore in 1969 and released in 1970, the film begins with Mr. David (David Lochary) installed on a quiet wooded suburban street luring unsuspecting passers-by to dare to attend Lady Divine’s Cavalcade of Perversion, in which all hell breaks loose. The audience is made complicit in this transgression, and appropriately assaulted for it for the rest of the production. As punk and queer as film gets.”—Michael Palmieri