By WILLIAM J. WRIGHT
Filmmaker John Waters has been called “the Prince of Puke,” “the Pope of Trash” and “the Duke of Dirt” among other colorful yet dubious monikers. (Here at RUE MORGUE, we refer to him as “genius” and “cherished subscriber”). However, in this first quarter of the 21st century, the director who gave us both Babs Johnson (the filthiest person alive) and All-American teen Tracy Turnblad has attained a level of respectability and pop culture recognition generally reserved for the Spielbergs and Scorseses of the cinematic world. From being named an officer of France’s Order of Arts and Letters to his fan-favorite 1997 appearance on The Simpsons, Waters has spent the last few decades existing (and thriving) in a world of his own creation in which the lines between low-brow and high art blur and, at times, collide. He is our filth elder statesman, a true indie icon who has made a career of pointing out the humor — and the horror — of modern American life.
Last year, Exhumed Films, the Philadelphia-based cinema collective dedicated to bringing classic horror and exploitation movies back to theatrical venues partnered with the historic Mahoning Drive-In, to bring fans the ultimate John Waters experience, presided over by the man himself. The first John Waters Filthy Film Fest was an overwhelming success that united Waters with fans for a weekend of cinematic debauchery like no other – until now. Filthy Film Fest II is upon us, and Waters is back to again hold court over the Lehighton, Pennsylvania, cult movie mecca. This year’s event, which runs from Friday, September 27, through Saturday, September 28, features four of the director’s most beloved flicks – Multiple Maniacs, Cecil B. Demented, Polyester and Serial Mom — along with Mom and Dad and Killer Joe, two specially curated film handpicked by Waters. Along with photo-ops (a recreation of the “Lobstora” attack scene from Mulitple Maniacs, designed by John Demmer), costume contests, competitions such as the Demented Directors Short Film Contest (Friday), the Serial Mom Bloody Bake-Off (Saturday), and the return of John Waters Karaoke for V.I.P. ticketholders, fans will be treated to a special intro, live commentary and Q&A session with Waters for Friday night’s screening of Polyester.
Recently, John Waters, fresh from his annual Camp John Waters event in Kent, Connecticut, took time out from his relentless schedule to speak with RUE MORGUE about Filthy Film Fest II.
Hello, Mr. Waters! Thanks for speaking with RUE MORGUE again. It’s been about a year since we last spoke.
I know! I just read the last article you wrote because my assistant printed it out. I’m still a subscriber to your magazine, so I see it every, every time it comes out. I like holding a magazine in my hand, and you do a beautiful job. The magazine is really well done. It’s kind of an art piece in itself.
Thank you so much. Our publisher and founder, Rodrigo Gudiño, is very intent on keeping print alive, and he’s done it under some incredible circumstances for the last 27 years – with no break in publication.
You can’t save an iPad, you know? You need to have something you can hold and touch and sign and keep. I’m very print-oriented.
Rodrigo approaches each issue as if it’s a collectible.
Exactly. They said all the bookshops were going to go out of business. They came back – the little ones, not the big ones – the same way drive-ins are coming back now.
Speaking of drive-ins, the John Waters Filthy Film Fest II is coming up on September 27…
[The Filthy Film Fest] is like Two Thousand Maniacs! You stumble on this little town that nobody’s ever heard of, Mahoning, and you go in and the entire town is insane. That’s what this drive-in is like. It’s like Two Thousand Maniacs! come true. And then, when you leave and it’s over and you go back, it just seems like, did that really happen? It’s like Herschel Gordon Lewis’ wet dream.
I met Herschel Gordon Lewis many years ago. What a brilliant man.
He had a great sense of humor about himself. He was funny. He was a showman. He taught me a lot.
Of course, one of the films that will be shown at this year’s Filthy Film Fest, Serial Mom, has quite a few nods to Herschel Gordon Lewis.
Photo credit: Greg Gorman
And Multiple Maniacs was sort of a tribute to Two Thousand Maniacs! You know, each of my movies is a genre movie. Multiple Maniacs was a gore movie. Cecil B. Demented was my Battle of Algiers. Polyester was my gimmick movie, you know, like William Castle and Serial Mom was my true crime movie that almost came true with O.J. right afterward.
The other two I’m picking are movies that are really good and that really shocked me. We have the NC-17 version of Killer Joe, which is hard to see … the fried chicken scene at the end! I don’t want to spoil it, but it goes further than anything I ever did, and Mom and Dad, you know, it’s not the birth of a baby sex education movie that I’ve talked about for years. It’s the newer version with Thelma Blair and Nicolas Cage. Few people have seen it. It really delivers. It’s about when everybody in America wants to kill their own children. It’s really funny. It’s really good. And it is scary. It’s a tight little exploitation movie that works. We show movies that are really good here. I’m not saying mine, but the ones I pick are definitely excellent for real.
Is there a throughline or a connection that you see with Mom and Dad and Killer Joe and your films?
Killer Joe is a little like Pink Flamingos. It’s about rednecks, and they live outside of society, and there’s a lot of “oral violations” in it. Let’s put it that way. Pink Flamingos was a pro-violence movie made for hippies in the middle of the peace-and-love generation. But people who came to my movies were hippies, and they liked it, and they turned into punks.
I think Mom and Dad is the opposite of a politically correct film. It’s a movie about killing your children, but it makes complete sense when you see it and becomes funny. I just did the John Waters Summer Camp last weekend, which is another destination event, and in it, I told the campers, like Divine said in Multiple Maniacs, “We have your home address. We’re robbing your house right now…”, and some men yelled, “Take my kids while you’re there!” which really makes me laugh, and made me think of Mom and Dad. It’s so funny.
What brings you back for another Filthy Film Fest?
I had such a good time last year. I grew up in drive-ins. I love drive-ins. I we have to take drive-ins back because when I was young, drive-ins were passion pits. Today, they’re family-oriented. They won’t play R-rated movies, much less an NC-17 one. We have to make drive in sexy again – and not just for the family.
I’m in the South, and there are still quite a few drive-ins in operation in my area, but they’ve all converted to digital projection and just show the same mainstream movies that are in the theaters.
What is an exploitation movie today? There isn’t one. I mean, did they show Cocaine Bear? That was probably the last real exploitation movie. And would they show sex movies? There aren’t any sex movies. You can watch porn for free. Why would you have to go to a drive-in and pay money to see breasts? You know, nowadays, people in airports are nude.
Decades ago, there was a nearby drive-in with a screen that actually faced the road. Occasionally you could get a free glimpse of a skinflick…
That happened once with Pink Flamingos, which only ever played in a drive-in a few times. There were accidents, and the neighbors complained because you could see it from the road!
When I was very, very young, there was a drive-in, the Timonium Drive-In, and if I climbed up to the hill near my parents’ house, I could watch with binoculars, and I watched The Mole People because my mother would never let me see that movie. You couldn’t hear it, but I could see it through binoculars, and it was really exciting. Wonderful.
What were some personal highlights for you from last year’s Filthy Film Fest? What are you looking forward to this year?
I just love to see all the young people coming who weren’t even born when I made some of these movies. And they’re so into it with their costumes and the memorabilia they have. I’m just so proud that my films have crossed over to yet another generation.
The Filthy Film Fest brings you into contact with a lot of fans. Do you find that the Mahoning Drive-In crowd is a little different?
They’re very cool. It’s a very cool crowd. You know, it’s a crowd that has a great sense of humor about themselves, about being there, about movies, and they’re not self-righteous. And they’re funny! They’re the coolest kids in town.
Any memorable fan interactions from last year?
Photo credit: Greg Gorman
I have a trailer where I watch it, and I do introduce the movies and talk through it and everything, but I do photo ops of everybody. I get to see all the outfits that people wear and the different hairdos. At the summer camp, I said last year that maybe kids should tattoo “left” and “right” on the wrong foot – and four people had done that, which shocked me. I thought, well, that’s amazing! I have to be careful with what I say, but people I know have gotten a lot of tattoos from my films, which is always amazing to me when I see it, but the “left” and “right”, maybe that’s a secret password now.
I’ve signed everything, too! I’ve signed breasts, dicks. The only thing I haven’t signed is bottom surgery. I’ve signed top surgery but not bottom. I have a bucket list. Everyone needs a bucket list.
Of course, RUE MORGUE is a horror magazine, and we’ve touched on the genre a bit. If you were to program a filthy horror movie festival, what films would you pick?
Well, you know, I’m a big Chucky fan because I was in the finale of the TV show, and I was in one of the movies. Chucky is my dream lover, really, and he’s old enough now. But I would have Chucky, and I would have the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead, two of my favorites. I mean, it’s really hard to ever get better than that.
There’s a great rat movie called Of Unknown Origin that I like a lot. That’s a really good rat horror movie. And I have shown the most ridiculous horror movie, which is Night of the Lepus …. That stars Janet Leigh and it’s about giant killer bunny rabbits, but they look so stupid. It’s kind of the most pitiful horror movie ever made. I like Trog. I like C.H.U.D., which, today, has come true. There’s C.H.U.D. everywhere. There was a sequel called Bud the C.H.U.D., so that’s almost like a porn version somebody should do.
C.H.U.D. is a better movie than it deserves to be with that title.
It is such a great title. “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers,” but now, when I’m in some cities, there is C.H.U.D. everywhere, and they’re threatening and they’re out to get us.
A lot of horror movie influences come through in your films in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Have you ever considered doing your version of a traditional horror movie or a monster movie?
I’ve always said that my mother thinks they’re all horror movies. She did when she was alive. And Divine was my Godzilla. Divine was my monster. Even at the end of Multiple Maniacs, she’s running through the streets like Gorga with the National Guard killing her. So in a way, I already made horror movies. And Divine was my monster that came back over and over. She was my Freddy. She was my Jason. She was the one to scare everybody in a good way.
