Pink Flamingos (1972)
Starring Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole and Danny Mills
Written and Directed by John fuckin' Waters

 

I guess my defense against being considered a sick fuck is that I can appreciate the subtext of movies like "Stalag 69" or "Caligula 2," subtext that was probably not intended but is present nonetheless. I also don't whack off during viewing, and really that is the main criteria for being a sick fuck: do you appreciate Sick Fucking Films or do you ENJOY them? I can't begin to understand what it is about shiny pump shoes that makes some guys want to deposit their love juice in them, but I can at least recognize a good shoe fetish movie when I see one.

So I have promised Jamie a whole series of reviews of Sick Fucking Films, with the intent of finding the Sickest Fucking Film Ever. Jamie was very enthusiastic about the idea, since he is a closet sick fuck himself. He even made a few recommendations, only one of which involved sex with animals.

I've seen lots of filmmakers comparing themselves to John Waters recently and so far, I've found the references laughable. In every case I've seen the filmmakers substitute retarded "humor" for wit and their "shocks" stop short of a real payoff. I think this is because most of the people trying to claim the sickness throne are suburban white guys with shaved heads and goofy facial hair trying hard to emulate someone else's vision. Back in 1972, John Waters and friends were true outsiders in the film world and in life for that matter. There was no model for them to copy, so they just channeled their twisted take on the world through soap opera stereotypes, tabloid journalism, and exploitation movie conventions.

Pink Flamingos centers around a contest for the title of "Filthiest People Alive" between 300 lb. transvestite Divine and her family and Raymond and Connie Marble, a couple engaged in kidnapping and impregnating hookers and selling their babies to lesbians. It would take about nine more paragraphs just to try and recount the full plot of Pink Flamingos, so here are the sick fucking highlights:

- Raymond exposes himself to a pair of teenage girls, a two foot long sausage tied to his three inch wang. Later, he tries it again, this time with a turkey neck attachment. To his horror, the girl he is flashing lifts her skirt and flaps her own cock and balls back at him.

- The Marbles' butler Channing, given the job of impregnating the prostitutes kept prisoner in Raymond and Connie's cellar, whacks off into his hand and uses a syringe to inject the splooge into an unconscious hooker's hairy box. Meanwhile, the other hooker is so repulsed she vomits all over both of them.

- Guests at Divine's birthday party are entertained by a guy with a talking asshole.

- Divine and her son Crackers break into the Marble's house and decide to infect the house with their filthiness by licking the walls, furniture, and dishes. They get so excited by the process Divine starts sucking Cracker's noodle.

- Crackers and his girlfriend kill a live chicken by crushing it between their writhing naked bodies during sex.

- At the end of the movie, Divine shoves a handful of dog turds in her mouth, freshly deposited on the sidewalk by a schnauzer.

Along with the obvious shocks, there are hundreds of smaller vulgarities, and wonderfully nasty dialogue like this:

RAYMOND MARBLE (naked, sucking Connie's toes): Connie...at last! The battle of filth shall begin!

CONNIE MARBLE (naked, sucking Raymond's toes): l love you, Raymond! l love you more than anything in this whole world. l love you even more than my own filthiness... more than my hair color. Oh, God. l love you more than the sound of bones breaking... the sounds of death rattle! Even...even more than my own shit... do l love you, Raymond!

RAYMOND MARBLE: And...and l, Connie, also love you... more than anything that l could ever imagine. More than my hair color! More than the sound of babies crying... of dogs dying. Even more than the thought of original sin itself. Oh, l am yours, Connie, eternally united to you... through an invisible cord of finely woven filth... that even God himself could never, ever break.

Exploitation Movies traditionally promised more than they could actually deliver, since 95% of them were designed to make money. Go too far and you couldn't get your movie in theaters. Sick Fucking filmmakers could care less about getting arrested or having their movies banned, because they were either pursing a demented personal vision or were hungry for the publicity that comes when you cross lines with your middle finger stuck out.

When he made Pink Flamingos, I think John Waters was driven by both. The films he made afterwards were just as demented, but he began pulling back on the more extreme shocks. Having gained notoriety, Waters was free to live his dream of being an Exploitation Filmmaker. But Pink Flamingos stands as the early high water mark of Sick Fucking Films, because it went where no one had gone before.

VERDICT: Despite its pioneering shocks, I don't think I can award the title of "Sickest Fucking Film Ever" to Pink Flamingos. It's a film with heart: a puss-oozing, diseased monkey heart, but it has a sense of humor and sensibility that is hard to dislike. It's actually charming.

So the search continues. I have a list of candidates, but I'd be happy to entertain suggestions from all you closet Sick Fucks.