When it comes to making controversial, transgressive cinema, John Waters reigns supreme – throughout his career, especially in the earlier stages, he relished in shocking viewers and leaving the audience shocked. His films are still twisted and perverse by today’s standards, and we look at them through the rose-tinted glasses of cult nostalgia. Imagining audiences seeing these films back in the 1970s is an entertaining activity because if we can trust anyone to ruffle a few feathers and leave an indelible impression, very few have done it better than Waters. One of his films that is sorely lacking in esteem is Desperate Living , an extraordinarily odd story that occupies a unique space in Waters’ filmography, occurring between his transgressive “thrash-punk” period of Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, where his primary motive was to be as demented and transgressive as possible, and his more palatable era of Polyester, Hairspray and all his subsequent works which range from adorably inoffensive to hilariously irreverent. As a result, this film features qualities from both moments in the director’s career, benefitting from each equally – it has the devil-may-care attitude of Multiple Maniacs and Mondo Trasho and the suburban satire of Serial Mom and Polyester. Essentially, while Desperate Living may not be the most well-regarded of Waters’ work, it is amongst his most underrated and has unfortunately fallen by the wayside when the other films he made tend to define his career. Make absolutely no mistake, despite Desperate Living showing the director shifting towards considerable maturity and challenging himself in numerous ways, this film is every bit as deranged and brilliant in its exploration of camp as we’ve come to expect from the unhinged mind of John Waters.

Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) is well-known in her suburban Baltimore neighbourhood for being the most neurotic woman on the block. Recently released from an extensive stay at a psychiatric institute, she has returned home in the hopes that she can live a peaceful, ordinary life. However, her excessive paranoia combined with her tendency to exaggerate every single thing (a child accidentally breaking her window with a baseball suddenly because assault with a deadly weapon, for example) causes her to be the bane of everyone’s existence – that is until she kills her husband, with the help of  her loyal but frustrated housekeeper, Grizelda (Jean Hill). Very soon, they are on the lam, running from the law in fear of being sent to jail. They discover they can find sanctuary in the rural community of Mortville, a commune filled with outsiders, rejects and deviants, ruled over by the unstable and deranged Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey), who uses her dominance over her subjects to enforce ridiculous and arbitrary “royal proclamations”, and if anyone dares not adhere to her wishes, they will find themselves on the other side of the queen’s firing squad, who are all too happy to pull the trigger on absolutely everyone. Peggy and Grizelda soon find shelter when they encounter transgender Mole (Susan Lowe) and her girlfriend, Muffy St. Jacque (Liz Renay), who reluctantly allows the suburban “trash” to live with them. Around them, the outcasts of Mortville are growing disillusioned, and the two main characters find themselves getting swept up with the air of change taking over the community, who are targetting Queen Carlotta and her violent, petty regime. It isn’t long before anarchy starts to take control.

You can accuse John Waters of plenty of things, but you can never call him unoriginal. His works may be shocking, outrageous and often nauseating, but they’ve never been boring. Desperate Living is one of his more ambitious projects because while his previous trash masterpieces such as Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble were suburban-set satires, this film takes us to what appears to be another world, somewhere that is a blend of a fantastical kingdom and squalid rural settlement. Similarly, much like previous films, Waters is telling a story that weaves numerous different themes together, being hilariously offbeat and resonant, without ever wavering from its status as a beautifully incoherent jumble of thoughts, concepts and images combined into a nightmarish fairytale that makes the audience laugh just about as much as it makes you retch in horror or despair. There are a few qualities that make me a firm adherent to the cult of John Waters, and they’re all on display in Desperate Living, one of the strongest being his talent for creating highly-original stories, finding these threads of plot in the most obscure places and turning them into something truly magical, in its own perverse way. His films may tend to be unpleasant, especially at the outset – but as soon as the audience surmounts the challenges of the film, and the rhythm is firmly established, nothing can compare to this experience, with the audacity of Waters’ vision being truly memorable.

There is something quite endearing about a Waters film, and that comes in the form of the people cast in them, especially in the earlier films. Any devotee to the director will know of his repertory ensemble of outcasts and oddballs that would find a prominent place in his films, lovingly referred to as the Dreamlanders. There are far too many gems in that group to name all of them, but we can say with certainty that many of the best are in this film. Desperate Living was the first of Waters’ films to not feature his muse Divine (and the only one Waters made without him during his friend’s lifetime), and while his absence is definitely felt heavily here, it is compensated by some of the other Dreamlanders being given terrific work to do themselves, in considerably bigger parts than many of them were used to. There are four main performers here that form the core of the story – Mink Stole (the only person who has appeared in every one of Waters’ films) has her biggest part here as the neurotic housewife-turned-murderer. Jean Hill is Grizelda, Peggy’s maid and partner-in-crime who goes on the run with her. They soon encounter the other two leads, played by Liz Renay (who gives arguably the finest performance out of any of Waters’ early films) and Susan Lowe, who takes on the challenge of playing the part Waters had written for Divine. They are joined by a bevvy of terrific performances, such as that of Edith Massey, who truly was nothing short of a national treasure, and while she had very little acting ability, she always was the person putting in the most effort, and it shows here, with her Queen Carlotta being her first and only villainous performance, and probably her best work with Waters. Waters’ casts are always so compelling, so it is difficult to not be entertained by them, and whether you are captivated by their unique charms, or morbidly curious enough to watch these strange but wonderful people interpret Waters’ odd stories, they tend to stick with a person.

As much as I adore Waters, not even I can defend his films when the regular accusation of their repellent nature comes up. Desperate Living may show Waters slowly starting to mature and challenge himself as a storyteller, and not only as of the provider of pure, unhinged shock value, there is still the trademark odious quality that has defined his career and made him such a counter-culture icon. Waters really does make repulsive films, but to view them as only shocking without any other substance is terribly myopic, and ignores that fact that when you put aside the stomach-churning lunacy of his style, there is a certain sophisticated humour embedded deeply within this film. Waters is clearly a man who is charming, elegant and intelligent, and the disparity between his personality and his artistic expression is vast. However, he is not someone who intends to shock without motive – his ability to unsettle the audience is more of a provoking exercise rather than pure artistic expression. Waters seems to be the most generous of filmmakers because he doesn’t make films just to express himself, but also to give the audience an experience. The root of his iconic style is to elicit a reaction – and whether it is good or bad, as long as his film gets some sort of response, the purpose has been achieved. In Desperate Living, Waters manages to find wit in the most unexpected places, covering the intelligent social commentary with hopelessly disgusting imagery that serves the main purpose not only of making us uncomfortable, but also evoking thought.

It wouldn’t necessarily be right to call Waters a social commentator – he does have his hand constantly on the social pulse, and no one looks at the world and its current events with more exuberance than him. His films do tend to speak about society and humanity, but they don’t necessarily elicit much change – not that they need to. The director, in spite of the nauseating nature of his early works, has always found warmth in these transgressive stories. In Desperate Living specifically, his approach is one fundamentally of empathy, and despite each and every one of these characters being a sociopath in some way, he still looks at them not as villains, but as unconventional heroes. There are some underlying issues here that weren’t openly spoken about at the time (body positivity in the form of Grizelda, feminist issues and even that of transgender rights, with one of the main characters exhibiting some form of body dysmorphia, and aspiring to be recognized as the person they are inside). It can be argued that these themes are not major, and they are mostly played for laughs, but they ultimately contribute to the renegade generosity of this film. His films may certainly be repulsive, Desperate Living being one of them, but they are never mean-spirited, at least not to those deemed as the heroes or those who are genuinely good in their own way. It would be wise for us to shift away from viewing Waters’ films as solely excessive and transgressive cult films, and rather looking at them as unconventional social satires that may be sardonic and uncomfortable, but are also unrelenting in their unorthodox kindness and extraordinary warmth. Very few filmmakers waver from the ideal mainstream character model – so Waters’ ability to not only make muses of society’s outcasts and oddballs but to openly embrace them as his friends and colleagues, shows that despite how distasteful they may be on the surface, there is an empathetic heart guiding them.

Desperate Living shows what we know to be true – John Waters is a film director who uses his rebel spirit (garnered through his comfortable, middle-class suburban Catholic upbringing) to make rebellious, outrageous films that prioritize both unconventional stories and social rejects, converging them into hilariously unhinged, memorable films that stay with the viewer long afterwards. Desperate Living is part of a trilogy of 1970s cult films Waters made known affectionately as the “Trash Trio”, alongside Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble. These two may be the defining works of early-era John Waters, but I’d argue Desperate Living is his finest one of them all. It is unsettling without being disturbing, outrageous without being excessive, and repulsive without being nauseating. It is a terrific film, and while it certainly is not for everyone, it is ultimately a memorable experience and a really brilliant work that shows Waters at his apex, making us shudder with discomfort and laugh in instances from which no one would ever think the humour could be extracted. Its all part of Waters’ charm, and proves him to be a stalwart of independent cinema and an iconic figure of transgressive but ultimately terrific underground filmmaking, and while he is certainly revered for his counter-culture positions, its time to give all of his works the same deserving respect. They may be gritty, gross and perhaps a bit hideous, but they’re memorable at least, and the only thing John Waters wants more than any kind of reaction is the viewer remembering the moments that caused it, and when it comes to Desperate Living, such moments are certainly in an abundance.