The re-release of John Waters’ Multiple Maniacs sees the Cavalcade of Perversion come to our big screens. Loverboy’s Fallon Gold puts the water on the boil for Lobstora Thermidor and prepares to be revolted by this lost queer classic.

Cleaning up a John Waters’ film may sound like a camp censorship nightmare. But in this case the cleaning up is of the print, darlings, not the content.

Known as JW’s ‘lost film’ few have had a chance to view Multiple Maniacs at all over the years, let alone on the big screen and let alone in crisp, beautiful black and white.

The Dreamlanders are in full force here: Divine (of course), David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Cookie Mueller, and Edith Massey. It was Massey’s debut as the owner of a bar – a bar Edith actually worked in. Also debuting on screen is the glorious Cookie Mueller (my hero) who met Waters through a Mondo Trasho screening door prize competition. She won dinner with the director at Baltimore’s worst restaurant, Little Tavern. Cookie was born to be a Dreamlander and her role here as Divine’s topless daughter introduced her to the world and we are forever grateful for that, JW.

The shock and gross-out are in full force in this story of love, betrayal, rosary jobs by lesbian religious perverts, and murder. You know, that tale as old as time.

This film and its stars actually look – dare I say it – incredibly beautiful. And even though that should be an anomaly in a JW pic, somehow it works. The richness of the monochrome doesn’t lose the lofi edge of the flick; it almost enhances it. This is a must for any JW fan, and indeed any fan of trash, camp, queer classic cinema. If you have the stomach for it, darlings.