John Waters, Greasy Strangers, and Weirdos – Thoughts from February 12, 2026

I’ve listened to three audiobooks by John Waters. He’s fascinating as an author, a director, and as a person. The more I learned about him, the more I wanted to see his early films. Over the years, I’ve seen more of his recent films, but I wanted to see the films that started his career as a director. I saw documentaries on John Waters and Divine that mentioned their early films. Watching them is not as straightforward as one would hope. Some were available on streaming services. I watched the available films, trying to keep to their release order as much as possible. The first one was Multiple Maniacs.

John Waters made these early films with a minimal budget, but with a ton of willing actors. Some of them were genuine actors and others were unique people whose only qualification seemed to be a willingness to be in a film for little to no money. They were real life drug addicts, alcoholics, and degenerates. Entertainment comes in watching people on the edge of sanity interacting with like-minded maniacs. John Waters weaves a tale of questionable ethical choices in a world that normally tries to hide behind closed doors. His characters allow themselves to be seen with their flaws fully on display.

I wanted to see Pink Flamingos next, but it’s only available on DVD or VHS. For now, I had to skip it. Different documentaries talked about the movie’s controversial parts. The most egregious of them being the eating a fresh dog poop. John Waters suggested it to Divine, but it was Divine’s choice to do it on film. The next one I could see was Female Trouble. You could see that John Waters had more money for the film. He ramped up the depravity of the previous films even more. Devine plays two roles. The film features sexual assault, murder, child abuse, caging and torturing someone, and other acts of depravity. None of the characters has an ethical leg to stand on. Despite all of this, the film is a comedy through and through.

John Water’s films are not the only purposely weird films I’ve seen. Part of me seeks weird films because I’m tired of conventional films. Most of the blockbuster action-adventure films bore me to tears. Chase scenes, fights, and heists bore me so much that I skip them until the chasing, fighting, and heisting conclude. I love behind the scenes of films, except for the stunts. Most stunts go on too long and add nothing to the story. Because they require days of training, coordination, and planning is only slightly interesting to me. When I see a villain coming back when the antagonist thinks they have defeated them, I roll my eyes and want to stop watching whatever I’m watching. I usually see a film to the end, but occasionally, I just stop watching because I don’t care how it ends. The cliché has already ruined the film.

One film I saw to the end was The Greasy Strangler. It was close several times in the film. The problem wasn’t a problem with cliches. It is a purposely weird film from beginning to end. The characters in the film are all depraved weirdos. It entertained me most of the way through it, but the lack of connection to reality made it nonsensical. Just when you think a character is relatable, that’s when that character does something completely against any kind of logical or ethical sense. The ending is so bad, I almost want to spoil it to make sure no one watches it. Another part of me wants people to watch it just to experience the nonsensical weirdness.

The early films of John Waters, Jim Hosking’s film The Greasy Strangler, and other directors who stretch the boundaries of cinema will always draw me to their work. When a movie description includes the word quirky, I’m already interested in it. All the movies I mentioned in this Thoughts from Life article also included words like disturbing, transgressive, campy, and shocking cult comedies. They take traditional American values and drag them through the mud. Especially with the asshat in the White House currently, I’m glad to see something that goes against these things. All these films feature real people in all their weird glory. Being a weirdo myself, I appreciate that.