Desperate Living [VHS]
Everyone inDesperate Living's Mortville has some horrible secret  to hide. The mentally unstable Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole, in a superb display of  overacting) and her 300-pound-plus maid Grizelda must take it on the lam after  Grizelda smothers Peggy's husband under her elephantine buttocks. They find  themselves in Mortville, a shanty fiefdom ruled by the grotesque Queen Carlotta  (the incomparable Edith Massey). The evil queen delights in tormenting her  subjects, but Peggy and Grizelda soon team up with a pair of lesbian outcasts,  and a rebellion is in the air. John Waters'sDesperate Livingtakes on  the air of a seedy, trash fairy tale as the humiliated residents of Mortville  rise up against the queen and the cursed princess finds herself in a power  struggle against her mother. Notable for the absence of Waters regular Divine,  this movie pushes the rest of the cast to their over-the-top best. Fifties sex  bomb Liz Renay has a great time as Muffy St. Jacques, half of the lesbian  couple, and was still looking great by the '70s. The tumbledown sets of  Mortville add a surreal touch to the movie, but Edith Massey steals every scene  she's in as the hateful, repulsive Queen Carlotta. Note that the actors' breath  is clearly visible in many scenes; it was filmed outdoors in a bitter Baltimore  winter. Nasty, shabby, gross, and hilarious, this is John Waters at his best.--Jerry Renshaw