Following the unrepentant outrageousness of Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, director John Waters brought his notorious trash trilogy to a fittingly twisted close with this antifascist fairy tale. After hysterical housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) murders her husband with the help of her fed-up housekeeper (Jean Hill), the newfound sisters in crime escape to the bizarro shantytown of Mortville, a depraved penal colony presided over by a despotic queen (Edith Massey) whose tyranny pushes her subjects to shocking revolt. Deviant cops, death by dog food, DIY surgery Waters unleashes all this and more in an at once relentlessly warped and oddly moral vision of queer rebellion.
New 4K digital restoration by the Criterion Collection, supervised and approved by director John Waters.
“Here’s what I love best about Criterion’s restoration of Desperate Living; the detail of Van Smith’s costume and Vincent Peranio’s production design, some of which I saw for the first time after watching again, and glimpses of nudity I never noticed before.” —John Waters