Comedy

Growing up in Baltimore in the 50s Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends acting he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid 60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore church halls to underground audiences drawn by word-of-mouth and street leafleting campaigns. As his film-making grew more polished and his subject matter more shocking his audiences grew bigger and his write-ups in the Baltimore papers more outraged. By the early 70s he was making features which he managed to get shown in midnight screenings in art cinemas by sheer perseverance. Success came when Pink Flamingos (1972) - a deliberate exercise in ultra-bad taste - took off in 1973; helped no doubt by lead actor 'Divine' infamous dog-shit eating scene.