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Cecil B. Demented: Make Good Movies or Die!

Cecil B. Demented: Make Good Movies or Die!

Last updated on: January 27, 2025 at 7:05 pm by Chase Padusniak

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Cecil B. Demented: Make Good Movies or Die! 2025-01-27T19:05:59-04:00 Chase Padusniak

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John Waters
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John Waters’ Cecil B. Demented (2000) asks the tough questions like “what kind of shlock is Hollywood turning out these days” and “can you scorch the roots of starlet to the point that she goes full Batty Hearst” (Patty the batty even appears in the film). As usual, Waters follows a gang of punks and outcasts in Baltimore, though with a(nother) twist. This group wants to make the great American outlaw film—Easy Rider (1969) in the style of G.G. Allin. Their plan? Kidnap acclaimed actress and assistant-abuser Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) and force her to dance the dance of cinematic chaos.

The eponymous Mssr. Demented (Stephen Dorff) directs alongside a motley crew of Y2K weirdos, each of whom has the name of a moviemaking outlaw tattooed somewhere on their person. Kenneth Anger, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, David Lynch, and Pedro Almodóvar all get shout outs. Later, these merry pranksters will brand themselves in the name of Cecil’s demented vision. Make good movies or die!

Waters delivers on his premise throughout the film’s runtime. Ms. Whitlock is tortured, coerced, and love bombed into guerilla line deliveries, opening fire on movie theater employees for the camera, and even busting up a showing of the director’s cut of Patch Adams (1998). The gang interrupts the filming of Gump 2, the sequel to America’s favorite movie, and enlists a crowd of porno theatergoers to hold off enraged Teamsters. I’d call the movie “anarchic,” but that would be trite. So, let’s go with “Bedlamite.”

What’s odd about the film is its combination of 60s hippy cultishness and late-80s/early 90s Gen X affectedness. The group worships Cecil like they’re in Heaven’s Gate or studying with Maharishi. Their willingness to shirk any and all material comforts (for now anyway) reminds one of the hangers-on at hippy communes. But their energy and anti-establishment fire are the clear purview of punk. Their greatest hatred is selling out. In their eyes, ‘tis better to die in the service of art than to take a dollar from the Maryland Film Commission.

But what does that mean for us? Are we Abbie Hoffman crossed with Kurt Cobain?

Mulling these facts over has left me in an odd place all my own. Now guerilla filmmaking belongs to YouTube prank channels (yes, they’re back!), the kinds of interviews that have blessed us with Hawk Tuah and her coin as well as Alpha Male TikTok accounts. The anarchic now seems depressingly commercial. The great leviathan devours all, assimilates all to itself. What to do? Where to turn?

Help us, John Waters! You’re our only hope!

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