A Killer Combo at Film Forum

Tomorrow, as part of its stalwart Summer Double Features series, New York City’s recently reopened Film Forum will give the big-screen treatment to a pair of strange—but strangely fitting—bedfellows: John Waters’ Female Trouble and Leonard Kastle’s The Honeymoon Killers. As with all its dog-days double features, the theater will offer admission to both films for the price of one. Eccentric independent features from the first half of the 1970s that have become cult classics, Female Trouble and The Honeymoon Killers both deliver shocks to the system, telling sensational stories of heartless crime and unbridled passion. The ruthlessness of Dawn Davenport (Divine), whose wanton thirst for fame and beauty puts her squarely on the wrong side of the law, takes center stage in the brightly colored Female Trouble, while in the stark, black-and-white Honeymoon Killers—Kastle’s one and only film, based on a true-crime case—a sullen single woman finds a match with a con man, their courtship soon going terribly sour as the two embark on a brutal killing spree. For more on these transgressive films, check out Ed Halter’s essay for our recent edition of Female Trouble and Gary Giddins’ liner essay for our Honeymoon Killers release.