Sorry, this movie sucks

Sadly Over-hyped

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

A group of former college buddies find the drug experimentation of their youth in the 60's coming back at them in a scary manner. Those who dabbled in a psychedelic drug called Blue Sunshine now find themselves experiencing severe hair loss and homicidal urges, resulting in a series of murders. One of the old gang becomes a chief suspect in the killings and so sets out investigating the case.This is one of those movies which sounds like it is going to be brilliant ahead of seeing it, with its bald-headed maniacs quite a striking idea. In truth it doesn't quite measure up to its potential if I am honest. Yet it remains an interesting effort which has garnered a cult following or sorts. It combines several topical ideas of the 70's in a fairly original way with drug paranoia, political cynicism and the fall-out of the counter-culture all meeting head-on here. In some respects, this one feels not entirely dissimilar to the types of movies David Cronenberg was making at the same time as this. Although it definitely lacks Cronenberg's focus and intelligent approach. Nevertheless, it does generate some memorable scenes such as the sequence where a baby-sitter pursues a couple of young children while brandishing a large kitchen knife (a scene where the real parents of the children thought was so disturbing that they removed the kids from the production forthwith, resulting in their voices having to be dubbed rather unconvincingly), while there is also the opening attack sequence too, where a man goes berserk, killing three women at a party, going as far as to throw one of them into a lit fireplace. Generally speaking, the idea of the bald lunatics is a good one though, and one which I am sure was even more potent in the 70's which clearly was a 'hair decade' - full-on baldness was no doubt 'a bit weird' in those days. Essentially, the concept of bad LSD leading to homicidal ex-hippies was very good though, even if the film ends on something of an anti-climax, which suggested that the production may have run out of money and had to wrap things up with text-on-screen. But despite issues such as this, I would certainly label Blue Sunshine as a movie well worth catching if you are interested in cult 70's horror or films which have a counter-cultural element.

Welcome to Los Angeles, where a series of Stanford graduates and ex-acid users are inexplicably losing their hair, going mad, and committing the most gruesome of murders. Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King) happens to be attending a party where one of the incidents takes place, and has to evade police and try to solve the cause in order to exonerate himself from blame.Jeff Lieberman ("Squirm"; "Just Before Dawn") writes and directs this spunky and surreptitiously bizarre thriller, and as usual, his own unique flair pervades every scene. At times the film plays out like a corky 1960s European detective thriller, while at others it is surprisingly macabre and unsettling. Other unusual touches make the film stand out prominently, such as the drawn out opening credits: we are given introductory snippets of the characters affected with the hair loss/mania which are interspersed throughout the opening credit roll. After each appearance, the camera reorients itself on an ominous blue moon over which the credits continue to be played. It is idiosyncrasies such as this that "Blue Sunshine" is riddled with, and that's part of its appeal. The film has an episodic feel as well, but the unsettling tone is continuously revived through a jarring and memorably creepy score, as well as the wonderfully executed psychotic breaks of the affected characters (a mad bald woman chasing children with a kitchen knife? Count me in).The acting in the film is a mishmash of solid performances with less-than stellar ones; Zalman King somehow works for the leading part, and Deborah Winters is also memorable as the feisty yet peripheral girlfriend character. The film's prescient disco death blowout is the icing on the cake here, and while it may be a bit anticlimactic overall, the film still holds its ground.Overall, "Blue Sunshine" is one of Lieberman's stranger offerings, but if nothing else, it's an original. There are some seriously creepy scenes that accent the ominous atmosphere, and there is a persistent L.A. noir-ish feel to the proceedings that leave you never quite knowing what to make of any of it at any given moment. Not a film for everyone, and not profoundly terrifying, unless you're an ex-LSD user from Stanford, but it is definitely a one of a kind. 8/10.

In 1967, at the height of the Summer Of Love, a new strain of L.S.D. - Blue Sunshine - became popular among drug-taking students at Stanford University. Edward Flemming ( Mark Goddard, of the 'Lost In Space' television series ) made money selling the stuff but sensibly did not take it himself. Its horrific side-effects only kick in ten years later. The users go bald ( women included ) in the blink of an eye, grow sensitive to loud noises, their eyeballs roll in their sockets, and they get the crazy urge to kill! First victim is Frannie Scott ( Richard Crystal ) who goes berserk at a party in a log cabin, hurling three young women into a blazing fire. Jerry Zipkin ( Zalman King ) is blamed for the killings. To clear his name, he teams up with Alicia Sweeney ( Deborah Winters ). Finding a poster of Flemming in the studio of one of the Blue Sunshine victims, he goes to see the man himself. The ex-drug dealer is now running for Congress! Not wishing to see his seedy past raked up at such a delicate time, he tells Zipkin to keep away from him. But Ed's campaign manager - Wayne Mulligan ( Ray Young ) was also a Blue Sunshine taker, and begins exhibiting the first signs of madness...Written and directed by Jeff Liebermann, also responsible for cult horror movies 'Squirm' ( 1976 ) - not one to see if you've just had a spaghetti lunch - and 'Dead Before Dawn' ( 1981 ). 'Blue Sunshine' has an original idea at its core, and the shocks and scares are well coordinated. Wendy Flemming ( Ann Cooper ) goes nuts while baby sitting two children, and her creeping up on them with a knife is a very Hitchcockian image indeed. How rare to see a horror picture with a strong anti-drugs message. There's an air of melancholia to the story, as it effectively mourns the end of the hippie generation. Hero Zalman King makes a refreshing change from the usual handsome hunks who grace these sorts of pictures, looking as he does like the late comedian Charlie Callas. Goddard is slimy enough to be completely credible as a Senator! Some have commented on the 'rushed' ending. I for one think it better to have an ending like that, rather than one of those protracted 'Friday The 13th' style finales in which the killer won't stay dead. They just are not very believable. I would have liked Flemming to have been creamed by Wayne though.If the idea of bald psychos on the loose strikes you as absurd, well yes it is. But 'Blue Sunshine' is one hell of a scary film. You'll never look at Ross Kemp in quite the same way again.

This surprisingly intriguing horror film has people turning into bald,blue-skinned killers after dropping contaminated LSD ten years before."Blue Sunshine" is more fondly remembered for it's bald,thirty-something,ex-hippie murderers who are easily the most bizarre descendants of the living dead yet to reach the silver screen.This film is not easy to categorize:it's a horror film mixed with drug movie and also features paranoid urban legends and bizarre conspiracy theories.The title of this movie is taken from the name of a bad batch of 60s acid that seems to have some rather unfortunate long-term side effects.The film is badly lit and there are some dull spots,but "Blue Sunshine" is a must-see for experimental cinema enthusiasts.7 out of 10.