August 11, 2018
Written by: Jeff Lieberman
Starring: Zalman King, Deborah Winters, Mark Goddard
Budget: $550,000
Quote: "No! Johnny, no! No more chocolate pudding! I made that for your father, now stop it!"
Trivia: According to director Jeff Lieberman, New York music clubs such as CBGB's would often screen the film as backing visuals during performances of punk bands such as The Ramones, particularly the disco-attack scene. He humorously felt that this was a way for these performers to "shit on" and express their overall distain for the disco scene.
Holy smokes, this movie is dripping with 1970s weirdness! There is an attack in a disco. There is an LSD party scene. There is a car chase. And the entire movie plays out like a "Just Say No" after school special. It is everything that your mom and Nancy Reagan warned you about. If you try drugs then you will go bald ten years later and murder the people closest to you. Thanks for the warning Nancy! The plot is pretty unique and the movie has a really fun quality to it. While watching it, it is obvious that Jeff Lieberman put his heart into the film thereby creating a fun uniquely 1970s piece of horror.
The film begins with a weird 1970s drug party where couples talk and some guy thinks he's a pterodactyl. The party is paused so one of the guest can croon a Frank Sinatra (?) song. Someone accidently pulls off his wig to reveal he is completely bald. He leaves the party but then comes back to kill whoever is left eventually being killed himself. His death is wrongfully put on his friend Jerry and from there, we follow Jerry as he attempts to figure out what happened and clear himself of his friend's murder. Other people also share his friend's fate: baldness, murder, and then death. Eventually Jerry figures out that all these people had the connection of taking a type of LSD in the 1960s called Blue Sunshine. Afterwards, Jerry is able to save a girl from one of these Blue Sunshine baldies in a disco and the film ends with a "this is a true story" type government warning.
Blue Sunshine is a really fun film that has some interesting narrative tools. At first, I didn't understand why the drug caused people to go bald, but then realized it is to let the viewer see a gradual transition in the characters from normal day people to crazed maniacs. The loss of hair chronicles their decent into madness. Also, it adds to the mania of the characters when they eventually do go crazy. In the opening scene, when the baldy comes back to the party his wide open eyes and bald head really make him look like a maniac (super cheap effect to boot!)! During that scene he enters the house and immediately throws a woman into the fireplace. I know people are lit on fire often in horror films, but I have never seen someone thrown into a suburban house fireplace before. Like much of the other parts of the film, it has a very comical feel to it.
Another great narrative device employed in the film, is the use of several different storylines that are all converging into destruction. In order to make the film interesting, we follow the lives of a babysitter, a police officer, and a politician's assistant. Each of these characters had taken Blue Sunshine in the sixties and have a one-way ticket to crazyville. The cop comes home to his wife, who has just screamed at her children to not eat daddy's pudding and murders his whole family. The Babysitter, tired of hearing the two kids she's watching yell about wanting ice cream shoves a bunch of aspirin in her mouth and then tries to murder the kids with a butcher knife. And finally, the politician's assistant goes crazy at a mall's disco because the music is too loud.
If all of this sounds silly, it is because it is. This movie is the perfect film to have friends over, have a few drinks, and laugh at the greatness in the film. Case in point, Jerry, our hero, finally subdues the giant football player baldy in a shoe store that he has lured him into. He does this by carefully repeating the advice a gun store clerk gave him. He audibly repeats to himself something to the tune of "hold the gun, point the gun, squeeze the trigger slowly, shoot the gun." These words, spoken and acted out so carefully, appear to have a special significance where there is none. It is the equivalent of narrating oneself urinating at a urinal. Silly? Yes. Stupid? Maybe. Fun? You bet!
Overall, this film is a really fun piece of 1970s cinema. It's worth your time if nothing more than to see a guy go crazy at a mall disco. Death to disco, long live horror!
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