BLUE SUNSHINE Heaven. Simply Heaven. BLUE SUNSHINE is most certainly the first film to slaughter and criticize the boomer, yuppie generation. 1968: A group of Stanford students drop the eponymous acid. Flash forward. 1978: Now professionals living in LA, one by one their hair starts falling out and they become mass murderers! No I am not making this up. Devilishly wonderful with one of the most bizarre performances this side of 1960s Marlon Brando. Zalman King, who later became a noted softcore porn producer, is so bizarre in the central role that in one very serious scene he appears to be sniffing another actors neck. BLUE SUNSHINE is just that kind of movie--an odd delight and a perfect double feature with ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO.

"Blue Sunshine" has little to recommend it.The story is hokey, about people who go nuts due to drugs they consumed years before. The acting, for the most part, is second rate, with little or no sense of reality, though clearly they were going for reality.The music, the makeup, the scenery--everything feels second rate, probably due to a small budget. It is set during the disco era and feels as natural as polyester.And if you think this might be a good horror/thriller, it is as scary a Godzilla film, meaning it is laughable.

1976's "Blue Sunshine" was the second outing for writer-director Jeff Lieberman, following a solid success with AIP's release of "Squirm." Like Ken Wiederhorn, Lieberman hasn't gone on to direct that often (four horror features since), but by staying within the genre continues building the foundation for his growing cult. Unlike "Squirm," a straightforward tale of backwoods terror, "Blue Sunshine" is more of a thinking-man's picture, featuring a protagonist in Zalman King who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, behaving in the most guilty manner possible! It's certainly a challenge to warm up to a character described on screen as 'erratic,' but there are other compensations and mysteries that come together nicely for the fadeout. The title refers to a type of LSD available at Stanford circa 1967, and anyone known to have sampled it becoming irritable and homicidal after a decade's passing, preceded by their hair falling out. Among the cast, Robert Walden is a standout, funny even in a serious surgeon part, and Mark Goddard, enjoying a juicy screen role as a Senatorial candidate who knows more than he lets on. Ray Young ("Blood of Dracula's Castle") plays Goddard's bodyguard, smaller roles essayed by familiar faces such as Alice Ghostley, Stefan Gierasch, and Brion James (in one of his earliest films). Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater introduced me to "Blue Sunshine," which aired only once on Feb 12 1983, less than a year before its farewell broadcast.

I saw this movie over twenty years ago, back when CBS showed late night movies instead of Letterman et al. I thought it was the worst, most poorly produced and thought-out movie ever. Nothing I have seen since has caused me to change my mind. It does not even fall into the "so bad it's good" category. My roommate and I were ridiculing almost every aspect of this disaster.One example: the drug at issue, "Blue Sunshine," supposedly made the victim's hair fall out. The "falling out" consisted of the victim's entire head of hair coming off, all at once, in one piece -- obviously a wig being pulled off. The movie did not so much come to a logical end as, suddenly, the camera pulls back and announces that the movie is over.I remember that the closing credits announced that the film had been produced by "The Blue Sunshine Corporation," leading me to suspect that it was a tax loss project designed to be bad, a la the plot of The Producers. If so, it succeeded.