Blue Sunshine (1978) - Review

Blue Sunshine (1978). Starring Zalman King, Mark Goddard and Deborah Winters.

Two and a half stars.

Actor/softcore porn director (and possible lost twin of Marjoe Gortner) Zalman King stars as a Jerry, a man on the run for murders not committed by himself, but by people tainted by a specialty brand of LSD, eponymous with the title. 

Jerry's trouble begins when he and his girlfriend Alicia (Deborah Winters) attend a get-together with some old college friends from Stanford University.  One of his friends named Frannie Scott (a guy named Frannie, I'm not misgendering him) is revealed to be completely bald after a mishap with one of the guests.   Frannie goes an a kill-crazy rampage and chases Jerry until he's hit by a by a moving truck.  The drivers' mistakenly believe Jerry is responsible, which leads to Jerry also being blamed for the other murders committed by Frannie.

Jerry finds himself on the lam, trying to clear his name ala The Fugitive.   Jerry does a poor job of this through most of the movie, as he acts like a total lunatic in every single situation.  He enlists the aid of Alicia and surgeon David Blume, another friend from Stanford.  Upon further investigation, Jerry learns that a rash of bizarre homicides have been perpetrated by persons that have gone completely bald.  He visits one of the crime scenes, which reveals the killer possessed a psychedelic poster with a local politician's face and the words "BLUE SUNSHINE" written at the bottom.

This leads Jerry to Edward Flemming (Marc Goddard), who's running for Congress.  And boy, does this movie let you know that he's running for office.  Almost every goddamn scene for the remaining two-thirds of the movie features either his campaign posters or his workers canvasing every fucking neighborhood.  I'm not certain why this is so prevalent in the plot, as he appears to be running unopposed.  There's no sign of another candidate anywhere to be found.  I will say, Flemming gives some major Greg Stillson vibes, which makes me wonder if Stephen King saw this before he wrote The Dead Zone.

After Jerry has a confrontation with the politician at one of his rallies, he discovers that Flemming had been an LSD pusher who also attended Stanford.  He specialized in dealing Blue Sunshine and that every person affected had been customers.  Through some more misadventures, Jerry gets blamed for another death and rushes to find proof before the police close in on him.

Blue Sunshine has an interesting story that was based on the public's growing fear of LSD meltdowns following the drug-addled late 60s.  The scenes where the LSD-zombies flip out are genuinely creepy and you're never certain which person will go crazy next.  It's pretty entertaining.  But I have some problems with it as well.  For starters, the plot isn't well fleshed out.  The viewer never receives any real explanation for why this specific type of LSD is causing the plague of attacks and there simply isn't enough movement in this film to make up for this lack of information.  The ending sorta fizzles out with a lame epilogue text.  It's implied that Flemming is somehow behind a conspiracy to distribute this drug, something in the vein of MK-ULTRA.  But this doesn't come to fruition.  Nor does the overexposure of Flemming's political campaign in the film.  Flemming's character could've easily been a variety of other professions and the movie would still have the same basic ending.  This leads me to believe that writer/director Jeff Lieberman was forced to excise  portions of the script due to some constraints.  There are too many setups that never really pay off and it's jarring.

Be sure to watch for the two best sequences in the movie.  One is a showdown between Jerry and Flemming's ex-wife, when she snaps and tries to murder her neighbor's annoying-ass children.  The other involves Flemming's bodyguard (Ray Young, who I swore was Merlin Olsen) have psychotic break and running amok in a shopping mall and disco. Out-fucking-standing!

Evil Dead Rise (2023) - Review

 Evil Dead Rise (2023).  Starring Alyssa Sutherland, Lily Sutherland and Morgan Davies.

Two and a half stars out of four.

Currently found on HBO Max and various pay-VOD streams.


So I like this movie.  I thought it was decent.  I definitely felt it was a huge improvement over the 2013 remake.  And yes, the 2013 movie is a remake, despite what numerous fans claim. 

Back in 2013, I went to see that version of EVIL DEAD to review it for this blog. At that time, I gave it a two-star rating, mainly because of the semi-competent acting and the cinematography/effects.  However, in the decade-plus years since then,  I no longer account for this if the movie is any type of a studio release.  Because of the advances in technology and the availability of talented unknown actors, most movies possess these qualities mentioned.  Unless you're making an ultra-low budget show on a Walmart brand digital camcorder and uploading the movie to YouTube, acting and production value are going to be higher than they've been in the past, even with most indie flicks.  So at some point, I need to revisit EVIL DEAD (2013) to see how my perspective has changed.

I started writing this review back in April of 2023. It took me a while to return and finish it.  This was largely due to the fact that it seemed to be division among the fans over this movie.  It was draining enough that after researching, I had a hard time trying to write anything for the review.  But I now I feel the time is right.  I mean, a year later is a great time to talk about a movie, right?

RISE does a couple of things that piss me off, I want to get that out of the way here.  When the trailer was released, the trailer made it look like it was set in a weird, fairy tale-esque house.  It looked again to be another rural location, which has been germane to this series.  However, the exteriors shown in the trailer are only in the first 5-10 minutes.  As fate would have it, the beginning takes place a day after the main events of the movie.  There's plenty of gore and payoff during this, but you have to sit through to the last four or five minutes to understand how the main plot ties into the beginning.  And it's absolutely fucking unnecessary. It's a total bait and switch movie.  That may be why I knocked half a star off the rating.

Then there are the characters.  The protagonist is Beth, a guitar technician for an unnamed band who is also pregnant.  She decides to visit her sister and her family in their Los Angeles shithole apartment:  Ellie, a so-called tattoo artist who is raising her family alone after her husband left (after watching this movie, inferences can be made as to why he left); Bridget, an androgynous teen activist who's concerned with finding her Eat The Rich shirt;  Danny, the younger brother who is aspiring to be a DJ (and who kick starts the mayhem in this movie); and Kassie, the token precocious child of the picture who mutilates dolls.  Then there's the two ancillary characters in this setting. Mr. Fonda, the gun toting dickhead slumlord and Gabriel, who I think is a tenant? Not clear on that.  In any event, you find yourself immediately rooting for the deaths of everyone involved. And fortunately for the viewer, that's mostly what happens!

While Beth and Ellie are moping around, they send the kids out for pizza.  On the way back, the children find themselves caught during a small earthquake in the parking garage of their building.  A crack in the floor reveals a passageway to a bank vault that somehow was built-over by the apartments?  In his infinite wisdom, Danny climbs down into the chamber.  He discovers this movie's version of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis and three records made by preachers toying with the book.  Danny decides these albums would be great to sample for his DJing efforts and plays the incantations back in the apartment.  I'm not sure how.  These records, from the 1920s, would likely be 78 RPM and most modern record players only do 45 and 33.  But that's nitpicking and I choose to let that go.

From there on, we go full deadite, starting with Ellie.  Her possession is the best in the movie and is genuinely frightening.  From this point on, it's what Joe Bob Briggs used to refer to as spam in a cabin. The atmosphere has a great vibe of claustrophobia due to the characters being stuck on the second floor of this complex.   Gore and body-count
are abound.

Like I've said about many other movies, this should've been a stand alone flick.  It didn't need to be a part of the Evil Dead series and would've benefited from not having the constraints of that series.  That said, this movie is well worth a couple of watches.

 Cat Sick Blues (2015).  Starring Matthew C. Vaughan, Shia Denovan, and Mahalia Brown

Three Stars.

TRIGGER WARNING:   This movie contains disturbing imagery and depictions of sexual assault and animal abuse.  Discretion is advised before further viewing of this movie and reading of this article.

A couple of women are seen getting stoned and watching cat videos on a laptop.  Eventually, after venturing outside to investigate, they're both murdered by a weirdo donning a cat mask.  That's opposed to a normal person wearing a cat mask that murders people of course.  After decapitating the blonde stoner,  the killer walks into their British flat, places the head on a side-table and proceeds to watch cat videos himself.

This sets the stage for Cat Sick Blues, a demented and somewhat original take on the time-honored slasher subgenre.  We're introduced to Ted, a man grieving the death of his black cat.  Ted breaks from reality so severely that he becomes convinced he can bring his beloved pet back from the netherworld.  How so, you might ask?  He believes the trick to this is murdering nine women, one for each life of his cat, and draining their blood into a giant vat to re-animate the deceased animal.

In addition to his feline mask and his matching red sweater, Ted utilizes two sets of unique tools to accomplishes his goals.  One is a pair of kitten-mittens, complete with Kruger claws for slicing and dicing.  The other is, I shit you not, a twenty-four inch dildo with barbs. It's patterned after (if you guessed it) a tomcat.  These items are just the cherry on the batshit crazy sundae the audience is about to endure as the carnage piles up.

The side plot of this movie involves a woman named Claire Ellis, a YouTuber famous for videos of her white cat.  This portion of her life comes to an end when a mentally challenged neighbor forces his way into her apartment.  After snapping her cat's neck (ala Of Mice And Men) and throwing it out the window, the intruder violently rapes Claire.  While fleeing the scene, he happens to steal her camcorder.  As the camcorder had accidentally captured the attack, it falls into nefarious hands and is uploaded to the internet.  The death of her cat, the assault and the unwanted attention from the video all take their toll on Claire.

Ted and Claire's paths cross when they meet at a support group for people.  This leads them having some awkward dates and encounters to say the least.  Unbeknownst to Claire, Ted is feverishly working towards his goal of cat-resurrection.  Needless to say, the bodies pile up in his wake and Claire eventually finds herself on a crash collision of fate in the surrealistic conclusion of the film.

Not recommended for casual horror film fans.  Proceed to watch at your own risk.