BLUE SUNSHINE. Anti-Drug Horror

Long before Mr. Mackey in South Park convinced people about the harmfulness of drugs, the creators of this astounding film did so. A group of friends throws a private party in a cabin in the woods. Someone dances, someone sings, someone pretends to be a bird. At one point, one of the partygoers tries to kiss a friend’s girlfriend, forcing the friend to pull the overzealous guy by his hair. The offender’s hair stays in the friend’s hand, and the offender goes into a rage and runs out into the dark night. The men set out to search for him, meanwhile, the offender returns and murders the women left in the cabin. Jerry Zipkin is accused of the murders and must prove his innocence and solve the mystery of the murderous frenzy that took over the partygoer. Additionally, it turns out that a series of murders committed by seemingly exemplary citizens, who suddenly went bald and fell into murderous madness, is shaking Los Angeles. The trail leads to a local politician who, ten years earlier, sold a bad batch of LSD called “Blue Sunshine.”

Jeff Lieberman’s film plot is as absurd as it is original. The negative sides of drug use had been shown in cinema before [e.g., Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)], but when the countercultural revolution exploded in the late ’60s, films almost openly celebrating the charms of intoxicants appeared, such as Roger Corman’s The Trip (1967), Hy Averback’s I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968), and Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969). On the other hand, films exposing the moral bankruptcy of hippies were also made: Richard Rush’s Psych-Out (1968), Barbet Schroeder’s More (1969), and Paul Morrissey’s Trash (1970) – but none of them told stories about psychopathic bald murderers, and in none of them were the memorable words “There’s a bald maniac on the loose and he’s totally lost it!” spoken. But in Blue Sunshine, all of this is present.

The director claims that sociology and film studies students write scientific papers about his film, although he never had ambitions to create more than a cheap horror. It’s no wonder, universities have long become diploma factories (at best) or centers of ideological propaganda (at worst). Today, you can write on any topic (e.g., Nero as a model for contemporary anti-clericalism or The Influence of Earthworm Migration on the Development of Angiosperms in Papua New Guinea in the 8th Century BCE) and someone will surely approve, promote, and consider it essential knowledge for saving the planet. However, undoubtedly, Blue Sunshine can be of interest to film scholars as an example of a curiosity – a film original in storyline, but clumsy in execution.

Perhaps one should not expect technical fireworks from a cheap, independent production, but cinema history knows cheaper, yet much better-made films. Blue Sunshine is poorly acted, badly written, and even worse directed. It’s impossible to hold back laughter when the camera zooms in on the faces of the raging bald men or when the cast struggles with their lack of acting skills and unintentionally funny dialogues (“I have terrible nightmares and headaches, my hair is falling out and I’m furious,” says Wendy to a friend. “Have some coffee,” advises the friend). The biggest struggles here are faced by Zalman King, known to cinema erotomaniacs as the director of Wild Orchid (1989) and the series Red Shoe Diaries (1992-1997); attentive viewers will also notice a young Brion James in the role of the bird-man.

Like many other B and lower-grade midnight movies, Blue Sunshine has achieved cult status – providing so much sinful entertainment and uncontrolled bursts of laughter. It’s possible that Lieberman’s horror influenced other productions, such as Panos Cosmatos’s Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010). It certainly inspired Robert Smith (The Cure) and Steven Severin (Siouxsie and the Banshees), who named the only album of their project The Glove from 1983 Blue Sunshine. There is also a song by the Australian group HTRK with the same title, and punk rockers Ramones screened fragments of the film (especially the final scenes in the disco they hated) during concerts at the CBGB club in New York. Both The Glove album and the HTRK song, as well as the work of the Ramones, are more interesting than Lieberman’s film.