Rare Flix: Blue Sunshine

Another Present, another crazy Film.  Today's Movie is Blue Sunshine, a 1978 Film about killers and drugs.  It is kind off odd.  A rash of strange killings takes place in Los Angeles.  The connective thread: the person suddenly loses all their hair and goes mad!  That's...unique, right?  This is by Jeff Lieberman, the same man who made Squirm.  That Film was about killer worms gone mad due to downed Power Lines, so what do you expect?  His most recent Film appears to be Satan's Little Helper, a Film I keep missing on Halloween.  Maybe this Year.  Want to know something even scarier?  He also wrote The Neverending Story III!  Oh, the terror!  This is an interesting Film as it seems like it was designed to scare Baby Boomers.  After all, they had probably been in the same place as the people in this Film.  Does it work on people that weren't even alive when it came out?  To find out, read on...

At a Party, a man sings and dance until someone grabs his hair...which comes off.  Say what?

He goes crazy and attacks some women at the party.  He's eventually dispatched, but only when he's hit by a truck.

Unfortunately, our hero- Zalman King- is fingered for the crime and has to go on the run.  He needs to prove what happened without getting caught.

While researching at the site of a similar event, he sees an old poster.  The man on it looks familiar- he's running for the Senate!

Using his girlfriend, our hero gets closer to the future Senator's inner-circle after his suspicious behavior makes him a key suspect.  The key word: Blue Sunshine.

He eventually makes the connection: Blue Sunshine was a kind of LSD sold by the man in College and all that took it or now going crazy like some sort of time-bomb.

Speaking of which, the man's ex-wife nearly kills her friend's kids because of it.  Fun Fact: all of the kids' dialogue was dubbed in, since the Parents of the kid Actors pulled them after seeing this Scene.

The solution: catch one of the victims so they can be tested.  He buys a Dart Gun and gets some drugs from his friendly Doctor (who was almost Jeff Goldblum!).

The Film's Climax takes place in a Mall- first at a Disco Club and later a Book Store.  Using the combined power of a gun and drugs, our hero saves the day!

In the aftermath, some text informs us that the danger is not over!  Of course, there is no Blue Sunshine 2 and it isn't a real Story (as some stated), so...yeah, it is over.  The End.

A good trip, not a bad one.  The Film is paced kind of oddly, but still good.  There are some nice surprises (like whether or not the Doctor is infected) and also some nice build-up (like with the Senator-to-be's-ex-Wife).  You can figure out a couple of the infected people, so there's some nice tension until they actually go crazy.  The lead- Zalman King- is certainly an odd choice of lead, but he works.  He is pretty eccentric, which really drives the Story.  Like a classic Giallo hero, he goes off to solve the crime on his own.  He kind of has to for there to be a Film, but his reasoning is kind of odd.  He can't stay and wait for the Police to run tests to prove his innocence since he'd 'go crazy' after 'even one day in Prison.'  Sure- that makes...not much sense.  Regardless, this is sure to please fans of 1970s Films and provides enough thrills to please most casual viewers.  If nothing else, it has Brion James playing another weirdo...

Up next, one more Project Terrible Film for me this Round.  With Triple H in a Family Film, pain is coming for me.  Stay tuned...