I remember hearing about this movie as an eight year old, and the premise alone was enough to give me the willies. A group of carefree college kids drop some acid in the late 1960's and ten years later all their hair falls out and they turn into murderous psychotics.

Then, when videos started becoming available I used to pick this one off the shelf and toy with the idea of renting it. At thirteen or so, it still looked like a promising creep session. (The moon!)

Sadly and typically, I waited until I was thirty-six freaking years old to rent it, by which point any scare factor had dribbled straight down the drain of adult irony. And the fact that I have a newborn, who makes everyday seem like an acid trip.

"Blue Sunshine", is good/bad, but it ain't evil, as the song goes. I'm not sure if it's deserving of it's cult status--if it has one, it does always seem to be filed under "cult"--but it's a fair cautionary romp. Not quite as ludicrous as "Reefer Madness" in the drug scare stakes, almost, though.

Zalman King plays the protagonist Jerry. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time when one of his old classmates flips his lid on the titular acid at a party and shoves a bunch of gabbing feathered hair girls into the fireplace. (The moment which is described on the video case as "too horrible for description". It really isn't. Frankly, it livened up the party a bit). After clobbering the lysergicaly driven maniac, Jerry has to go on the lam as everyone thinks he did it.

One of the major weaknesses of the movie is Jerry acts as creepy as all the acid casualties, as he snoops around the unnamed Californian city, trying to piece together what's going on. In fact, everyone in this movie acts like they are on drugs, it's hard to tell who the crazy ones are. It only becomes evident when they rip off their wigs (nobody must know my secret) and start acting like psychotic cone heads. Give "BS" it's due, though, it does have some of the most amusing drug freak outs this side of "Valley Of the Dolls".

And whichever city this is, it must have the least competent police force in the world, considering that Jerry manages to visit every location and crime scene where he would be a prime suspect, announces his full name, and starts asking way too many questions. And yet somehow the local blue boys still need the help of Jerry's girlfriend to find him. My little blue stuffed walrus that I watch movies with felt this was major loophole as well.

There are some strange, random moments (an inexplicable parrot, a singing Frank Sinatra doll, a blathering drug addict in the park ) to "Blue Sunshine" wherein it almost edges up to "Driller Killer" territory. If there had been more of this, the movie probably would have truly become a must see oddity. Unfortunately, "Sunshine" ends up coming off like one of those horribly dated (frogs!) drug education flicks I had to sit through in grammar school. Which makes it entertaining in it's own way, but still not what it could have been. Throughout, I kept wishing for a tab or two of Green Manalishi to make things hum a long a bit more (nobody must know my secret).