Down on Us

Schlock master Larry Buchanan combines his love of conspiracy theories with his amazing ability to present unrealistic history in this movie, perhaps the worst rock music related film ever made. The actors only vaguely resemble Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, and produce amusing sound alike fake music for the soundtrack. All musical performances take place on the same cheap set which is said to be in different places all over the world. Everything has an extreme bargain basement quality about it. A lot more fun to watch than Woodstock.

I love this movie it is so funny. I think that Jim Morrisons stoned surfer dude dialog is worthy of an academy. Jimi's vomit is the stuff of the heavens, and hey at last a good looking Janis who CAN sing. Anyhow if you love bad movies and sitting drunk with your friends and making sarcastic remarks is your idea of fun, this may be your waterloo! The bizarre music may be the highlight, but then I remember the plot. Honestly it's really crazy and you must see it to believe it. I suppose the Hendrix guy was the best, but they sure give him some off the wall lines. Jim of course is made out to be an incoherent wreck. Janis they were nicer too, but somehow I don't think any of three hung out as much as this film would lead you to think. Actually thinking isn't the point of this movie, it's just enjoying the schlock. Ed Wood had he lived may have turned out something just like this.

My review was written in November 1989 after watching the movie on Unicorn video cassette.

Perhaps the screwiest of Larry Buchanan's series of conspiracy-theory films, "Beyond the Doors" is a direct-to-video release postulating that the government put a hit out on Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

Filmed in 1983 with the Joplin-esque title "Down on Us", it's fun but extremely silly entertainment, opening with a George Bernard Shaw quote: "Assassination is the extreme form of censorship".

Unlike his other films about Marilyn Monroe and Lee Harvey Oswald, Buchanan is on pretty shaky ground here, trying to create links and conspiracies involving three of the showing stars from the '60s.

Episodic pic unfolds awkwardly in flashbacks dating from 1968-71, as Steven Tice reads a file left him by his just assassinated dad (Sandy Kenyon), a government mole who was assigned to kill the three singers, supposedly because of their political stands and influence on young people.

Name-dropping script mentions Richard Nixon (especially in somewhat cryptic quotes from a 1977 interview) and others in vaguely pointing a finger, and depicts another deceased figure, J. Edgar Hoover, onscreen. Links between the three stars and their personal interrelationships remain quite unconvincing, however. Buchanan is far more circumspect than the recent "Wired" film in depicting surviving folks; no one will recognize, for example, sidemen Mitch Mitchell or Ray Manzarek from the characters shown on screen.

Main content, filled with sexploitation material involving groupies going topless, is a rather campy re-creation of concerts and backstage/out-on-the-town incidents. It's all rendered goofy by the decision to save big bucks and rely on a dozen soundalike songs by David Shorey, RIchard Bowen and Janet Strover that gives the feel but do not replicate the impact of the singers' actual hits.

Three hesps in the lead roles don't look like their targets, but Riba Meryl as Joplin and Gregory Allen Chatman as Hendrix do prettty well in mimicking thier voices and manner. Bryan Wolf does a poor job recalling Morrison, while his unidentified gilfriend (called simply "She" in the credits) is well played by Susanne Barnes.

Pic's only revelation is the claim that Morriswon faked his own death in order to regain his privacy. According to Buchanan, Morrison wnet to live in a monastery in Spain, dying there quietly in January 1974. If you believe that one, Buchanan has the real story of Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow in the can for perusal as well.

Larry Buchanan. Yep, same guy who did "Attack of the THE Eye Creatures" and two (count 'em: TWO) conspiracy movies about Marilyn Monroe. He's to blame, here.

Adding onto his ever-growing pile of folders left over from Oliver Stone's "eh-I-grew-out-of-it" conspiracy drawer, here's "Down On Us (i.e.- "Beyond the Doors") which is the working definition of historical inaccuracy.

Forget everything you THOUGHT you knew about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, says Big Lar', cuz this is the real deal! Y'see, the three big names in rock of the '60s were KILLED BY THE GOVERNMENT because they were subversives or counter-productive to Truth, Justice and the American Way, or sumpthin' like that there. I knew it all along.

Anyway, three people (Chatman, Meryl, Wolf) who look eerily like their real life shadows (that is, if you completely close your eyes, turn your backs and walk five miles away from them) show that instead of their recorded deaths, the good old US of A put hits out on them! Yep, it's the truth!

Man, I cannot believed I watched this movie. It's facts, when not stretching credibility to the snapping point, are ludicrous; the acting makes TV commercials look like high drama and if you honestly watch it through to the end, you deserve the "twist" ending. You really, really do; I swear. Genius.

But like the man said: "Rock and roll is dead - long live rock and roll."

Not this flick, though.

No stars for "Down on Us". And that's the movie audience describing the film, by the way....

Horrible all the way around. Only if interest for fans of REALLY obscure cinema, I rate this for the bottom 200. In fact I would put this right at number 50, because like everything else in this piece of garbage it has Just Enough to save it from a 1 star rating.

First the Good. The Jimi Hendrix actor is passable. Jim looks like a Halloween costume, and Janis looks nothing at all like Janis Joplin.

All the songs are soundalikes, obviously as a movie of this budget could never get the rights to classic hits. BUT, the soundalikes honestly do sound like what the artist would be doing in 1982, had they lived. Too bad this movie takes place in 1968-1971. Get my drift? There is enough here to bear watching this train smash --- but only to have it fail 90% of the time.

The actual story was kinda decent, has it been directed by an Oliver Stone, we might have an actual movie here.

The budget SEVERELY limits this film... instead of Janis's signature 1/5th of SOCO she drinks from a pint of whatever, and even uses and 80's style juicer.

In the scene where the UK cover of Electric Ladyland is shot, instead of a mountain of nude women, we get 2 topless ones...

It goes on and on and on... deserves a Rifftrack... but this movie runs 2 HOURS... are you kidding? Only of interest to people who like to go to sleep or vomit. It's bad.