Le rayon bleu

A number of people are inexplicably losing their hair, becoming overly sensitive to loud noises, making googly eyes, and most significantly becoming violently aggressive. The film takes a number of threads based around this and gradually ties them together--all of the affected parties turn out to have a common link. The focus becomes Jerry Zipkin's (Zalman King) investigation and solving of the mystery.

This is a fairly pedestrian 1970s suspense/horror film, made more interesting by some of the bizarre, murderous behavior and the eventual explanation of the behavior. There is a slight sheen of camp that one might think is unintentional, but there are clues that director Jeff Lieberman intended the campy aspects, such as the cutaway to the defaced poster of politician Edward Fleming accompanied by a comic-sounding horn/siren blast, and more obvious elements like the Streisand and Sinatra puppets. Still, the camp factor may have increased as we've become removed from this film's era.

The strongest horror material occurs in the very beginning of the film, after which it turns into a fairly effective suspense vehicle, although at times it has a more generic made-for-television feel. The biggest problem, unfortunately, arrives with the ending, which seems rushed and less than climactic, not to mention a very peculiar bit about how to handle a gun, and also leaves quite a few threads dangling (an attempt is made to tie them up slightly with some "here's what happened" text right before the credits). For me, the horror material was the most effective, so things went slightly downhill from the beginning, but the film was just goofy enough to retain my interest, and it held an 8 rating until the climax, which was poor enough for me to subtract a whopping two points. Unfortunately, such a misstep in the ending is much more difficult to surmount than a similar misstep in the middle of a film. A 6 out of 10 from me.

Wacky horror film where a little college drug experimentation leads to murderous rage down the road. There's a great scene in a disco that's worth a watch for that alone. It's low budget horror done right and almost has a Larry Cohen feel to it.

The plot of this movie features seemingly normal people going crazy and slaughtering their family and friends. The carnage is mostly off screen but there are some disturbing scenes. Zalman King is trying to find out what is happening as one of the casualties was a friend. When the first person goes crazy, their makeup- though minimal- is surprising and really creepy. In fact, if I saw someone who looked like that I would run away screaming. This movie was better than I expected and did not telegraph every single plot point ahead of time. It's got a typical 70s feel to it, but I like that. A good movie to watch with friends, but I'm telling you, when you see the first killer you will be unprepared for his creepiness - so don't watch it alone.

Here we are with yet ANOTHER fascinating and curious 'overlooked' obscurity from the 70's. It just never ceases to continuously amaze me how much originality and unique creativity came out of that decade. One overlooked film after another, the fact is, it was SUCH a creative and "pioneering" decade on SO many different levels, there literally was only so much room for the 'popular hits'. This was a curious film, funny, bizarre, crazy yet always interesting. A genuinely superb and eerie score by Charles Gross, which contributed much and deserves mention, as well as Zalmon Kings always interesting antics. King was an actor like no other, and this film is one like no other.

Thriller about a drug called "Blue Sunshine". It seems a bunch of kids took it in college in 1966. Ten years later it starts to affect them. They have horrible headaches...then all their hair falls out...THEN they become homicidal maniacs! Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King) is unjustly accused of the murders. While on the run from the police him and his girlfriend Alicia (Deborah Winters) try to find out what's going on. And what does politician Ed Fleming (Mark Goddard) have to do with it?

Interesting premise but this movie does have some problems. King and Winters are just dreadful actors and have zero sexual chemistry between them; some of the dialogue is horrendous (and delivered badly); the plot has huge loopholes and where's the ending? Still, I did keep watching and found it pretty good.

The plot itself is interesting; there's some great acting from Goddard and Robert Walden (as a doctor); there are some suspenseful scenes; some very violent (and bloody) murders and lots of nice directorial touches by Jeff Lieberman (love the opening credits!). This got virtually no release in 1976 and is now (understandably) a cult film. Worth catching.