The Acid Eaters

The Acid Eaters (1968)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

After a montage showing the routine of a 9 to 5 worker, we see a group of office people going out for a good time, which includes some drugs and sex. After one woman is killed after pulling out a knife, the group ends up partying with Satan where there's more sex, nudity and drugs to come.

If you're looking for the high art of Kurosawa, Bunuel and Bergman then it might be best that you stay away from THE ACID EATERS. This film clocks in at just 62 minutes, which is probably the highlight of the film because even at just over a hour the thing drags in spots. Obviously if you're walking into a film like this it's best that you don't expect too much and as long as you don't take this too serious you'll be happy that there are a few campy moments that makes it worth sitting through.

The real highlight of the picture is the fight that happens towards the start. One woman pulls out a knife and attacks another before falling into some quicksand. I won't ruin what the woman does as she's going down but it's quite hilarious as is the special effect of her sinking. Another highlight is the Satan figure smoking weed. Technically speaking there's nothing great about this scene but it did make me laugh. And yes, there's plenty of nudity including a striptease by Pat Barrington who some might remember from ORGY OF THE DEAD among other sexploitation pictures.

THE ACID EATERS is an awful movie but there are enough campy moments to make it worth sitting through. Of course, if you're actually on acid it would probably be even better.

I like really good *bad* films. And for some reason I especially like really bad films from the 1960s. That includes the whole exploitation films thing.

This is cringe-inducing, and normally I like 60s kitsch psychedelia with its canned 60s psychedelic effects - kaleidoscopes, liquid slides, and so forth.

This film had precisely one decent scene (right near the end), where the letters LSD are hanging on one wall and STP (dude STP) are hanging on the other and all the characters are kinda sorta having an LSD orgy or something. I don't know, there's body painting which I don't get to this day, and some boobies, and some genuinely weird music and lighting. If you can fast-forward to it, do. It's nothing great but it was the most worthwhile few minutes of the film.

The rest of this is just really tasteless (by which I really mean asinine) failed attempts at humor.. This disappoints on every level that a movie like "The Trip" delivered on (well firstly, the presence of the mighty *ELECTRIC FLAG* alone, justifies the The Trip. The *ELECTRIC FLAG* can do stuff like pardon Original Sin. This film had no such advantage).

One of the writers went on to direct a FRANK STALLONE movie in the 1980s.

Two of these actors are actively (inexplicably) working today. I haven't seen them in anything but, they should thank God they survived the indignity of being in this.

OK also, there are a lot of boobies in this but the boobies are just UNINSPIRING. No one wants to hear UNINSIPIRING and boobies in the same sentence but there it is. I said it. The boobies themselves are not awful but their presence in such a cruddy, subtextless, one-dimensional, puerile film is highly disappointing and occasionally disturbing.

The filmmakers did not, in other words - in my opinion - did not respect boobies. And I am sure I speak for most of us when I say that this is something our civilization is right not to tolerate.

Anyway, then there's the instrumental, at times vaguely Ventures-like California-convertible-driving douchebag rock music that makes up the soundtrack. I cannot lie. I did like parts of it. Whether I liked it ironically or non-ironically, I haven't figured out yet.

Categorically, this is 99% a sexploitation film interlaced with crap humor. It is not a *psychedelic exploitation* film except for the aforementioned LSD/STP (dude STP) scene. It disrespects the 60s of course. It disrespects the counterculture. It disrespects comedy. It disrespects screen writing. It disrespects kitsch. And it disrespects boobies.

I give it the gas face.

I doubt even the most easily amused among us could get high enough to enjoy this film.

ALSO what was the deal in the 60s where cinematic motorcycle gangs are about as threatening as hall monitors? These bikers were more like BFFs with matching clothes than an evil horde of, you know, death riders.

The ads claim this is "Hollywood's first underground movie." Just because this film uses subliminal/experimental editing does not make it "underground." The biggest problem with this movie is that most of its short running time is filled with sex fluff. The opening minutes is sped up footage of everyday people at work and subliminal flash-forward editing with a minimalist percussive soundtrack which segues into biker footage backed with groovy 60s instrumental rock. There's a long swimming scene and one of the group sinks in quicksand before they reach the pyramid of LSD. One of the group becomes the devil and were treated to various supposedly drug-induced sexual fantasies which all go on a bit too long. The fractured aimless narrative makes this movie a bore even at only 65 minutes. It is worth seeing as a relic of the 60s but I have to wonder if producer David F. Friedman screwed it up by demanding all the sex scenes be included.

While most of the quickie "cash-in" psychedelic films of the late 1960's are not very good, many are very entertaining or fascinating period pieces. Even such bad films as THE WEIRD WORLD OF LSD, SKIDOO, THE BIG CUBE, or LIKE IT IS are fun to watch. THE ACID EATERS is just boring and stupid. It does start off well with a clever montage capturing the nine-to-five work world (and lunch hour!), and there is some good photography of the mountains outside of the greater L.A. area. Also, the music score is interesting, kind of like outtakes from a non-existent Sandy Nelson Goes Psychedelic album. Unfortunately, the cast does NOT look remotely psychedelic; they look like people who would be nuzzling mixed drinks in cocktail lounges looking to pick up an anonymous sex partner to take to a local motel. Perhaps the producers were so familiar with casting these type of people for their sex films that they did not think that the same people would not work here. Also, as the other reviews stated, this is mostly a topless groping film. There's no real drug content (the LSD tower is absurd--the devil routine is like a bad imitation of the tinted color sequence in Albert Zugsmith's PRIVATE LIVES OF ADAM AND EVE), and all the colored lights and hand-painted LSD signs on the wall do not make a psychedelic experience. The final sequences in the LSD tower remind me of Zugsmith's MOVIE STAR American STYLE OR LSD I HATE YOU, which was horrible but more interesting than anything in this film. I guess that since David Friedman made nude westerns and nude crime films and nude jungle films, he felt he had to make a nude psychedelic film too. Trust me, this film is NOT worth purchasing, even if you can get it for five dollars. If you want to see an obscure psychedelic cash-in film, find a copy of MARY JANE or THE LOVE-INS or THE American DREAMER or HALLUCINATION GENERATION or MICROSCOPIC LIQUID SUBWAY TO OBLIVION. Don't waste your time with this.

This David F. Friedman-produced flick starts out with some surreal images and editing that sorta caught me off guard, but then "conventional" story gets rollin'. Some "bikers" and babes take a trip in the country. Nudeswimmin', fights, Indians, and acid trippin' then follows. They even go to hell?!? There's also a lot of slapsticks goin' on provided by Burt ("Please Don't Eat My Mother") Kartalian. Lots of nudity and infantile insanity - high quality trash entertainment!

Johnny Ramone must've seen this since The Ramones named a cover album after this flick.