Electric Shades of Grey

A bleak, meandering slog through the ridiculously miserable life of the titular psychedelic priest.

For the most part this film was just plain depressing. The story is very disjointed; lingering around for a few dull scenes before hopping to the next event that is supposed to happen, then something tragic occurs, then they linger around some more, then cue the next event, and repeat.

However... it's not all bad. The headache-inducing camera work (particularly the intense zooming and the weird fisheye lens hippies) can be quite interesting to look at. Or, kind of funny, at least. Unfortunately though, it's onlyabout 30% funny stuff, and 70% boring misery.

Electric Shades of Grey (2001)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Father John (John Darrell) begins to question his faith and walks away from the church. Soon afterwards he begins a downward spiral where drugs come into play.

ELECTRIC SHADES OF GREY was originally filmed in 1971 but it never got released until four decades later when Something Weird Video rescued it. Was it a lost Holy Grail? Umm...not at all. If you're a fan of Something Weird then you already know that countless psychedelic movies were made and I'd argue that they were some of the worst ever released by the studio.

This film here was directed by William Grefe and like most of his filmmography he wasn't given much of a budget and instead he's working with his talent only. As usual he at least makes a professional looking film but there's really nothing here to get excited about. For starters, there wasn't a screenplay so people are just doing stuff in front of the camera and it certainly isn't entertaining. Even worse is that there's just no real story here. Nothing makes you care about these characters or their situations.

It's easy to see why this film never saw a theatrical release.

I love movies like this. It reminded me of The Young Graduates in that it involves driving and thinking about what to do in life. Sometimes you wonder why the character is acting that way and making such bad decisions, but other times you wish you could be that character, freely driving around in search or yourself.

This movie deals with racism in a shocking and unbelievable way. The white characters act very strangely, in my opinion, when they see a black man purposely killed by white racist cops. They also act strangely when they see a baby being born in a van. The priest also reacts rather rudely when someone claims to be in love with him. I think I would have cared a lot more about what was going on and thought things out better than these characters, but the crazy way they act just makes the movie more interesting.

There are some odd plot twists and things are not explained very well at some parts. It seems like the creators just wanted to cram as much crazy stuff into the movie as they could, which is why it seems unbelievable. But to me, the unrealistic nature of events in the film make me love it even more. I am entertained by the idea that a priest gets slipped some LSD by some apathetic kids, or by the idea that a woman in labor would be sitting on the side of the road in the middle of the desert. It's a story that takes a stab at being deep and socially commentary but really ends up confusing you in a fun, drugged out way.

There are myriad hippie zeitgeist films from the late '60s and early '70s that vary widely in quality and originality. This is one of the worst. The star actor has no charisma, the nonlinear storytelling is not effective, the moral commentary is trite, the scenes about racial justice seem randomly inserted, the female love interest is underdeveloped (considering the protagonist is a priest), and it's not even a road movie-- it's a driving-around movie.

Actually filmed in 1971 for theatrical release, this is a late-60s time capsule of counter-cultural themes. It shares some traits with EASY RIDER, being a "road movie" with a graphically depicted acid trip, a cemetery seen through a distorting lens, hippie communes, drugs, and evil murderous rednecks. There's a familiar-sounding (obligatory) rock music soundtrack.

The main character is a priest who "drops out" and hits the road to find himself, or get away from it all, or something like that. ELECTRIC SHADES OF GREY (the title) refers to moral & ethical ambiguities that complicate our lives and undercut easy idealism and efforts to be "good." The priest resolves his personal crisis in a surprise (?) ending that reinforces the theme of ambiguity.