Some horror flicks don’t want to scare the bejesus out of you. They just want to leave a thumbprint on your brain. And Blue Sunshine (1977; dir. Jeff Lieberman), a clunky but oddly magnetic midnight movie, does just that.
Buy Blue Sunshine 4K UHDIn mid-’70s L.A., strange violent outbursts are on the rise. The connective tissue? Ten years earlier, at Stanford, each of the perps dropped an infamous strain of LSD called Blue Sunshine. Now, the side effects of that bad batch—total, sudden baldness, and psychotic behavior—have started to show. Of course, the movie’s science is nonsense, but the basic metaphor here (i.e., bum trips don’t come with a statute of limitations; not only is the past not dead, but it’s also lying in wait—and it’s pissed!) is a bleak treat.
Zalman King (yes, that dude—the future auteur of Wild Orchid and Red Shoe Diaries) plays Jerry Zipkin, a low-key, unassuming guy who gets accused of a triple murder caused by a (let’s call it) Blue Baldie. On the run, he scrambles to clear his name and uncovers a conspiracy that leads back to a perma-smiling, dead-eyed political candidate. King’s acting is uneven—it lurches from stunned silence to full-throttle shrieking. But there’s something about his wide-eyed, strung-out intensity that works. He’s not a typical action hero so much as a long-haired, paranoid amateur sleuth in bell bottoms.
Lieberman throws a lot of ingredients into this rancid little cupcake of a film. It feels like a grab bag: early Cronenberg body horror, lo-fi political paranoia, Columbo-adjacent sleuthing… It’s messy, and the pacing drags, but the moments that land—among them, a scene in which a babysitter snaps, and another in which disco (at a Glendale mall, no less) becomes a blunt-force weapon—have a way of sticking. It’s not frightening, and it’s not quite funny, but it lingers. The movie—less a trip than an eerie hangover—is unsettling in a warped What if the ‘60s never ended for you? kind of way. Case in point: the closing text crawl warning that hundreds of doses of Blue Sunshine are unaccounted for—as if the drug were a curse acidheads cast on themselves in the fluorescent-lit basement of the ‘60s.
Upon release, Blue Sunshine found little viewership, but (despite its pacing and underdeveloped characters) it’s since become something of a cult classic. I can’t say I liked it—frankly, I found a lot of it dull—but I also can’t shake it. It’s got that cracked residue some cult movies have, the kind that lingers in your system for days. Part thriller, part cautionary tale, it’s decidedly niche.
Still, I won’t soon forget its more crazed moments.
Synapse Films has given Blue Sunshine the royal treatment. Their three-disc limited edition set features a 4K UHD transfer from the original 35mm negative, presented in crisp Dolby Vision with a clean, sharp 5.1 DTS-HD mix. Extras are generous: two Lieberman commentaries, interviews, a Q&A, vintage anti-drug scare films, and Lieberman’s early short The Ringer (in 4K). The set also includes a CD soundtrack, liner notes by the director, and a foldout poster, all in a hard-shell slipcase that features striking new artwork by Wes Benscoter. Collectors and cult film fans alike should find it a stunning, lovingly assembled package.
