Weirdhouse Cinema: Blue Sunshine
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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. And this is Joe McCormick.

This week, we're discussing a film that's really been on the Weird House Cinema list pretty much from the get-go, and that is Blue Sunshine, a weird independent thriller and kind of secret Christmas movie from 1977 that melds sensationalized media ideas about psychedelics with chilling horror and a biting critique of post-60s anxiety and hippie disillusionment.

It's also, in my opinion, just as cutting today. I mean, it has its goofy moments, to be clear. We'll get into those, which are quite enjoyable. But the terror and the anxiety in the picture absolutely holds up, as does, I think, its vision of a world in which, to invoke Hunter S. Thompson, the wave of optimism and progress has seemingly crashed and fallen back.

given way to a world that seems to be spinning on, untethered from our will, enraptured by commercialism. And at the same time, we find ourselves taking in more con man dreams of a better tomorrow. Perhaps delusions not that dissimilar to the same things that we saw as revelations a mere decade ago. And at the same time, I think it's also a film about the journey out of youth into middle age, out of hope into, well, maybe uncertainty. I

I would say that this is the paranoid horror spin on the big chill. Yeah. But I totally agree with what you said about the duality of this movie. I would put it in the Suspiria zone, comparing it to the Dario Argento film Suspiria, in that it is both extremely effective as intended as horror. Like there is some of the scary stuff in this movie is terrifying.

It is so, so strong. But it is also extremely unintentionally funny in the same way that you have both of these things in Suspiria. So in Suspiria, you have great, you know, the witch looming out the window in the darkness and those great scenes of terror creeping down the hall as the music swells. You know, it's great stuff. But then you've also got the bat

that looks like a pair of rolled up socks and the hilarious line deliveries. That's all there. Similar kind of thing here. The kind of paranoia and anxiety that this movie creates about the kind of time bomb of unwellness, like the idea that you have done something to your body and your mind already years ago, and there's no way to go back and fix it

and now it is just mounting in its takeover of your psyche. It's a truly terrifying atmosphere that's created there. And at the same time, there is a lot of

wig stuff in this movie. Like people trying to grab wigs off people's heads and like bald guys running around beating people up in a disco. It's like truly a banquet of many different kinds of movie pleasure all packed into one. Yeah, there's more than one scene where the protagonist is clearly trying to decide whether he should try and snatch that wig or not. Let's snatch somebody's hair and see if it's a wig.

Which is just, yeah, kind of inherently goofy. But you can't take it away from the film because a lot of the stuff that works so extremely well is tied into that concept. And yeah, I agree on the central paranoia of the piece. Something that clearly speaks to anyone who is growing older. You know,

You don't have to have ever consumed an illicit drug of any kind to have those kind of concerns about, you know, should I have smoked? Should I have, you know, did I drink too much alcohol? Did I do something unhealthy? Did I make some sort of choices in my life that are going to come back to me and so forth? And then it does tie in, of course, really well then with the experience of anyone who has engaged in any of these substances. So, yeah, it works in both ways.

That's right. It's a kind of Cronenbergian escalation of that normal wellness concern where you worry like, oh, is the fact that I used to smoke or used to drink too much or something, is that going to come back and bite me? These worries about our health, except typically,

turn that from a general worry about health into a worry about your sanity. You know, a worry that it will come back and it will turn you into a homicidal maniac, something you did 10 years ago that you can't undo. Yeah, because that's the basic premise, as we'll get into. The idea that there is a strain of LSD called blue sunshine that 10 years ago, what, 67, I think? I think the year before the summer of love. Yeah.

People took it, but it has been like a ticking time bomb. And now 10 years later, it is starting to transform people suddenly, rapidly into homicidal maniacs, you know, changing their DNA, perhaps even, you know, adjusting their chromosomes and so forth. And yeah, it's like these are people who were 10 years removed from the person they were when they took those drugs to begin with.

Yeah, yeah. Now, there's another thing I wanted to talk about that really stuck out to me on this viewing of Blue Sunshine. This is not the first time I've seen the movie. My friend Ben showed this to me years and years ago. I might have even been in high school or maybe early in college when he screened this for me at his house, you know, and I was I was really shocked by it then. And it stuck with me for years. I think you and I literally talked about doing Blue Sunshine.

ever since the first week we were making Weird House Cinema. It was like one of the first movies on our list. Yeah, I mean, it is a...

hugely popular, you know, cult status weird film. So, yeah, it's been on the list since the beginning. I don't know. It just seemed too soon somehow. Like, we haven't earned it yet. But anyway, so there was a thing I was going to get into, which is an interesting distinction I noticed, which separates it from most of the other movies I would think of as psychedelic films.

There is almost no psychedelic imagery or journeying into the mind or the perception of people on psychedelics within Blue Sunshine. So there are a lot of characters that are clearly having bad psychedelic experiences in the movie, but we don't see from their perspective.

We only see them from the outside behaving erratically. And this is really unique. I mean, I think about all these other 60s drug movies, psychedelic movies. They all employ some kind of like weird imagery to show the psychedelic perspective of hallucinations or they employ camera techniques to show visual. You know, they do double exposures and weird kind of special effects.

to create that psychedelic viewpoint. This movie has really none of that. It's a movie about the dark side of extraordinary experiences within the mind, which in its own perspective, the perspective of the camera is committed to an almost entirely material meat space picture.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, because, I mean, cinematically, the psychedelic look was well established by this point. You know, and we've all seen, I think a lot of most of the listeners to Weird House Cinema have seen films that have psychedelic elements, you know, swirling colors, you know, some sort of groovy in-camera technique or, you know, even some other kind of like special effect effect.

A lot of this stuff was already well-established. In fact, the Blu-ray that I used to watch Blue Sunshine, this is the film-centric Blu-ray edition, as an extra amid some other really cool extras, it features an 18-minute 1967 anti-drug documentary titled LSD, Insight or Insanity? Yeah.

And it's terrific. And it contains plenty of cliche and even quite inventive psychedelic sequences, you know, like swirling colors, people like blurring in and out of existence, strange things happening in the mirror.

Yeah.

and it's about like clothes and hairstyles. And I was just like, how are we going to get to the acid from this? Uh, but of course it goes on to like, you know, show parties. And there's one screen, uh, screen cap I pulled here in our chat. That's just a, like a lady with a lighter in front of her face that says, why be lame, baby? Yeah. LSD insider insanity. It's, it's in, in full on YouTube. Uh, so you can find it out there. Um,

But yeah, with this film, with Blue Sunshine, it seems to make a conscious decision to avoid many of the trappings of cinematic psychedelia. For whatever reason, you know, be it budgetary or I think I would be inclined to think it is just like an absolute creative choice here. It absolutely works. I mean, these are all characters for whom the world of psychedelic experience exists.

um, was previously like, um, you know, out there. And now at this point in their lives, it is very much like receding inside them. You know, they have the memories of those days. Um, it's part of who they were, maybe only a small part of who they are now and only, you know, slightly connected to this world they're living in. It's like an echo. And therefore, I don't know, it kind of makes sense that we don't see it as much. Yeah.

All right, my elevator pitch for this one is pretty simple. It's maybe you took too much acid. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and listen to a little bit of the trailer audio here. The nightmare has begun. Blue sunshine. Blue sunshine. Blue sunshine.

It could happen to you. And we'll come back to discuss some of the marketing materials here, because the marketing materials for Blue Sunshine certainly ratcheted up the drug exploitation elements of the picture. And you can argue to what extent those elements are actually present in the film itself.

Were they trying to Blair Witch this thing a little bit, kind of making it like this is real? Blue Sunshine is a real phenomenon? I think so, because if you look at there's one poster in particular that I think is just ridiculous. And it says like bigger than the title of the film, you have warning.

If you were one of the millions who took hallucinogens in the late 1960s, you may be a human time bomb about to explode into a bloody nightmare of uncontrollable killing. Think back. Did you ever hear the words blue sunshine? Try to remember your life may depend on it. So, I mean, clearly they're getting in there.

I'm of mixed feelings about that because on one hand, I feel like that's very strong marketing and it emphasizes the effectiveness of the movie. But also that like to put that on the poster where it's not as clear that this is like a fictional contrivance. That's just kind of mean. Yeah, like it doesn't like this poster. You have to really scan down to see like the R rating. Otherwise, even the credits don't look like they're not like laid out like typical credits. So, yeah, it looks like, oh, it's just a PSA.

about the blue acid. To be clear to anybody listening, this is a fictional thing in the movie. There's no such thing as blue sunshine that made people's hair fall out and kill everybody. Yeah, yeah.

All right. If you want to watch Blue Sunshine for yourself, lucky for you, numerous special editions of this film have come out. It's one of those where I feel like they keep coming out with new ones. I watched it on the film-centric Blu-ray rented from Atlanta's own Videodrome. Synapse Films also put out a great looking Blu-ray set with some really cool custom sleeves. I think Videodrome also has this copy as well. And I'm sure it's streamable. Yeah, I watched it streaming.

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Hi everyone, it's Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb from the Today Show. We love this time of year. There's so much to celebrate. That's right, nobody does the holidays quite like today. All season long, join us for special performances with the brightest stars. Plus, festive recipes to whip up the perfect holiday feast and great deals on the hottest toys and gifts for everyone on your list. So join us every morning on NBC to make today your home for the

All right. Well, let's get into the people involved here, starting at the top with Jeff Lieberman. He's the director. He's the writer. He also voices the parrot, which is pretty great. You know, we had a parrot in our last Weird House Cinema movie. Remember? Oh, did we? It was the rainbow wig guy in Rock and Roll Wolf. Yes, of course. Oh, yes. The humanoid parrot. That's right. Yes. Who was selling tickets. Yes. Right.

Yeah. So Jeff Lieberman, born 1947, American film director and writer, best known for a trio of thrillers that have each gained different levels of cult movie status. The first in this trio was 1976's Squirm, a movie about killer earthworms that many of us know best from Mystery Science Theater 3000. This is the now you're going to be the worm face movie.

Do I recall that the Mystery Science Theater edit of this movie significantly sanitizes the film? Yes. Yeah, this is one. And I have to admit, I haven't watched it in full uncut. I love this MST3K episode, but I really owe it to Squirm to watch the full cut that has all of the grotesque makeup effects by the legendary Rick Baker. Lots of worm face action in there that I really need to watch the full uncut picture.

So that's Squirm. Then came this picture, Blue Sunshine. And then in 1981, he gave us Just Before Dawn. That's a, you know, backwoods slasher starring George Kennedy.

So those are kind of the big ones. He also did a 1988 film titled Remote Control that looks pretty entertaining. We might have to come back to that one. He also worked on the screenplay for The NeverEnding Story 3 in 1994. I don't think that's a good one, but I'm going to mention it just because it connects to The NeverEnding Story. Maybe it's like The Exorcist where the second one's bad, but the third one's good again.

I have my doubts. But in the late 70s, Jeff Lieberman was a young director with a vision. That's the way actor Robert Walden, who we'll come back to in a minute, described him in an interview. That's one of the extras on the disc that I watched. Described him as a young, really kind of egotistical director, but with a firm, uncompromising vision for the cinematic world and the story he wanted to create.

Um, he knew exactly what he wanted to, to tell here. Uh, and he's, he said in interviews Lieberman has that he didn't see blue sunshine at all as an anti-drug film. Uh, he himself had experiences with LSD that I don't know the way he was describing them. Some of the extras, they sounded on the whole positive, uh,

he's, you know, admittedly, he's a weird dude. And he talks about how LSD made him realize that he was so weird and that he was always going to be a little removed from normal mundane society. But,

But yeah, he said that one of the things he set out to do with Blue Sunshine was to use the anti-drug paranoia and propaganda present in the media as a kind of science fiction skeleton upon which to build his story. So he compares it ultimately to the bad science of radioactive mutation in atomic B-movies of the 50s. Oh, that's interesting because I was kind of wondering about this. Yeah.

While we were thinking about Jeff Lieberman here, I realized a point of comparison in a film with, I think you could argue, similar themes is Panos Cosmatos' Beyond the Black Rainbow. Yes, I'm...

I'm certain that Blue Sunshine was a major influence on Beyond the Black Rainbow and, you know, in some of its themes of, you know, post-60s disillusionment and also like mega tripping bald psychopaths. Yeah. I mean, it's a point of view I can sympathize with.

even though I don't have an overall negative view of psychedelics. And I'm not sure that I would suspect that Panos Cosmatos does, and as you say, Lieberman apparently did not either. But I think it's kind of interesting to explore the darker side of this thing, because you do end up with these people who are kind of psychedelic evangelists, these people like Timothy Leary, who...

became famous for preaching the virtues of taking psychedelics and saying, you know, all the good things that it would do for your mind. And I don't know, I think I have a more balanced view on it, which takes the idea of mind expansion somewhat seriously.

seriously, but of course your mind can expand in good or bad ways. And, you know, without the right kind of, uh, uh, without the right kind of guidance and framing of a psychedelic experience, you can imagine it could make you a worse person. It just sort of like opens up possibilities of personal change. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we did a whole series on psychedelics years back. Those episodes should be available in the archives, uh, stuffed about your mind.

And, um, yeah, one of the things that we stress there is that, yeah, but bad trips do happen. Uh, and, and psychedelic experiences in general, uh, tend to have, um, they tend to not be just like the rosy, colorful, um, cinematic psychedelic experience that you see in like, uh, uh, some of these psychedelic films. Yeah. So it's, uh, yeah. And then on top of that, without getting super into, uh,

you know, the science and history of psychedelics, like it does not, they don't, they tend not, they don't work well with everyone's brain chemistry and some people, uh, absolutely should not, uh, take them. Uh, so yeah, all of, all of those caveats very much in place here. Yeah. And so I think there is an interesting cultural role for films like this as a kind of, um, not that you should take blue sunshine seriously as like a scenario that would actually unfold, but

Because on one hand, you do have psychedelic evangelists who are out there, I think, overselling the unalloyed virtues of psychedelics. Just like, oh, it's perfect. It's all good. Everybody should do it. On the other hand, you can get a balance. You can get some people spinning out these overly negative scenarios and showing the side of disillusionment and destruction. Yeah.

And then also in the same way that like really rosy, you know, tinted psychedelic sequences and films are very entertaining. Dark psychedelia is also very entertaining. And so, yeah, I think we need both just as film goers.

All right, let's get into the cast here, starting at the top with the character Jerry Zipkin. We're going to be talking about Jerry Zipkin quite a bit here, played by Zalman King, who lived 1942 through 2012. Just let me compare two things. The experience of watching Blue Sunshine versus...

how everybody seems to write and talk about him, which is like, this is the handsomest, sexiest guy who has ever lived. I'm not trying to insult him. I mean, like, yeah, he's a good looking guy and all that, but his vibe in the movie is weird.

I don't know, maybe it's just the character he's playing in Blue Sunshine, but he does not come off like a hunk of burnin' love in this movie, even though he is rather lovey-dovey in some scenes. Mostly he comes off as a weird, obsessed guy who is on a different frequency than everybody else. Yeah, and is on the run from authorities throughout most of the picture. So, yeah, but when you hear people talk about him, like, again, coming back to that Robert Walden...

interview on the Blu-ray. Yeah, he talks about how just like effortlessly charming and sexy Zalman King was and how well he worked with female co-stars. But at the same time, he also talks about just like, and I think this is something we do see in his performance, about how intense and stripped down his performance is at times. Like he's definitely like manic and freaking out at times. But then there are a lot of scenes where I've often seen

Talk about, you know, performances where it's all in the eyes and you can see the gears turning behind the eyes. And we definitely get that from King in this. There are scenes where it seems like he should be saying more, but he's just totally silent. And then there are other scenes where he's suddenly screaming and I don't understand why. Yeah. I mean, he's having a rough time. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, so Zalman King, actor turned director and producer. His acting credits go back to the mid-60s. He even pops up in a 65 episode of The Munsters playing some sort of like bearded hipster or something. Is he like an Igor character? I don't know. I think his credit is like bearded dude or something. But yeah.

He did a lot of TV westerns and the like, but his film career took off more in the 1970s. He's probably best known for acting in, well, this. There's 1976's The Passover Plot. He's also in 1981's Galaxy of Terror.

He also shows up in a film I watched in the last couple of years, 1982's Endangered Species. That's a tight little cattle mutilation film by Alan Rudolph. It's only a very small Zalman King performance, a very small part, but he was a producer on that picture. That's not the one we watched. No.

No. What's the one we watched that had... We watched The Return. The Return. Oh, yeah. That was weird. The Return leans into the otherworldly causes of cattle mutilation, whereas, well, I don't want to spoil anything, but I'll just say Endangered Species is more of like a straight-up real-world thriller.

Oh, I just looked it up. Yeah, this was the Martin Landau, Jan Michael Vincent and Sybil Shepard. Yeah, that's the one we watched. Yeah. Yeah. The return and Vincent Chiavelli. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. That episode is a Weird House Cinemas in the archives. Now, the first place I heard of Salman King, though, was this was during the 1990s. He had an erotic drama anthology series titled Red Shoe Diaries. Yeah.

And I think it was sometimes marketed as Zalman King's Red Shoe Diaries. And I don't know where I was hearing ads for it because I don't think I ever watched it. But it was a Showtime series. So maybe it was on on a Showtime preview. Maybe it was in syndication. I'm not sure. But the name Zalman King, it captured my young attention.

And indeed, Zalman King made a name for himself directing and producing motion pictures of a sensual and erotic nature. These include 1988's Two Moon Junction, 89's Wild Orchid, 1992's Red Shoe Diaries, which inspired the series, and 1995's Delta of Venus. Of these, I've only seen Delta of Venus, but as I recall...

It's been a long time, but it was a beautifully shot piece inspired by the works of Anais Nin. So I'm no expert on this genre, but I'd say you might roughly classify it as fairly high-minded erotica. He also produced Nine and a Half Weeks. I was just trying to think why I'd heard of Red Shoe Diaries, but I looked it up and David Duchovny was in this. Oh, there you go. That's why. Is that the movie or the TV series?

Let's see. It is the anthology series. Okay. There you go. Oh, wait. How does it star David Duchovny if it's an anthology? Maybe he's just in the first episode. Maybe he's like the cryptkeeper. He's the sexy cryptkeeper. Yeah. David Duchovny, why don't you love me? Yeah.

All right, moving on through the rest of the cast. Deborah Winters plays Alicia Sweeney. This is Zipkin's romantic interest. Winters was born in 1953. Prior to this, she'd done several films, including 1970's The People Next Door, 71's Koch, 73's Class of 44. Other film credits include 1987's The Outing and 1977's Tarantulas, The Deadly Cargo. I gotta look that up. We're covering that. I don't even know. I don't know anything, but it's going on the list.

Her last film was the 1992 TV movie Behind the Mask. She was also on TV's Gemini Man starring Den Murphy, but is not in the MST3K movie cut of Gemini Man that was titled Riding with Death.

I'd say Winters is good in this. I don't think I've seen her in anything else. But like pretty much everyone in Blue Sunshine, she gives a believable performance with the caveat, a caveat here about when characters actually freak out and become homicidal maniacs. But in terms of like just normal human interactions when people were playing like, you know, a

regular characters. Everyone's really good in this. And her character is a character with agency and intuition.

She is good, though. I don't know if you agree with this. I would say the tone of her performance is different from everybody else in the movie. I would say everybody else is playing it a little bit straighter and she is playing it a little bit whimsical. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like she is treating this movie slightly more like a comedy than everybody else. For everybody else, it's zero. She's on like 15 or 20%.

Yeah, I mean, it is kind of like she is in a sitcom or not a sitcom, maybe, but let's say like a lighthearted TV drama titled Blue Sunshine, whereas everyone else is in the gritty 1970s thriller. Like she has a little bit of a like roll your eyes and look at the camera energy and while everybody else's wigs are coming off and they're attacking strangers.

Yeah, but she's in a lot of scenes with Zalman King, so it could just be like it's that natural charisma, just like lightening the mood maybe a little too much. Congratulations to CBS Sports and Sony Electronics for their first place wins for Innovation in Industry at this year's Unconventional Awards by T-Mobile for Business.

In a collaboration that was clearly built on breaking new ground, CBS and Sony created a first-of-its-kind broadcast for the PGA Championship. Using a custom-built T-Mobile private 5G network to power the live production, they deployed a 5G wireless camera system throughout the event. The network's speed, combined with Sony's innovative ultra-low latency video codec,

allowed for seamless, high-quality footage without disruption. With that innovative approach, CBS gave broadcasters the tools they need to do what they do best, take their coverage to entirely new places. These innovations will shape the way live sports are covered moving forward, and for that, T-Mobile congratulates Sony and CBS for their unconventional thinking.

This is Holly Frey from Stuff You Missed in History Class. The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new SUV, like an adventure-ready RAV4. Available with all-wheel drive, your new RAV4 is built for performance on any terrain, from the road to the trails. And with plenty of passenger and cargo space, plus available tech like wireless charging, you and your entire crew can stay connected.

Or check out a stylish and comfortable Highlander with three spacious rows of seating for up to eight passengers. And with available features like the panoramic moonroof, you can sit back, enjoy the wide open views with your whole family. Plus, both RAV4s and Highlanders are available individually.

in hybrid models. So no matter your style, you can drive efficiently and save on gas. So visit your local Toyota dealer and check out amazing national sales event deals on RAVs, Highlanders, and more when you visit buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. ♪

Hi everyone, it's Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb from the Today Show. We love this time of year. There's so much to celebrate. That's right. Nobody does the holidays quite like today. All season long, join us for special performances with the brightest stars. Plus, festive recipes to whip up the perfect holiday feast and great deals on the hottest toys and gifts for everyone on your list. So join us every morning on NBC to make today your home for the hot.

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Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Talk to your doctor and visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

Running low on time? Let a shopper with ship same-day delivery go the extra mile to help you get more out of the holidays. More time building a beautiful brunch spread? Not shopping for it, because you got groceries through same-day delivery. More time decorating the house? Not waiting in line. After all, you got lights from Lowe's delivered same day.

More time prepping for the ugly sweater party, not battling traffic. Because you, you smart cookie, you got Sephora delivered to your door. You can even send a shopper to PetSmart for treats and toys, leaving you and Duke with more time for Frisbee in the park. Yes, dogs and cats love shipped same-day delivery too. So go ahead, do the things that matter most this holiday season. While you're living your life, a shopper with Shipt will update you as they shop to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Because less time shopping means more time for what truly matters. Get more this holiday season. Download the Shipt app and start shopping today.

All right. Next up, we have Mark Goddard playing Edward Fleming. This is our 60s psychedelic guru turned 70s politician. I was thinking of this guy as what if the Richard Lynch character from God Told Me To left gurudom and decided to run for office? Yeah, yeah. I think we mentioned Penas Cosmatos already, but the...

The character from his film Mandy, Jeremiah Sand, I think is kind of an extrapolation in some ways of this character. At least the hints we have about who this character was prior to the 1970s. Because that's one of the interesting things about this character, Edward Fleming.

There's so much implied about who he was, and we don't get to see any of it aside from a single image, like a single photograph. And that photograph carries a lot of weight. Like it really it really forces we imagine so much just from that one little thing. And it ultimately delivers more than a dozen flashbacks would have.

So Mark Goddard lived 1936 through 2023, perhaps best remembered by many anyway as Major Don West on the original Lost in Space series. He was like the military dude. He has a cameo as a general in the 1998 film adaptation of Lost in Space.

which, as I recall, is pretty weird in its own right. The one with Joey from Friends in it? Yeah, but even more importantly, it had Gary Oldman as Dr. Smith. And he eventually mutates into a giant spider thing. Yeah. All right. It's good. Or at least that aspect of it. It's good. That's what I remember. Yeah.

I don't know why. I recall that being in the early days of DVD players, that being just like a DVD you saw everywhere. They must have made more copies of it than anything else. Yeah, it felt very sleek in advance for the time, as I recall.

So anyway, Goddard was mostly a TV actor who appeared on such Westerns and mystery series as Johnny Ringo, The Detectives, and of course, Lost in Space. His other film credits include 1983's Strange Invaders and 1974's Death Squad.

All right. Next, we have this character, Dr. David Bloom, played by Robert Walden, who I've mentioned already. Born in 1943. He's our stressed out surgeon and friend of Zipkin's. Robert Walden was nominated for three primetime Emmys for his work on what seems to I don't know. I'd never heard of this before. So it feels like maybe a kind of forgotten successful TV series titled Lou Grant, which ran 77 through 82. Did you know about this series? This is a spinoff of Mary Tyler Moore.

Lou Grant is Mary Tyler Moore's boss. There you go. Ed Asner, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Well, this is, yeah, this is the Ed Asner spinoff series. I've never seen anything from this series, but apparently it was popular. And Robert Walden must have been good on it. And I totally believe it based on his work here in Blue Sunshine. Because, again, there are a lot of solid performances in this picture. But Walden's was the one that instantly jumped out at me as being like a very lived-in portrayal, you know?

Yeah. And you really do feel for this character because the movie plants these seeds of worry in its opening scenes. Like the opening, the credits of the movie keep intercutting with these vignettes of characters having mounting tension and headaches and stress as the camera kind of like zooms in on their face and really implies there's something wrong with their brain. And this character gets that treatment. And we see other characters in these vignettes have psychotic episodes. And

And then you get to know more of this character because he's a good friend of the protagonist and you really worry for him. Yeah.

As he explains in the extras, he'd been hard up for work for a period there in the mid-70s. But then his performance in 1976's All the President's Men really stirred things back up again. And he started getting all these different scripts and inquiries. Who was he in All the President's Men? He's, you know, I've never seen All the President's Men, but he's like, you know, fourth or fifth down. So it's, you know, a sizable supporting role, I'm to assume.

Oh, I just looked it up. He played one of Nixon's lawyers. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So All the President's Men comes out is a big enough hit that he starts getting all these scripts and he starts saying yes to everything, including Blue Sunshine. And in his career, really, you know, picks up from there from that point on out, certainly because of All the President's Men, maybe not so much Blue Sunshine, but he's great in this. And his many film credits include 1970s Bloody Mama, 72's Rage and two pictures of note from 77, Capricorn One and Audrey Rose.

I liked Robert Walden in Blue Sunshine. And Rob, you should see All the President's Men. Yeah, I should. It's a classic. You know, great cast and all. But yeah, I'll have to put it on the list. It's not one we can ever do for Weird House. Sometimes it's hard for me to get around to these films that are not weird. Yeah. Nonfiction political journalism thriller. That's not really our zone on the show. But it is really good. If it was All the President's Werewolves. Maybe so. But yeah.

Uh, let's see. All right. You know, we got to have a police inspector. We got to have a detective in a film like this. And that's detective clay played by Charles Siebert who lived 1938 through 2022. Um, basically established character actor of the seventies and nineties. It was in a bunch of stuff, including 78 coma, 79 justice for all did a lot of TV, uh,

like a lot of episodes of Trapper John MD. And he directed some Trapper John MD, which led to a lot of other TV directorial work. He directed episodes of such shows as Silk Stockings, Mortal Kombat Conquest, and both Hercules and Xena. Mortal Kombat Conquest? Yeah. Somebody had to direct them. You've got to have somebody direct these shows, so...

You know, hats off to the folks who step up and take one for the team. I don't really recall anything about him in Blue Sunshine. He's sort of a functional character. He's there to facilitate the plot mechanics. That's right. Now, the next character is far more impressive, and that is the character of Wendy Fleming. This is the ex of the politician Fleming that we already mentioned, played by Ann Cooper.

Yeah, great role. This is such a pitiable movie character. Like, the...

you spend, I don't know, a good quarter of the runtime just feeling excruciatingly bad for Wendy. Yeah, she's, she's damned. There's no doubt about it. And you pretty much know that from the get go because she's on the cover. She's on the poster for pretty much any, any poster, any box for a blue sunshine you might pick up. Uh, you know, we see like the woman with the bald head and the, um, and, and the intense eyes, uh,

And so forth. So you have a sense that something bad is coming. And I think she's pretty great in the role. Again, a doomed, doomed role, doomed character, but but quite a quite a fine performance, in my opinion. Yeah, totally.

Now, this is Ann Cooper without an E, not to be confused with Ann Cooper with an E, who was also active at the same time and pops up in some, you know, some genre pictures as well. Our Ann here was a regular in the short-lived Blue Thunder TV series in 1984, which also featured Dana Carvey, uh,

Uh, this was a spinoff of the 1983 Dan O'Bannon pinned helicopter movie. Um, I've never seen the TV series, but I, I loved blue thunder when I was a kid. Wait, I don't know what it is. It's a helicopter TV show. Yes. So blue thunder, um, the movie is about a, like essentially the police start using like a super hot, a super copter to, to go after criminals. And, um,

And a lot of helicopter shenanigans ensue. It is not a kid's movie, but I somehow saw this one when I was a bit young. Did the criminals have helicopters, too? Otherwise, it seems kind of unfair. The criminals don't have a helicopter, but eventually Malcolm McDowell is in a small helicopter and there's like a big helicopter like dogfight. So I loved it when I was young. I have no idea how it stacks up today.

All right. Let's see. One more main cast actor to mention here, and that is Ray Young, who plays Wayne Mulligan, big Wayne Mulligan. Ray Young lived 1940 through 1999. He was a 6'6 actor, active in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. A lot of TV, but some rather fun credits. His first credited role is Mango the Hunchback in 69's Blood of Dracula's Castle, starring John Carradine.

And he was also in five bloody graves the same year. Subsequent film roles include parts in 73's Coffee, 86's Hunter's Blood, and on TV, his credits include everything from Bewitched, Bonanza, and Gunsmoke to Quantum Leap and Star Trek Deep Space Nine. And he played Bigfoot in 16 episodes of The Croft Super Show. The premise of this character is so simple and yet so effective. So the scenario is...

people without warning are randomly like going berserk and attacking everyone around them. And one of the guys in the mix just happens to be gigantic. Yeah. Yeah. And so you're starting, you just wonder like, oh yeah, yeah. If this guy goes off, it's not good for anybody because when they go off, one of the details is that they're, they also have super strength. Like, I mean, not, not to a degree where it's like magical and unrealistic perhaps, but like really strong. Yeah. Yeah.

Alright, this is just a bit role. I have to mention this. I realize I don't need to mention every model-turned-actress who pops up in a bit part in a genre picture, but...

There's a campaign girl. She's credited as campaign girl that pops up late in the picture. And she's played by Marcy Hansen, born 1952. A model turned actress, mostly in TV shows through about 1985. But of note, she was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for October 1978. That's the month I was born. So she is essentially my Zodiac sign. Yeah.

She is not on the cover of this Playboy, though, because and I've never I've never even looked at this Playboy, but I'm you're familiar with it. You probably are picturing this is the one that had Dolly Parton on the cover. Oh, you know, the bunny ears and all. That's apparently this edition of Playboy magazine. Hats off to you, Dolly. Yeah.

This is just a quick bit of trivia, but Sandy King, John Carpenter's frequent producer and script supervisor, the two were married in 1990. She was script supervisor on this picture. Interesting crossover. Didn't expect that.

And then finally getting to the music. The music here is a score by Charles Gross, who was born 1934, apparently still with us. American composer who worked in film, TV, cartoons, and industrial films. His biggest film scores were probably 89's Turner & Hooch and 1990's Air America.

Two films that I assume are, are not really sought after, uh, by like vinyl soundtrack, uh, and score collectors, uh, but clearly big pictures. Other scores of his from this time period include 1975's Have a Nice Weekend and the 1978 TV movie Siege. Uh, I can't speak to any of those other scores, but his work on Blue Sunshine, I think is excellent. And it's a huge part of the film's effectively creepy aura. I,

I absolutely agree. The music is highly effective. I don't know exactly what the creative process was here, but I was just imagining that, I don't know, the director came to the composer and said, this is the feeling I want to go for, you know, paranoia, that there's something wrong with you and that it could suddenly erupt and take over your mind. And then the composer came back with this and it was just bingo. Exactly, exactly what the movie needs.

And so there's like this opening song that we get when we first have the credits of the film where you're like looking at the full moon and the black sky and you hear these eerie hollow rhythms playing on a marimba. And then there is this lead that comes in that's kind of a dissonant high droning sound. It's a little bit electronic, but also hard to place.

And it's just this feeling of something inside you getting worse and worse. It is the ultimate I got the bad acid sound. I was trying to think of what to compare it to. The instrumentation of this main paranoia track kind of reminds me of the feeling of, do you know the song Clap Hands by Tom Waits? I don't know this one, no. Oh, it's a great song, but similar kind of paranoid bad acid feeling. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's...

This score, it plays with a little bit with what I think of as the 1970s night gallery jazz sound. You know, it's got unsettling bits of discordant percussion. There are those synth flourishes and there's at least one dose of sleigh bells in the mix. I don't know if you noticed the sleigh bells, but I'm pretty sure we hear sleigh bells at one point. Christmas movie. Yeah, I've got to have sleigh bells if it takes place at Christmas.

But more to the point, the score, I think, really captures a feeling of an order falling apart into a disorder. The illusion of sanity into madness and hope into, I don't know, the status quo. Yeah, yeah.

The score, by the way, is available on disc, at least as part of the film-centric Blu-ray. So when I got it from Videodrome, I was able to pop the CD into the player in my, I guess, ancient automobile and play a little bit of the Blue Sunshine score as I drove around town. And we're going a bit long here, but I'm just going to mention in passing that there are also vocal tracks on the soundtrack that are performed by the Humane Society for the Preservation of Good Music,

They include such tracks as Disco Blue. This is going to be in our disco sequence late in the picture. And then there's also a track called Blue Sunshine. Do they have lyrics about acid? I didn't have time to really get into the lyrics of Disco Blue, but I don't know. Maybe they're about acid. I think so.

I think it was in our Flash Gordon episode that we were talking about that rare thing of movies with soundtracks made for the film that have lyrics about the plot of the film. Flash Gordon has that with the Queen songs, but we were saying otherwise it seems fairly rare in a non-musical movie. But it would be hilarious if Blue Sunshine is another example. I think it may be, yeah. I don't remember the track Blue Sunshine, but I do remember Disco Blitz.

Wait, is that what plays in the disco scene? It is, yeah. It's playing in the disco, yeah. Congratulations to Easterseals Southern California on their first place win for innovation in customer service at this year's unconventional awards by T-Mobile for Business. Easterseals has used T-Mobile 5G to create immersive VR development tools that aid people with autism in addressing transportation barriers.

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Hi everyone, it's Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb from the Today Show. We love this time of year. There's so much to celebrate. That's right, nobody does the holidays quite like today. All season long, join us for special performances with the brightest stars. Plus, festive recipes to whip up the perfect holiday feast and great deals on the hottest toys and gifts for everyone on your list. So join us every morning on NBC to make today your home for the

Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. Botox is not approved for adults with migraine who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Botox prevents, on average, eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.

Botox is a prescription medicine injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headaches.

Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Talk to your doctor and visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

Running low on time? Let a shopper with ship same-day delivery go the extra mile to help you get more out of the holidays. More time building a beautiful brunch spread? Not shopping for it, because you got groceries through same-day delivery. More time decorating the house? Not waiting in line. After all, you got lights from Lowe's delivered same day.

More time prepping for the ugly sweater party, not battling traffic. Because you, you smart cookie, you got Sephora delivered to your door. You can even send a shopper to PetSmart for treats and toys, leaving you and Duke with more time for Frisbee in the park. Yes, dogs and cats love shipped same-day delivery too. So go ahead, do the things that matter most this holiday season. While you're living your life, a shopper with Shipt will update you as they shop to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Because less time shopping means more time for what truly matters. Get more this holiday season. Download the Shipt app and start shopping today. Well, folks, we're about to get into the plot, and you should know that this all leads up to a disco horror climax. Yeah. Fittingly, fittingly.

So the action of the movie opens in a hospital, in a hallway in a hospital. And into frame comes the first of the major characters we meet, Dr. David Bloom, played by Robert Walden. And when we meet him, he does not look so good. He's got his white coat hanging open. He looks disheveled, pale with circles under his eyes. He is a doctor, but it looks like he has not had a good night's sleep in weeks. Mm-hmm.

He stops at a water fountain to throw back a couple of pills before going on to visit one of his patients. And one thing I will note, it seems I can't say exactly how, but somehow to fit into the same kind of theme is like not ever showing us the psychedelic experience, not having any of the flashbacks. We see a lot of characters.

taking drugs in the movie, but they're not psychedelic drugs. They're like throwing back pills to stop some kind of pain or distress. Yeah, yeah. Some sort of prescription pharmaceuticals or over-the-counter medicine. We're not always entirely sure. Yeah.

So anyway, he takes his pills. Then he goes to visit a patient who's an older woman lying in a hospital bed. And even she notices that he looks exhausted. She asks him, doctor, aren't you eating? And he tries to put her fears to rest. He says, you know, sometimes there's just a little too much aggravation in his job. And so he's trying to assure her. But on his way out of the room, she stops him and she says with some desperation, doc, are you going to have to cut me up again?

And it kind of seems like the question is just too much for him. Like his, his bedside manner collapses. Like he can't just keep being positive. And he says, we'll see.

And, uh, and then we see there's some kind of pressure building in him. His gaze goes sharp and far off, like he just had a horrible thought. And then this high-pitched droning sound returns from the soundtrack at the beginning, and we zoom on his face, and he begins to furiously rub his temples with his fingers, trying to make the pain stop, and we cut to black.

And this is a theme we'll see with a number of characters through the movie. This kind of like zoom in on the face as they look pained and distressed and it's like something is happening in their brain. Yeah. Now here we return to what we saw before this scene, which was the full moon in the night sky kind of engorged pale full moon set against the dark background with this eerie music playing. And here we see the title Blue Sunshine. Yeah.

Now, the next vignette like this that we get is where we meet Wendy Fleming, played by Ann Cooper, Ann without an E. And she is babysitting a couple of kids. They're sitting on the 70s-est of couches. It is a...

I think the way you describe this is a green, brown, orange, and baby blue vertical Chevron pattern with one of those knobbly upholstery types used to see on these couches. I don't know what the material is called, but my family had an old couch like this when I was growing up where like the

I don't know, the thread on the upholstery is not of an even thickness, so it's all kind of nubby. Yeah, there's an Instagram account I really love called Daughter of the 70s that has a lot of images of 1970s decor and food and advertisements. And if you dig that vibe, Blue Sunshine is for you.

Yeah, the 70s-ness will not stop. We will have to observe several things as we go on. But so Wendy is babysitting a couple of kids and they're simultaneously watching TV and reading a book about Rapunzel. So there's a kind of chaos and the boy keeps randomly shrieking, which is bothering Wendy. She has a terrible headache.

And then suddenly, they notice that what's playing on TV is a campaign ad for a politician named Ed Fleming, who is running for Congress. And we learn that Ed...

Ed is Wendy's husband, but they are separated. They're estranged. And the kids know that Ed is her husband. They ask, is he going to be president someday? She says, maybe. They say, can we come to visit in the White House? And she gets a little quiet and says she doesn't think so because she and Mr. Fleming are married, but they're not living together right now. And we just get the sense that Wendy is not at peace with this arrangement. Like, she's not happy. Right, yeah. These kids are a lot.

So she goes on reading the Rapunzel book, and when they get to the part about Rapunzel letting down her hair so the prince can climb it to the top of the tower, the little girl on the couch reaches up, takes hold of a lock of Wendy's long, dark hair, and pulls. However, the hair comes out in her hands. She says, like, look what I did!

And then Wendy, with horror, examines the lock of hair that has come out of her head. She looks disturbed and afraid. Then we cut to the night again. The moon, the dark sky, the creepy music, the credits. We get a third vignette. It's a scene in a kitchen. A woman named Barbara is talking to a male friend, a next-door neighbor, about her husband, who is a policeman.

The husband has apparently been drinking heavily, their marriage is strained. The woman says that he's been having nightmares. He talks in his sleep and his hair is falling out. And she's finding ways to blame herself. You know, am I doing something wrong? Or she says maybe it's the stress of his job. He is a police officer. But the male friend, who I think is also supposed to be a cop, dismisses this. He says, look, you know, I'm losing a few hairs myself. You can't blame yourself. It's not your fault.

And they're talking about it, but suddenly the husband is there standing in the doorway. And so this is one of the first times where this scene is like tonally at odds because the content of the scene is very tense and scary.

scary and puts you on edge. But then the way the husband is dressed when he shows up is very funny. I don't know if it would have looked funny in the 70s, probably not, but it's a very 1977 outfit. He's wearing like a thigh-length black jacket, pants hiked up, I think past his navel, tucked in

blood red polo shirt with gigantic 70s collar like the collar tips are going out almost to his shoulders and he's just standing in the doorway staring with the sourest expression in the history of our species and then it gets weirder

That's right, because suddenly a macaw flies into the kitchen, lands on his shoulder while he is still doing the unmovable sourpuss. And then the macaw says, hello, Johnny. And then it says, ah, blue sunshine. Blue sunshine, what's that? But here we get another one of those scanner-style zoom-ins on Johnny's eyes and forehead while the sharp notes from the soundtrack just start stabbing. Hmm.

And then we go back to the moon and the credits. And this is where I want to emphasize again, I got to hand it to the filmmakers, the fashion choices and weird McCall antics aside, the movie so far is building such an incredible atmosphere of unsafety and human malfunction. Yeah.

The plot hasn't even really been articulated yet. There's not a word about LSD, but these little dip-ins with different characters all showing some kind of stress and disorder mounting inside of them in intensity, they collectively add up to a feeling already bordering on panic. There is something wrong with these people. There is something wrong with the world. Something wrong with us that we don't understand.

And it's this feeling, it's this terror that we're at the edge of a total loss of control. Absolutely. Now, next, we're actually about to meet our protagonists. So we go to a house party.

It's a house party in a very 70s house. Big, cozy A-frame, logs roasting in the fireplace, shag carpets to infinity, wood paneling everywhere, liquor bottles all over the kitchen counter. I should have checked if there was J&B. I don't know if they had J&B. But there are cool guys sitting backwards on chairs or sitting up on the back of the couch.

And it's kind of like the feeling of the scene is like that Orson Welles, Paul Masson commercial, but younger and hipper and more bohemian. Yeah, it's an interesting vibe. And the fireplace looks great. Netflix, where is my blue sunshine fireplace? Yes. You're wasting time on the Squid Game one in which the fireplace is too small. I watched it last night. Fireplace is too small. Give us like a large blue sunshine 1970s fireplace.

Wait, at this point or after all the murders take place? I think I would prefer before the murders. Yeah, that's more the vibe I want in my living room, but I'll take what I can get. Okay, so here we get to Zelman King playing our protagonist, Jerry Zipkin, and he is huddled up in an intimate corner of the room talking to Deborah Winters, playing the character Alicia Sweeney.

They're here on a date together, and they're acting very lovey-dovey. It's a lot of kind of cuddling and kissing and, oh, I love you. By the way, here I want to note Jerry's masterwork Christmas sweater. It plays a bit against type in terms of color scheme, though I was noticing something about the...

The photography in the movie, I had totally different ideas of what color this sweater was depending on the scene. Like there's one scene where he's outside and it looks like deep blue, like royal blue and white. And then there's another scene where it looks more kind of purple and red. So I'm not sure which is the truer color, but yeah.

Uh, at least in terms of the earlier color scheme, we see the blue and white Christmas sweater. That's interesting. Cause it's like, you know, it should be red and green, shouldn't it? If it's Christmas sweater, but it can't be stopped. It's like, he's a rebel in all aesthetics. Uh, and the main imagery on the Christmas sweater is prancing pairs of reindeer with enormous, almost Irish elk sized antlers. Yeah.

So anyway, we get, uh, Zalman King here wearing this, you know, making a statement kind of cop uniform Christmas sweater. And, uh, he's having this sweet little conversation in the corner with, uh, with his date, Alicia. And suddenly their attention is diverted from each other by who, who is that over in the corner of the other corner of the room? That's Brian James morphing into Rodan. That's right. Playing the character, Tony, who we only see in this scene, um,

Brian James lived 1945 through 1999, veteran character actor that I think most of you probably know best from his role as Leon in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. He was also one of the generals in The Fifth Element. Unforgettable mug, this guy. Yeah, good character actor. He's the guy who you see him really floundering in the Voight-Kampff test in Blade Runner. My mother, I'll tell you about my mother. Yeah, that's the one. In this, though, Tony...

is either the only guy in the social group who is still taking LSD or is the guy in the social group who took way too much LSD. It's an interesting choice. Yeah, so he starts raising up his arms as if he's flapping his wings and making monster sounds and then runs around the room in monster mode. And the other characters are like, hey, remember Rodan? Somebody's like, the artist? No, the monster. Yeah.

Anyway, after the Rodan attack, the friends all decide to pose for a picture. But before that, they convince one of the guys at the party, a dude. Now, this is confusing because they really do call this guy different names. Sometimes I was so confused.

They call him both Frankie and Franny and they call him Frankie more often early, but then they keep calling him Franny when they refer back to him for the rest of the movie. So I think I'm going to say Franny instead of Frankie because that name usage persists more. Yeah.

And I believe that's how he's listed in like IMDb and all on the credits for the movie. Yeah. So they ask him to sing a song like he used to. This guy's he's sort of a life of the party type. He's a cool guy. Again, the 70s ness of his clothing is overwhelming. He's wearing what looks like a brown velour sport jacket over a purple and white plaid shirt with a huge black tie hanging down to the crotch of his pants. And.

And he starts singing an old standard from the 50s called Just in Time, which has some interesting lyrics. I don't know who originally did this song. It sounds like it could be a Frank Sinatra type singer song, but I don't think it was Sinatra, but that sort of thing. And the lyrics include things like, "'My time was running low. The losing dice were tossed. My bridges all were crossed. Nowhere to go. Now you're here. And now I know just where I'm going.'"

Yeah. You're going to a bad place. It's interesting the juxtaposition between Tony's acid antics and then this song. It kind of like fits into this theme you see throughout the movie where the characters are, I think to varying degrees, maybe a little embarrassed by Tony.

uh, their psychedelic experiences and sort of the, the culture of the sixties. And so it's almost like a gut reaction to Tony still doing his thing and being like a little embarrassing. It's like, let's do an old standard. Let's do the kind of music that our parents liked, you know? And, and so we, they, they start belting this fifties number, you know?

Yeah. So while Franny is singing the song, he starts dancing with one of the women at the party and then he goes to dip her. And I think her date, this guy is not happy about this. And he reaches out and grabs Franny by the hair, which is already a weird thing to do. But suddenly...

To everyone's shock, Franny's hair all comes off at once in the guy's hand, leaving Franny completely bald except for a few patches. And the tone of the scene changes in an instant. Franny suddenly looks wild and deranged. The music starts skittering with these tense violins, and Franny bolts out the front door of the house into the night.

Yeah. And at first everyone's just like, whoa, that was super weird and random. Right. But then like it does kick in that everybody here is friends to some degree and they sort of decide, well, we should go look for him. That dude needs help. Well, I think it's mainly Jerry that decides to go look for him. People get weirded out and the party kind of breaks up in multiple directions. So like several of the friends, including Jerry's date, Alicia, that's Deborah Winters, they can, you

into a car to head into town. She's saying, like, I need some honey. Honey will help me feel better. And Tony, I guess, just flies off into the night. We never see Tony again. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. Where does Tony go? I don't know. He's gone, maybe. He does not stay behind to become one of the murder victims, but he also... Maybe he goes to town. I don't know. Maybe Tony needs some honey. He needs Rodan food.

But anyway, so a few more stay behind at the house and Jerry alone decides to go look around outside for Franny to make sure he's okay. He takes a flashlight, goes out walking in the trees. Congratulations to Easterseals Southern California on their first place win for innovation in customer service at this year's unconventional awards by T-Mobile for Business.

Easterseals has used T-Mobile 5G to create immersive VR development tools that aid people with autism in addressing transportation barriers. These tools are shaping the way safe and personalized skill building is delivered. And for that, T-Mobile congratulates Easterseals Southern California for their unconventional thinking.

This is Holly Frey from Stuff You Missed in History Class. The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new SUV, like an adventure-ready RAV4. Available with all-wheel drive, your new RAV4 is built for performance on any terrain, from the road to the trails. And with plenty of passenger and cargo space, plus available tech like wireless charging, you and your entire crew can stay connected.

Or check out a stylish and comfortable Highlander with three spacious rows of seating for up to eight passengers. And with available features like the panoramic moonroof, you can sit back, enjoy the wide open views with your whole family. Plus, both RAV4s and Highlanders are available individually.

in hybrid models, so no matter your style, you can drive efficiently and save on gas. So visit your local Toyota dealer and check out amazing national sales event deals on RAVs, Highlanders, and more when you visit buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. ♪

Hi everyone, it's Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb from the Today Show. We love this time of year. There's so much to celebrate. That's right. Nobody does the holidays quite like today. All season long, join us for special performances with the brightest stars. Plus, festive recipes to whip up the perfect holiday feast and great deals on the hottest toys and gifts for everyone on your list. So join us every morning on NBC to make today your home for the hot.

Can Botox, onobotulinum toxin A, help if I have chronic migraine? 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more? Botox prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. Botox is not approved for adults with migraine who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment.

Botox is a prescription medicine injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headaches.

Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Talk to your doctor and visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

Running low on time? Let a shopper with ship same-day delivery go the extra mile to help you get more out of the holidays. More time building a beautiful brunch spread? Not shopping for it, because you got groceries through same-day delivery. More time decorating the house? Not waiting in line. After all, you got lights from Lowe's delivered same day.

More time prepping for the ugly sweater party, not battling traffic. Because you, you smart cookie, you got Sephora delivered to your door. You can even send a shopper to PetSmart for treats and toys, leaving you and Duke with more time for Frisbee in the park. Yes, dogs and cats love shipped same-day delivery too. So go ahead, do the things that matter most this holiday season. While you're living your life, a shopper with Shipt will update you as they shop to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Because less time shopping means more time for what truly matters. Get more this holiday season. Download the Shipt app and start shopping today. Meanwhile, back at the house, a few guests are hanging around the fire, smoking cigarettes, talking about what happened. They can't figure out if it was a prank or not. Franny's the kind of guy who does pull pranks. But I don't know. It was so strange.

Then there's a knock at the door. One of them goes to answer and, uh-oh, here he is again. It's Franny, bald, pale, with a manic, crazed look in his eyes. He bursts through the threshold and commences a homicidal rampage. And it is a shocking scene. He murders the other guests of the party, one of them at least, by like throwing her into the fireplace. It is horrible. Yeah, it's horrifying.

this is not the fireplace I want in my living room Netflix. So, meanwhile, Jerry's out walking in the woods and he finds Franny's hair hanging from a tree branch. And I

I recall, so I have more perspective on this now. I think this is supposed to be a wig, but I remember the first time I saw the movie, I was really confused. Like, is it that his real hair all fell off at once and is still in a single mass like this? Or within the movie, is it supposed to be a wig with the idea that like his hair has been falling out and he's been wearing a wig to hide it? I think it's the latter. Yeah. Yeah. Because this seems to be a common feature in the film is that people are losing their hair, uh,

to the blue sunshine syndrome, they are obtaining wigs. We see wigs for sale in some of the scenes late in the picture. And it almost becomes this kind of metaphor for like the mask of normal life that one like imposes upon themselves despite the trauma that's going on inside you.

Yeah, so here Jerry hears a scream coming from the house, so he goes running back to the house and he finds the three remaining guests all murdered.

Uh, and they're like burning in the fireplace again. It's a horrible scene. Uh, so he's in shock from this and he's like sort of just wandering around like what's going on. And suddenly Franny pops out from behind a curtain and attacks him. Uh, they begin to fight. This scuffle leads them outside, outside in front of the house and then into the street where Franny is hit by a passing truck.

Um, and we do get a jump scare when the truckers like go to check on him. He like pops up again, but then falls down and dies.

Jerry goes back up to the house and just kind of sits in front of the fireplace. And one of the truckers jumps to conclusions, gets a revolver out of his glove box and follows Jerry up to the house where he confronts him, shoots him in the arm. It's clear the trucker thinks Jerry is responsible for all these murders. And then Jerry, in a strange acting moment, issues this grating full volume proclamation that I didn't kill anybody. And then he escapes in his car. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Not looking good, Jerry. Not looking good. And then it's clear that when the cops arrive later, they come to the same conclusion as the trucker. They're like, obviously, Zelman King did all of this. There's a scene where a detective is interviewing Alicia outside the house. She's back here now. And she is adamant that Jerry is not responsible, but the detective is adamant that he is. I just wanted to note this movie does have, I think the inspector here is Inspector Clay, just like Plan 9 from Outer Space. That's Tor's character. Oh, man.

That can't be an accident. That's got to be intentional. Then we get a scene with the cops talking to each other where they explain their theories. One of them says, that Zipkin is erratic as hell. He graduated from Cornell, top of his class, and now he hasn't got a pot to piss in. He must have had 10 jobs in the last five years. He quit his last one because the firm wouldn't hire enough women.

And this really gets the partner's attention. And I thought he was going to say something sexist here, but instead he says, and then he barbecues three of them in a fireplace. It seems counterintuitive to the cops. And yet they are not deterred. He is their prime suspect. Anyway, Jerry's now on the run from the cops. He shows up at the hospital looking for his friend, David, the doctor, the very stressed out doctor who we met earlier.

So he's got an obvious bloody gunshot wound in his arm, but he's dabbing it and carrying this dirty, bloody rag. Walks into the hospital and the receptionist is like, oh yeah, the doctor will see you. His office is down the hall. Just go on in. Yeah.

What? Did doctors work like that in the 70s or is this just movie magic? I don't know. It's just a little more laid back, right? And I like how when David looks at the wound, the first thing he says is like, not too bad. The inflection is almost kind of like, nice, good job. Yeah.

Uh, Jerry tries to lie and tell him he was accidentally shot by a hunter. But David is like, Jerry, I have to report all gunshot wounds. I can't, you know, just forget about this. So they have an argument because David knows that he's, he's lying. He's hiding something. And, uh, after David leaves the room, there's a part where Jerry notices a bunch of hair on the floor. His, his doctor buddy seems to be shedding and there's ominous music here.

When Jerry asks about this, Bloom shrugs it off. He's just like, "Eh, it's stressing the job." But in this conversation, he casually drops a mention of past drug use. He's like, "You know, I don't party like I used to." Now, there's a scene where we meet up with Wendy again, the lady who was babysitting earlier. And she's getting her hair shampooed in the sink by another lady. I was not quite sure if this is her friend or her hairstylist. I think it's a friend. Yeah, I wasn't sure if this was the kid's parents or what, but at any rate, it's not essential.

So they're trying to figure out why her hair is falling out. The other lady speculates that it could be because Wendy isn't, quote, getting any. This is a true health fact she read in Cosmo. It affects your biorhythms, she said. And it's kind of ridiculous, but they play it well. They play it well here. Yeah.

But Wendy confesses that she's having persistent headaches and terrible nightmares whenever she sleeps. She's frightened that something is really wrong with her. And once again, the fear in this scene is palpable and you really feel bad for Wendy. For Wendy and David both. I've already said this, but I really just do want to emphasize that in a kind of an exploitation thriller movie like this, you wouldn't necessarily expect to...

feel a lot of empathy, like a lot of emotional sympathy for the characters and their struggles. But in this movie, you really, really do, or at least I did. Like, Wendy and David, you are feeling so bad for and so worried for. Now, ultimately in this conversation, Wendy's friend here, she links Wendy's stress and her nightmares and everything to her separation from her husband because, again, Wendy doesn't really seem to be at peace with this situation. She hasn't recovered from it.

Uh, and then there's a great cut coming up where Wendy's like, how, how can I put Eddie in the past when his gorgeous face is plastered all over the city, you know, because he's running for office. So there are the posters everywhere. Then we cut straight to a campaign poster, a defaced poster.

Ed Fleming for Congress poster stuck up to the back of a bus station where somebody has whited out his eyes and half of his hair and drawn fangs and a snake tongue coming out of his lips. So he looks like a clownish reptilian Grendel. And the slogan on top of the sign is, "Here is the future."

Yeah. I was thinking about this and I wonder if the subplot of the political campaign in this movie, was it all inspired by Taxi Driver, which came out the year before? I can't be sure there, but I don't know. I felt some similarities. Yeah. Yeah. It might, it might be there just sort of in terms of,

basic structure, different purpose and different characters, obviously. But yeah, you might be onto something there. I'm just going to add that all of this was shot in LA. So anytime we're outdoors in this picture, we do get these authentic scenes of 1970s Los Angeles, be it something like MacArthur Park or various Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain and so forth.

Yeah, a lot of beautiful, notable public spaces in this movie. You see a lot of parks and pedestrian overpasses and interesting little plazas and stuff. Anyway, in this scene, we get Jerry, who is still on the run from police, meeting up with Alicia. She does believe he's innocent, but she thinks maybe he should turn himself in anyway because running makes him look guilty. Yeah.

And I like that Jerry, I feel like this is not a thing they would normally make the protagonist on the run from police say, but I like that his response is, I can't go to jail even for one day. I'll go bananas. It's a different kind of response. It's like, okay, know thyself. I cannot do the time even until I make bail. Just can't do it. I feel like the more normal protagonist there would have said, like, I've got to get to the bottom of who the real killer is or something. I don't know, something like that.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. It kind of feels like one of those lines you throw in when you realize, you know, I really need to put something in here to explain why he's doing this. And, you know, maybe it's a little bit throwaway, but it establishes, okay, there is a reason.

So they argue about what could have made Franny act the way he did. And while they're having this conversation, they just happen to stumble across a guy reading a newspaper. The paper is a copy of the National Informer, which has this shocking photo. And then the headline says Glendale detective goes mad, kills wife, children, neighbor, then kills self.

even neighbor's dog not spared night of terror. So we look at this and we're like, oh, wait a minute. We know who that is. That is the guy from the opening vignette who was wearing the cherry red shirt with the mile wide collar and the McCall on his shoulder yelling blue sunshine. Something terrible happened. This is hilarious because I just love the idea that this newspaper is running a photograph of a corpse of

Front page, partially above the fold. It's mostly below the fold. But still, like, when do you ever see something this grotesque? But at the same time, maybe it does kind of work because, like, maybe that's Blue Sunshine is theorizing, like, this is where the world is. You would run this on the front page of your newspaper. This is the bleak, broken world we live in. Yeah.

So Jerry and Alicia see the photo and they notice that the murderer is hairless, looking exactly like Franny. They don't know this guy, but they're like, what? Another bald murder, murder rampage. That's strange. So Jerry buys a copy of the paper at a newsstand, starts reading it as he like drifts away up an escalator while Alicia yells at him not to leave her behind. She's like, I want to go on the lam with you and help you figure this out. He ignores her and reads the story.

I want to say this is a case of there are several moments like this in the movie where I feel like Alicia is trying to be helpful and Jerry is just not not be he's not being very nice. No, no. Again, he's having a hard time, but still.

Anyway, it's obvious what the next move is. In order to prove his innocence, Jerry himself has to solve the case. He's got to figure out what's going on. That's right. Yeah. So the first stop is he wants to go to the scene of the crime reported in the paper. I guess the paper just like gives out the address where the crimes occur.

So Jerry goes and he talks to the neighbor lady who's suspicious of reporters. He has to assure her he is not one. This character actress here seemed very familiar to me. I was like, I know her from something. Oh, yeah. This is Alice Ghostly, who lived 1923 through 2007. Very familiar character actress. Her film credits alone include 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird, 67's The Graduate, 78's Grease.

And just loads of other stuff. She was on 48 episodes of Designing Women on TV. So, yeah, this is a very familiar face. Even if you can't line it up with a particular title, like, you've seen her before. So she starts filling Jerry in with... Mostly she's just recounting a lot of the grisly details of the crime, like explaining all of the fatal injuries, right?

Though strangely, she explains that in years past, Johnny was always so gentle and kind. He was the nicest guy. What could have changed in him? Jerry breaks into the house, and one of the funny things here is that there is a framed photo of Johnny in full cop uniform by himself sitting on the mantel.

just seems like an odd thing to have in your house yeah you know you just need to do an establishing shot right yeah um there's oh my god he goes up to the stairs where there is like a white tape outline of a body you know like in a crime scene but it's on top of the stairs which are completely covered in orange shag carpet yeah it's pretty glorious

Not just carpeted stairs, orange shag carpet stairs. Go Vols. So anyway, he's like looking, Jerry's looking at the crime scene and somehow here he like viscerally relives the crime. Strange thing is this is the closest the movie ever comes to anything that feels like a sharing of a psychedelic perspective. It's like he's hallucinating that he's there during the crime, except we get the feeling that Jerry is not on drugs and probably never did any drugs.

And so, I don't know. That's kind of odd. It's almost like they're implying he's psychic, but this never comes back again in the movie. I feel like Jerry did some drugs. I don't know. Oh, okay. I mean, he didn't do blue sunshine, but I bet he did a little something. Maybe. They never talk about it. Yeah. But maybe he just has the shining. Yeah.

Also, there's a bird scare here. There's like, oh, here's something in the closet and he opens it up and the macaw flies out. But the macaw says, hello, Johnny. And then what was the other thing the bird said in the earlier scene? It says blue sunshine. Now this rattles something in Jerry's brain. He's like blue sunshine. Where have I heard those words before?

So he goes and breaks into another dwelling. He goes to Franny's house. I think this is Franny's photo studio. And he goes and he looks around and there are pictures on the wall of Jerry and Franny and other friends of theirs. And then he comes to one photo. It's one he's seen before and it's the one he's looking for.

Why, who is that in the photo? It is aspiring Congressman Ed Fleming, who we've seen several times now on his campaign commercials and posters. Except here, he's a bit younger, and he is dressed up like some kind of New Age spiritual guru with long, blonde, Richard Lynch hair, wearing shell beads in a kind of double exposure shot with rays of light emanating from his face. And then the title of this photo is on a label underneath. It's called Blue Sunshine.

Yeah. And this is the this is the image that implies so much about Fleming's past. And again, it's it's better than than a dozen flashbacks. Like, you know, your mind goes there just by seeing this image. The plot thickens. So time to go to a campaign event.

Uh, we go to an Ed Fleming campaign event where we meet several other major characters, Fleming himself, who is, uh, who is handsome, charismatic, and assertive. Uh, but also we're going to get the sense that he is maybe a, an untrustworthy, unsavory guy. He's guy, guy who, you know, he's,

He's a glad hander. He's very charming in person, but he's probably a liar and a cheat and maybe other bad things. But at the same time, I think it's important to stress that Fleming doesn't come off as like... Sometimes you have a political character in a film like this, and it's like this guy is a clear danger to everything. It's more like he's kind of a standard politician. Like he's as bad as all the other...

political candidates out there. And we also get the impression, I mean, perhaps just because it's California, that he's probably a progressive candidate, you know, they never say for sure. But, you know, you get the impression it's like this guy, like on paper, he's probably not that bad, but like he is part of the political machine. He doesn't come off as frighteningly power hungry, like Greg Stilson in the dead zone or something. Yeah, I was just thinking of the dead zone. Yeah.

Instead, it's more just kind of like he's a maybe untrustworthy narcissistic guy who's slightly ambitious and is advancing to do a political career. Yeah. But it's interesting because we already have that juxtaposition with that photograph. So we know who he used to be and maybe who he used to be isn't that far removed from who he is now, you know, selling a dream, selling an idea. And is there anything at the heart of it?

Now, we also in the scene meet Wayne Mulligan, who is Fleming's bodyguard on the campaign, a former college football player who he like walks up to Alicia here at the campaign scene. And I think he's trying to like get a date here. And he's like, hey, I used to play football. He's huge and imposing. You look at this guy and you think, wow, be really bad if he like lost his marbles and started running around punching people. Yeah.

Anyway, Jerry gets a minute aside to talk to Fleming. He comes to the campaign trailer and asks to meet him. And Fleming does meet him. He asks him whether he knew Franny. And Fleming says he did. Yeah, years ago, they went to college together. They were both at Stanford at the same time. And Jerry informs Fleming of Franny's death.

And this conversation is interrupted, by the way, by one of the staffers yelling like, Mr. Fleming, I have the puppet people on the phone. This will make more sense later because there is a campaign event that includes a puppet show.

Yeah. Okay. But at the moment, I'm like, what are the puppet people? Are we in Mr. Big territory here? Is this attacking the puppet people? Yeah. Like the puppet people in that movie get control of a telephone and they're like, we got to call Ed Fleming. He can help us.

Yeah, yeah. Luckily, we do get some payoff on this later on. Yeah. Anyway, in this conversation, Jerry asks Fleming if he has ever heard the words blue sunshine and Fleming denies it, but he is obviously lying. What is he hiding?

Anyway, Mulligan comes in to break up the conversation and suddenly Jerry has to flee because Alicia's police tail is here. She's being followed by police everywhere she goes. They spot Jerry and it turns into a car chase. Jerry gets away in this car chase because he has a vehicle with four-wheel drive and the cops don't. He goes up a hillside. Yeah.

Congratulations to Easterseals Southern California on their first place win for innovation in customer service at this year's unconventional awards by T-Mobile for Business. Easterseals has used T-Mobile 5G to create immersive VR development tools that aid people with autism in addressing transportation barriers.

These tools are shaping the way safe and personalized skill building is delivered. And for that, T-Mobile congratulates Easterseals Southern California for their unconventional thinking.

This is Holly Frey from Stuff You Missed in History Class. The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new SUV, like an adventure-ready RAV4. Available with all-wheel drive, your new RAV4 is built for performance on any terrain, from the road to the trails. And with plenty of passenger and cargo space, plus available tech like wireless charging, you and your entire crew can stay connected.

Or check out a stylish and comfortable Highlander with three spacious rows of seating for up to eight passengers. And with available features like the panoramic moonroof, you can sit back, enjoy the wide open views with your whole family. Plus, both RAV4s and Highlanders are available individually.

in hybrid models. So no matter your style, you can drive efficiently and save on gas. So visit your local Toyota dealer and check out amazing national sales event deals on RAVs, Highlanders, and more when you visit buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. ♪

Hi everyone. It's Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb from the Today Show. We love this time of year. There's so much to celebrate. That's right. Nobody does the holidays quite like today. All season long, join us for special performances with the brightest stars. Plus, festive recipes to whip up the perfect holiday feast and great deals on the hottest toys and gifts for everyone on your list. So join us every morning on NBC to make today your home for the

Can Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, help if I have chronic migraine? 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more? Botox prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. Botox is not approved for adults with migraine who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment.

Botox is a prescription medicine injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headaches.

Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Talk to your doctor and visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

Running low on time? Let a shopper with ship same-day delivery go the extra mile to help you get more out of the holidays. More time building a beautiful brunch spread? Not shopping for it, because you got groceries through same-day delivery. More time decorating the house? Not waiting in line. After all, you got lights from Lowe's delivered same day.

More time prepping for the ugly sweater party, not battling traffic. Because you, you smart cookie, you got Sephora delivered to your door. You can even send a shopper to PetSmart for treats and toys, leaving you and Duke with more time for Frisbee in the park. Yes, dogs and cats love shipped same-day delivery too. So go ahead, do the things that matter most this holiday season. While you're living your life, a shopper with Shipt will update you as they shop to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Because less time shopping means more time for what truly matters. Get more this holiday season. Download the Shipt app and start shopping today.

Anyway, Jerry and Alicia meet up later to compare notes, and Alicia has learned some stuff. She learned stuff from Mulligan when they were talking. She found out that Franny Fleming and the red shirt guy who did the horrible crime, they all graduated from Stanford together 10 years ago at the same time. And then Jerry realizes his doctor friend David also graduated from Stanford 10 years ago, and his hair has been falling out too.

And oh boy, here we cut to a very suspenseful scene where David is like in the operating room getting ready for surgery and we're all like, oh no, oh no, we know what's coming next. But it's a bit of a fake out because he gets through, he does have like a tense moment in the surgery where he's like yelling at his subordinates to get him instruments and stuff. But it does not turn into, it does not go where you think it's going. Right. Right.

So after this, Jerry has a confrontation with David where Jerry tries to yank David's hair out. This is a strange scene, but it stays on.

And Jerry explains his theory to his friend. He's trying to make sense of all this. But he's like, hey, you went to Stanford with these three guys. And David fills in some more information. He's like, yeah, we did all go to college together. When we were there, Ed Fleming, who's now running for Congress, he was a drug dealer. He was everybody's connection for all things narcotic and psychedelic.

And David stresses, he's like, I don't want to get Fleming in trouble. I don't want this coming out about him because it could ruin his political career. And I was just thinking, man, any movie about politics from more than, I don't know, eight years ago feels so quaint now because they're all like, wow, if we found out something that reflected poorly on this politician's character, they could never be elected. Yeah, for real. Yeah.

But, you know, it makes sense here. It's like he says he's donated to the campaign. He's still to some degree, you know, connected to this guy. They were friends at one point. So, you know, he's not looking to stir up some trouble. Yeah. And once again, the movie does not signal anything unusual about Fleming's political agenda. He just seems like a regular politician. They also don't make it clear like what his, you know, like left-right orientation is or what party he's with. He's just sort of like politician. Yeah.

But we do get the idea that he is selling the dream. You know, we see that on the campaign posters. He is selling the future. Anyway, after a lot of hemming and hawing in this conversation, David does come around. He's like, wait a minute. Yes, I have heard of Blue Sunshine. That was the name of a particular batch of acid that Fleming was selling 10 years ago.

And there's a scary moment where David reveals he bought some, but then he's like, I never took it. So he bought some. He got scared because he ultimately decided they were making this in chemistry labs. You never knew what was in it. You might have gotten a bad batch. You might have gotten one that wasn't what it was supposed to be. So instead of taking it, he sold it to somebody else. He got rid of it.

And Jerry asks him, he's like, okay, in your opinion as a doctor, could it be that there was something different about this batch, something wrong with it that would become like a time bomb in your body, causing you to lose all of your hair and then turn into a homicidal madman exactly 10 years later? David says, it's unlikely, but not impossible. Therefore, by movie logic, it is proven. Yes.

But how could Jerry prove this to the police? Well, David says, you know, you would need to get a blood sample from one of the affected individuals while they're still alive to show the, quote, chromosomal damage. This is very like, okay, we're coming to a lot of conclusions very fast. Mm-hmm.

but they scheme together. They're like, okay, if one of these blue sunshine time bombs is on a rampage, he will have super strength. So you'll need a powerful tranquilizer to sedate him and then the blood sample can be taken. So now you got a plan.

So next scene, we have another Fleming campaign event. Both Jerry and Alicia meet there and we meet Wayne Mulligan again. Remember, that's Fleming's huge oaf bodyguard. And he sees Alicia across the crowd and follows her. She's like, oh, yeah, I'm just out window shopping. And he goes, oh, you like shopping. Well...

Let me buy you whatever you want with my campaign expense account. So we get some sense there's some corruption in the campaign here. But he keeps trying to hit on her. And they're like standing on the sidewalk. And as they're talking, a large truck whizzes by and honks its horn. And this freaks Mulligan out. First, the gust of wind from the truck rises up and Mulligan grabs hold of his hair almost as if he doesn't want it to blow away. Uh-oh.

and then he yells at the truck as though the sound of the horn were inflicting pain upon him. Anyway, after this outburst, he invites Alicia to their next campaign event because that's going to be the following night at quote shoppers world shoppers world is a mall. Oh yeah, baby, we're going to a 1977 mall and it gets better because Mulligan says there's a discotheque at the mall called big daddies. Meet me at the bar. Uh,

Also, did I mention in the scene Alicia is wearing a black cowboy hat and a red turtleneck? Oh, yeah. She looks fabulous. Yeah.

But yeah, I love that this also sets our trajectory. This movie is going to end in a discotheque and a shopping mall. Almost like, and I'm not a disco hater. I love some disco. This movie might be disco hate. Yeah, this might be some disco hate. Like presenting the idea that American culture dies in the disco and in the shopping mall. This is the perfect place for Blue Sunshine to reach its conclusion. Right.

Okay, next scene, we are back with poor Wendy Fleming and the kids she's babysitting. They're watching cartoons on TV and Wendy's in the kitchen. And oh boy, one of my favorite things in the movie is we get a peek inside the cabinet to see some bonafide 1977 food.

I see some Quaker oats, I think some kidney beans, Campbell's canned soup. You can't quite read the label, but let's just say it's cream of celery or maybe split pea with ham. But then finally, what we definitely see is a can of Hormel canned tamales. I think I remember this. Yeah. Also a vial of pills stored in the same cabinet as the food, which also seems very 77. Yeah.

Uh, so, uh, the mother of the two kids is hanging out at first and she's like about to leave them there with, uh, with Wendy and go back home for a bit. Uh, when Jerry Zipkin knocks at the door, uh, so the other lady looks out the peephole and she sees him and she's like, Hmm, not bad. What a hunk.

Uh, so they let Jerry in, uh, she, you know, she goes off, he introduces himself as a friend of Eddie and Jerry and Wendy exchanged some niceties. But eventually once they're out of earshot of the kids, he gets to the point. He says, did you ever hear of blue sunshine? And she plays coy, pretends she doesn't know. Uh, she's like, are you trying to score from Eddie? Almost implying that he still deals drugs. Yeah.

But she gets very defensive of her estranged husband, accusing Jerry of trying to damage his political career. Jerry's like, I don't care about that. That's not what it is. I'm just trying to find out everybody who may have received this batch of acid. And she gets very upset and kicks Jerry out of her apartment. But, uh-oh.

after Jerry leaves, Wendy is very stressed out. She's breathing heavily. The kids start chanting. The kids are chanting, we want ice cream, we want ice cream, and then screaming, we want hot dogs, we want hot dogs. I think we can all see where this is going. Wendy starts to have a blue sunshine freakout.

Yeah, and this is a terrifying sequence. This absolutely holds up. Horrible.

Uh, and this, this is, so it's horrible. She's here with the kids, but just as Jerry is leaving the building, something doesn't quite feel right to him. And he decides to go back. And then there's a kind of, this is against tone because this scene in the apartment above is so creepy and awful. Uh, but then like Jerry is, it's taking too long for him to get back up there because there are like older people taking forever in the elevator. Yes. Yeah.

And so we're intercutting between that funny thing in the elevator with bald Wendy, like walking up behind the kids with a knife. This movie absolutely does not pass the Gene Siskel test. It has scenes of a, of a maniac chasing little children around with a knife. Of course, you know, Siskel didn't like any movie where kids were shown in peril. This is some explicit horrifying children in peril. Yeah. Because the way they play it too is so believable because it's like the kids don't understand what's happening. Yeah.

They think it is a game, and then they're getting a little upset about the game. And yeah, it's rough. Fortunately, the children are unharmed. Jerry gets back, bursts in in time to stop her, and then Jerry and Wendy wrestle for the knife until finally Wendy is thrown from the apartment balcony in the struggle. She falls to her death, leaving Jerry standing there holding a bloody knife.

And then by the time people get there, it just looks like Jerry has murdered again. Jerry is really bad about doing things that make him look guilty when he is not a murderer. Like the neighbor comes in and sees him and starts screaming. And his reaction is not like, no, no, you don't understand. Instead, he runs up to her and puts a bloody hand over her mouth and yells at her to be quiet. Yeah.

I also have to throw in this sequence where Wendy goes out the window and falls to her death. Very well executed. We've all seen films where someone falls from a height and it's not believable. This is very well done and is quite believable.

Nobody's chunking a mannequin out of a window for this sequence. Okay, we get a few more scenes where just some information is shared between characters. Fleming finds out about the death of his wife and he finds out from the police that they think Jerry Zipkin is responsible for the murder.

Uh, we get a scene of Jerry meeting again with David. They meet in the park where Jerry is getting the tranquilizers that he's going to use, but David is dressed up like a drug dealer. He's wearing like shades and a long coat. I think there's supposed to be some irony here. And in the scene, David mentions another guy. He remembered taking the blue sunshine, a football player named Wayne Mulligan. All he wanted was acid, acid, acid, acid.

Oh, man. He didn't even care if it was blue or not. Also, another random scene of Jerry being mean for no reason. He steals money from a guy with drug addiction for no particular reason. Is this the guy who's like coming up and close talking to him on the bench? Yeah. The guy's like, I need you to go over there and buy some for me. And Jerry takes his money and then he just leaves.

There is a really creepy bald guy who comes up and stares at him in this scene. And a fun detail is that Jeff Lieberman says that they were filming and this dude just walked up and they were like, get a release in that dude's hands. We got to get him to sign a release. We've got to have him in the picture. But this is just a guy who wandered up.

also a scene around here where Alicia is talking to the detective who's been following her and she's like look Jerry's innocent and I can prove it she comes up with the scheme all we got to do is get this guy Wayne Mulligan and have him tested have him test oh yeah have him tested for blue sunshine um

But there's also a scene, there's like a gun store scene of Jerry buying a hand-pumped pellet gun to shoot the tranquilizer dart. And I thought this scene is interesting because Jerry learns a litany to defeat the villain. It's like he's practicing a magic spell that has rhyming lines. The last line, it's about how to operate the pellet gun with the darts. But the last line of the litany is, because if you jerk, it won't work. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a full mantra that he learns here from the dude at the gun store. And it's very effective. It's kind of ridiculous in its own way, which I think you're about to touch on. But, you know, I don't know, you get a feel for the weapon that is clearly going to be pivotal in the finale of the picture. And and we have this weird, almost semi-magical litany that he's going to recite. So I dig it.

So as a story element, it really works. But there are also ridiculous things about this scene. Like the gun store has a practice range inside the store where there's a target on the wall that they're shooting at. But it's just the target is just down the middle of the store from where they are, like where customers are browsing. There's like he like raises his gun to aim at the target. There's just some cop shopping in the store leans in front of the target. What? Yeah.

Yeah, this is not good gun layout. I mean, I don't know what good gun store layout is, but it's not this. Also, this sequence always makes me think of Terminator, you know, just what you see here, pal. Yeah. Yeah. Phase plasma rifle with 40 watt range. Yeah. They do not have it.

It's just dark gun here. Okay, but we're headed up to the climax. So we head to Shopper's World for the campaign event slash discotheque acid freakout. Fleming and Mulligan are going to be there for the campaign event or Mulligan's going to be there, I guess, to go on a date with Alicia. Jerry's going to be there with his tranquilizer gun. Alicia will be there to entrap Mulligan so he can be caught by the cops and then, quote, tested on Alicia's say-so.

Uh, why the cops are going along with this, I don't know, but she's convinced them. So good job, Alicia. Uh, also puppets. Here we get to the puppets. What is the deal with this puppet show co-headlining with the Fleming campaign event? It makes me think of in Spinal Tap, when the puppet show gets top billing over Spinal Tap at the carnival. Yeah.

I guess they just wanted something that's, you know, non-political. He stressed that earlier. It's like they can't do political material, just some sort of feel-good stuff. So the puppets are singing that song just in time that Franny was singing earlier. We also get some pre-Rampage taste of the discotheque. Everybody's dancing. There are, you know, of course, you're flashing disco lights, but the color tone of the discotheque is very red-ish.

Yeah, I just I wanted to be there. It's like I kept thinking, like, if I walked up to that bar, what kind of just horrible drink could I order? You know, what crappy 1970s cocktail could I order and just absolutely love it because of the setting.

Yeah, you might think there would be some tiki drinks here, but instead she goes up and orders a martini with two olives. Sidebar on martinis in movies, you know, every time somebody orders a martini in a movie, unless it's like the James Bond order, they order a dry martini. It's like, where's the appreciation for a nice wet martini in the movies? Yeah, I don't know. I guess maybe it just photographs better.

You tell the visual difference. I don't know. I mean, maybe. Just fill it with water and olives and you're good to go. Anyway, Mulligan's here, but he looks like he's not doing so good. He is sweating, skittish. He starts yelling at the music for being too loud. So it seems like you're not getting off on the right foot for this date, Wayne. And then he tells Alicia that he's going to the men's room to freshen up.

So, meanwhile, Jerry arrives at the mall and we see him like loading up his trank darts in the parking lot. And at the disco, the police lieutenant arrives and meets with Alicia. She has apparently gotten somewhat drunk by this time. This is another one of these things where I feel like she's acting a bit more like this is a comedy. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, she's had several drinks by the time the police arrive, and she's like, she tells him that Mulligan's been in the bathroom for a long time. She's like, I don't know what he's doing in there. But, like, why is she having any drinks when the goal of this is to... Yeah, there's a mission. Yeah.

You're on a mission here. The mission wasn't to have three cocktails. Yes. So we go inside the bathroom. The police go in there, and Mulligan is having an episode. A blue sunshine attack is imminent. They try to interrogate Mulligan, but suddenly his wig comes off, and this is apparently the trigger.

He like slams the cop against the bathroom stall and knocks him out and then runs out of the bathroom and just goes on a rampage inside the disco. So a big chunk of what's left in the movie is just Mulligan rampaging in the disco. At one point, he gorilla presses a girl and throws her across the dance floor. Yes.

He's running around just beating everybody up. And probably the most famous line from the movie is like, Jerry sees all these people running out of the disco while he's in the mall. And he's like, what's going on? And this man turns to Jerry and says, there's a bald maniac in there and he's going bat sh**.

Now Jerry runs in to rescue Alicia from the disco where she's at one point she gets trapped inside the DJ's box. So like she's in this glass box with all of the music equipment and Mulligan is outside like

beating on the windows trying to get to her, but she outsmarts him because she realizes she can turn the music all the way up to like drive him, you know, to like drive him away. So, so she kind of outsmarts him there. He runs away out of the disco and,

And then Jerry has to chase him with the darts. And so the final showdown is kind of a cat and mouse game inside a department store. And we get this scene where Zipkin knows Mulligan is approaching him. He recites the litany of the pellet gun. He's like, squeeze, don't jerk. If you jerk, it won't work. Almost like the magic spell to defeat the warlock. And then as Mulligan looms, boom, dart to the neck. He nails it and we cut to epilogue text.

Oh, man. Well, we sort of it's really beautiful. I thought like we have like he's he's down to the giant. He's downed the maniac Mulligan here. He's sitting next to him, dark gun in hand. And we begin to pan back. Right. And we begin to see more details of the shopping mall. And we hear Fleming's campaign speech.

And he's talking about making America good again. And he's throwing out all these lines about the future, selling the future to everyone. And it's really haunting. And then we get the epilogue text, which...

I would argue is maybe what wasn't completely necessary. I feel like we already had a really firm landing here, but I don't know, they lean in just a little bit more into the drug exploitation element, right, as we close out. The epilogue text feels more like the movie poster. It says, Wayne Mulligan was tested. Remember, they were going to test him. He was tested and found to have extensive chromosomic aberrations and is confined at Alhambra State Sanitarium.

Well...

I have to, I'm glad they didn't go full animal house on the epilogue here and tell you what every character did, because I love the ambiguity. Like, we don't know what happens with Fleming. Was the campaign successful? You know, what does he go on to do? We don't know how it shakes out with other people who took Blue Sunshine. So I think the epilogue was unnecessary, but what they added here is still creepy in its own right.

Fleming comes to power on a campaign promise of blue sunshine for every spine in America. Yeah, like that would be too much. But yeah, I like the ambiguity of it, though. I like where we landed.

So that's Blue Sunshine. If you've got a stomach for exploitation horror, I think it's a really, really fine example. And once again, I want to emphasize what I said earlier, works on multiple levels. It is both super effective as horror, incredibly creepy and paranoid, and also one of the funniest movies I've watched in a while. Yeah. And with, I think, some very strong social commentary that stands the test of time. So

Strong recommendation for this one if this is your deal at all. And if you're looking for an off-kilter Christmas movie, here you have it. Merry Christmas, Blue Sunshine. I need a Blue Sunshine ornament now, but I'll have to look into that. I was trying to think what the ornament would be. Bald head, of course. It's got to be windy. I wonder if you can just get a copy of Jerry's Christmas sweater from Blue Sunshine.

That'd be a deep cut. That'd be a deep cut. VHS box art would also be really cool. I have a little VHS box art ornament of Chopping Mall on the tree. I also have a phantasm spear, which you gave me last year. So it's heavy and it's sharp. I think this was made by Mondo. Oh, I didn't mean for it to be threatening in your home, but yeah. We're all safe around sharp objects now. So we're good. But it is impressive. Ball is back, baby. Yeah.

All right. We're going to go and close out this episode. This one may be a bit of a long one, but, you know, we had to go into all the details here. It's blue sunshine after all.

We'll remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes in the feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But on Wednesdays, we do a short-form episode. And on Fridays, we do Weird House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and talk about a strange film like this one. And if you want a full list of the movies we've covered over the years, go to Letterboxd.com. You'll find us there as Weird House. That's our username. And we have a list there of all the films we've covered so far. And sometimes, sometimes, there's a glimpse at what's coming up next. Cute.

Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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