Blue Sunshine (1976)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Jeff Lieberman

Writer:

Jeff Lieberman (writer)

Release Date:

20 March 1978 (Denmark)

Genre:

Mystery | Thriller | Horror

Plot:

At a party, someone goes insane and murders three women. Falsely accused of the brutal killings, Jerry is on the run...

Plot Keywords:

LSD | Bald | Person On Fire | Murder | Fall From Height

Cast

Zalman King	...	Jerry Zipkin
Deborah Winters	...	Alicia Sweeney
Mark Goddard	...	Edward Flemming
Robert Walden	...	David Blume
Charles Siebert	...	Detective Clay
Ann Cooper	...	Wendy Flemming
Ray Young	...	Wayne Mulligan
Alice Ghostley	...	O'Malley's Neighbor
Stefan Gierasch	...	Lt. Jennings
Richard Crystal	...	Frannie Scott
Bill Adler	...	Ralphie
Barbara Quinn	...	Stephanie
Adriana Shaw	...	Barbara O'Malley
Bill Sorrells	...	Ritchie Grazzo
Jeffrey Druce	...	Junkie

Runtime:

89 min | Australia:96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:R | Norway:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 (video rating) | USA:R

Company:

Ellanby Films

Trivia:

The disco for the films climax was actually a country-western bar in L.A. that was converted to look like a disco tech. At the time of shooting the disco craze hadn't yet reached the west coast.

Quotes:

Edward Flemming: [grabbing Jerry] You dirty killer bastard, you!
Jerry Zipkin: I didn't kill anybody!
Edward Flemming: Like hell you didn't!
Jerry Zipkin: I didn't kill anybody!
Edward Flemming: Wayne! Get me Wayne!
Jerry Zipkin: You and Wayne, I'll get your Wayne! He's gone crazy from that acid you sold him, and so did your wife!

Soundtrack:

Blue Sunshine

Worth A Look for Genre Fans but Flawed

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

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

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