DOPER (1994)

  Director Jim Van bebber has made some great stuff over the years including an awesome short about Long Island killer Ricky Kasso. This short though is not quite up to the quality of that and is a pretty dull look at some stoned fellows in the 90s. Perhaps more entertaining if you're very high. 

ACAPULCO GOLD (1973)

  The highlight for me in this documentary about the history, picking, cultivation and smuggling of marijuana was the scene where a dude just swims from Mexico to a beach in California with two giant plastic bags full of high quality weed. It sure was a lot harder to get the good stuff back in those days. Pretty leisurely-paced(stoned?) film that reminded me of a 70s TV show like IN SEARCH OF... but without bigfoot ever showing up.  There is some cool tunes thrown in and a sweet animated bit that looks like it escaped from FRITZ THE CAT or something. 

 Caught this in a theater as the opening film in an all-day marathon of marijuana-influenced cinema and it certainly worked well in that capacity. 

 There is another ACAPULCO GOLD that came it 3 years later starring Marjoe Gortner which is not a documentary but deals with the same subject.

GIRL GANG (1954)

 Well there is a girl gang in this that show up a couple of times but the main focus here is on a drug-pushing scumbag named Joe who gets young people hooked on weed and heroin and then sends them out to be gangsters and/or prostitutes to pay for their habits. The whole thing plays pretty much like a REEFER MADNESS-esque "beware of drugs" cautionary tale, there's even a musical number thrown in just like in that classic. A quick hour long run-time makes it worth a look for classic exploitation junkies.

SOMETHING WEIRD (1967)

 This dude(Tony McCabe) gets his face half-melted by an electrical wire and then gains the power of extra sensory perception. Oh and then he meets an ugly witch(Mudite Arums) who sometimes appears as a sexy lady(Elizabeth Lee) who heals him up if he becomes her boytoy. Then some government agent gives him LSD for some reason and he trips out and fights a blanket. This is obviously not a movie that makes a whole lotta sense and every time the witchy lady shows up I think it's going to turn into a kiddie movie. While not the best movie in director HG Lewis' oeuvre it's a passable time waster just for living up to its title.
 More importantly this film's title spawned the greatest video-releasing company of the 80s and they are still around today so give them a look for all your weirdest movie needs: https://www.somethingweird.com/

                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                   HG Lewis 2-fer!:

THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971)

 If, like the person I recently viewed this with, you have an intense aversion to needles this may be the most terrifying film you could watch. I personally do not share this phobia so to me this isn't scary but more of a depressing movie that chronicles a downward spiral of a couple living in NYC in the early 70's and their similarly gritty associates. This film could really only have been made in this decade because the pace with which it tells it's tale is really leisurely and moviegoers today are way too fucking jittery to watch something like this and get anything out of it except probably a long nap. I will say the movie is not my favorite due to the plot being pretty non-existent but I do really appreciate the realistic way you see the female lead, Kitty Winn, get pretty ragged by the end of this and Al Pacino, who was still in the beginning phase of his career when he actually acted unlike everything he's done in the last 30 years or so, does a great job of making you care about a pretty lowlife type of character. It's a pretty hard-hitting drama that you should pick up if you dig serious 70's pieces or just want to see a view of New York back when it could be pretty ugly.

STORY OF A JUNKIE (1985)

 If you have an aversion to seeing people shove needles in their arms this might not be the film for you. If, however, you can appreciate a dark look at 1980's New York City junkie subculture then give this one a look. It's mostly a documentary about John Spacely, who was a heroin-addicted punk who lived on the lower east side way before it became a big shopping mall for rich snobs like it is today. He eventually ended up dying of the AIDS in the 1992. There's also some reenactments of criminal activities here and there to liven things up. It's a pretty cool/gritty look at drug abuse and people generally making bad life choices. It does get a little slow in parts but I think this just adds to the artsy quality of the whole thing. This has got to be the most artsy-fartsy thing Troma ever released. AKA GRINGO

SHE SHOULDA SAID 'NO!' (1949)

 This one's kind of similar to (but not as good as) the classic anti-marijuana flick REEFER MADNESS with depictions of how the evil weed with roots in hell (WILD WEED and THE DEVIL'S WEED are alternate titles) can turn a good gal (Lila Leeds) into a bad gal ("bad" by 1940's standards anyway). Of course it's all really silly but good for a laugh or two. Probably my favorite scene is when our main gal's goody-goody brother hangs himself in the garage because he can't deal with the shame of his sister smoking the wacky tobacco and hanging out with "dope-fiends".
 More interesting than the actual film is the story behind it. It seems Miss Leeds was arrested for smoking pot in 1948 along with Robert Mitchum and due to this gained some dubious notoriety which resulted in her doing time, while Mitchum got away pretty much scott free, and ending up in this exploitation quickie which also ended up being her last film. This is pretty unfortunate since she seems like she coulda been great being the low-budget B-movie version of Marilyn Monroe but alas this was not to be, but we will always have this slice of silliness to remember Hollywood's hypocritical double-standard towards women at the time.



Original title:

Looks like this played with legendary exploitation producer/distributor Kroger Babb's MOM AND DAD:

and for the nice price of 65 cents you could hear Lila tell her own sordid story on stage!: