"Reefer Madness" (1936)
A Film Review by Jason Wallis
"Reefer Madness" zero stars Starring alot of bad actors Directed by Louis J. Gasnier
Up until a couple hours ago, I was completely convinced that Ed Wood's "Glen or Glenda?" was the stupidest, most inane movie ever made. Well, earlier today I decided to take a trip down to my local friendly Hollywood Video to pick up some flicks. Looking in the cult classics section, a film called "Reefer Madness" caught my eye. I thought it was like a Cheech and Chong flick or something. So I read the box and discovered that it was a short made in the 30s that was meant to warn families about the dangers of marijuana addiction. So I figured, "What the hell? It might be good for a laugh or two."
Well, a little over an hour later, I was trying to catch my breathe because I was laughing so hard. "Reefer Madness" (originally titled "Tell Your Children") is the single worst film ever made, but it is also one of the most entertaining (unintentually, of course).
The "film", shall we call it, opens with a warning - "The film you are about to see may disturb you." Well, it does, but not in the way that they meant. What's disturbing about it is that someone actually thought it was good enough to get produced.
The plot deals with a group of kids that hang out at the apartment of a chick named Mae and get high together on pot. Mae's boyfriend/husband (not sure which) is their supplier. I'm not going to bore you with anymore of the story line. You just gotta watch it.
Very rarely does a film come along that I think warrents the dreaded zero stars rating (other recipients include "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "New York Stories", by the way), but this movie truly deserves it. The fact that it's funny as hell doesn't alter this because the only reason it funny is because it's just so bad.
So I guess I actually recommend "Reefer Madness" for the simple fact that it made me bust a gut watching it. Louis J. Gasnier has made a film that joins the ranks of "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" as great flicks to watch when you're in the mood for some really bad camp classics.
Check out Jason Wallis' Filmaholics Anonymous web page at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Boulevard/7475
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews