My boyfriend sat me down and showed me the most bizarre movie musical I've ever seen (and this is coming from a Rocky Horror fan), Reefer Madness. I can't believe I hadn't heard of it, since I tend to be a huge fan of Broadway (and, well, off-Broadway, and anything else involving song and dance numbers), and also, because I'm a pot smoker.

It's basically a remake of a film made in the 30s (or possibly the 40s?), Tell Your Children, an anti-drug film centering around the evil of reefer dens, and how marijuana can turn people into total lunatics. (Yeah. Right.)

However, the remake is done entirely in a tongue in cheek fashion clearly meant to make fun of the seriousness of Tell Your Children, and while some of it was just too camp and bizarre even for me, there are some truly priceless moments. Such as this one...

To set the scene:
Jimmy, the main character, who has descended into the EVILS of pot smoking, decides to go rob the church collection box so he can have more money to spend on weed. However, when he grabs the box, he begins to have a hallucination...:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zFbc5MzAxk

meh I guess it's probably funny if you like shit like Rocky Horror I didn't watch the whole video because it looked dumb I just wanted to point out
that
Reefer Madness (The 1936 original that this is actually based off of) is one of the funniest movies ever. See it now.

Alan Cumming was excellent too in his portrayal of Stephen Colbert The Lecturer

BAHAHA. I never even noticed the resemblance, but christ, you're so right.

And the thing is, I wasn't attempting to make the film sound good, because to be honest, some of it was a bit too extreme for me. I'm not a major fan of bloodshed for the sake of camp (unless it's done very well, such as in, say, Shaun of the Dead), and I found this one to be a little over-the-top in that respect. Also, some scenes just felt off to me, such as the whole "Little Mary Sunshine"/dominatrix bit. But, as I said, other scenes were downright fantastic; "The Stuff" is an incredible song (I'm working on my own recording of it at the moment, god, is it fun to sing), and "Romeo and Juliet" had me cracking up to no end. Kristin Bell is outstanding in her role, as is Christian Campbell (Neve Campbell's brother; she also makes a few appearances in the film).

But to be fair, it can't be compared to Rocky Horror; consider the thirty year gap in between. I'm sure if Rocky H. had been filmed today, it would have been a hell of a lot better as far as production values go.

But no, this wasn't a LOL HEH RANDOM post as much as trying to seek out other musical lovers in the community, or other opinions on the film.

Has anyone seen the stage musical, or heard the soundtrack? I've been trying to seek it out.

So wait you thought Shaun of the Dead was fine but Reefer Madness was too extreme?

I don't mean extreme in terms of the gore itself being exaggerated, but rather just the overuse of it. I mean, obviously, like in Shaun of the Dead, it was all very campy and clearly not meant to be realistic, but toward the end, it just seemed like they were featuring bloodshed just for the sheer sake of it, rather than as a plot point (besides the obvious zombie-killing in Shaun of the Dead, I can only recall one gruesome scene featuring a human character). But hey, this is a completely personal opinion, I'm speaking just for myself.