Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Today’s theme: Physical Media

We want Dr. Pepper! We want Dr. Pepper! We want Dr. Pepper!

Obnoxious, relentless children are enough to make you literally snatch your wig, grab the longest knife you can find, and chase them around the room. Whether you are feeling some very delayed side effects from some LSD you dropped 10 years ago or not.

Blue Sunshine has been floating around on my watchlist for a while now. I really had no idea what the plot of this film was though. I only knew the film from the poster—the bald-headed lady standing in front of what appears to be a blue moon. Really no clues are given as to what happens in the film. 

As it turns out, Blue Sunshine is closer to a political paranoia conspiracy thriller like Three Days of the Condor than a traditional horror film. A small group of seemingly unrelated people are experiencing hair loss followed by severe homicidal tendencies. Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King—we’ll circle back to him) witnesses an attack by a friend inflicted with this seemingly acute psychosis, but becoming the accused murderer in the process. Out to solve the mystery and prove his own innocence, Jerry discovers that the cause may be linked to an LSD variant named Blue Sunshine that was distributed at Stanford a decade prior.

I cannot say that I’ve ever seen a Zalman King performance before. I definitely know the name for the Red Shoe Diaries series on Showtime back in the 1990s. I cannot say that I watched much of that show (or at least you won’t get me to admit it), but when I saw King’s name appear during the opening credit sequence of Blue Sunshine, I immediately checked my phone to make sure this was the same person. 

King has a cinematic presence. He most definitely has cinematic hair. But I cannot think of anyone else like him. Well, I actually did read someone’s review on Letterboxd that compared him to the recurring Red Shoe Diaries actor David Duchovny. That tracks. 

Again, Blue Sunshine is not your typical horror film, although there are some horrific things that happen. It feels political due to a main character who is running for Congress, but I did not make any connection to Edward Flemming’s (Mark Goddard) ambitions and his past of LSD hippie. I kind of expected more of a link to his past, but I don’t think he knew what was going on. Honestly, that lack of awareness would suit him well for politics. 

There are a couple of aspects of the film that I could not help but comment upon. There is a low-speed car chase involving a Ford Bronco. And, at the end of the film, Flemming is making a campaign speech promising to “Make America Good Again”. He’s going to need to up his game to greatness if he is going to truly succeed. Or maybe just put that Blue Sunshine in the water supply and see what happens.

I watched this one on the Synapse 4K release. Synapse always does a spectacular job in their restorations and releases. They do not release films very often these days, but when they do, I almost always pick them up.