It’s no surprise to me that a lot of cult movies have links to drugs–both by drugs being featured in films and by gaining a reputation for ideal viewing in a drugged state. Films depicting drug use have been around since the birth of film. In fact, Edison made a 30-second long kinetograph in 1894 which featured opium smoking, Chinese Opium Den (which, by the way, is impossible to find because all that remains of this treasure is a single still image). Drugs, since the birth of the motion picture, have been exploited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKMemlQf3IU

Cult director Dwain Esper was among the many who emerged after the Production Code was passed. Esper has made a wide array of films depicting drug use, which have developed some serious cult followings. Some notable Esper films depicting drug use are Narcotic (1933), Maniac (1934), and Reefer Madness (1936). Under the code, these films depicted drug use, and masked the exploitation with since-debunked information deemed educational. Between the ’30s and ’50s, films about drugs tended to be exploitative, sensationalizing the effect of drugs and their dangers.

As the code relaxed, things started getting weirder, which the reading “Cult Cinema and Drugs” did a good job describing:

As the stringent Production Code gradually eroded in the late 1950s and the1960s, there emerged a number of more daring cinematic depictions of drug use, many of which would become cult films. Of particular importance was the emergence of a youth market.

The ’60s saw a phenomenon–drugs became a symbol of pride and subversion. Around the mid 1960s, a number of exploitation films featuring acid and weed subsequently appeared. Some of the films that came out during this time were still moralistic at core, like Hallucination Generation (1966). Others, however, started to exploit the hell out of sex and drugs, and started showing the youth what they wanted to see, like Alice In Acidland (1969).

This era gave birth to “headsploitation” films, where films were specifically made to be experienced on drugs, or as a film identified by drug users as a film that can be pleasantly enhanced with the use of drugs.

Thus, a niche community – often with shared values – flocking around a film for a particular reason and with a ritualistic drug of choice to ingest for the occasion, fits comfortably into a movie cult.

I tried to do more research on headsploitation but, alas, the only thing I could find on headsploitation was what was cited in our reading, Charlie Haas’s “Headsploitation”.

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This week’s screening, Sid and Nancy (1986) was very heavy, depicting a completely different side of drug-use than our previous screenings. This film resonated with me–like all heroin films–because my parents both survived heroin addiction. In fact, this film depicts the exact time in history where, like Sid and Nancy, my parents were hooked and hitting rock bottom.

The film was beautiful, dark and emotional, with wonderful performances from both Chloe Webb and Gary Oldman. I especially enjoyed the color palette of the film, the set design, and the costume design–it all felt very ’70s British punk scene. Something that I found especially interesting to learn about was Johnny Rotten’s reaction to the film. Here he is in an interview, calling Sid and Nancy “a degrading, stupid, lying piece of cheesiness bearing no sense of reality whatsoever.”