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Alice in Acidland (1969)

The recent revival of Grindhouse-cinema (courtesy of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez) thankfully brought some lost and presumed missing horror and exploitation gems of the late 60’s and 70’s back in to the spotlights, but inevitably it also helped bringing some awful and righteously forgotten stinkers to the surface. Some brand new DVD-label in my country – clearly inspired by the success and oddity value of Something Weird Video – even released this “Alice in Acidland” on disc and promoted it as a true highlight of the rancid exploitation era. Well, it isn’t really. This is a terrible film, rapidly shot and edited together to further cash in on the huge success of other (and better) contemporary drug-movies like “The Trip” and “Head” and basically the LSD-version of the classic anti-propaganda joke “Reefer Madness”. That particular ‘documentary’ – whether government funded or not – taught us that Marihuana is responsible for potentially intelligent teenagers to commit adultery, cause hit-and-run accidents, play with guns and even kill themselves. “Alice in Acidland” keeps it all a little sleazier and more easy-going, though. Apparently, all that LSD does is stimulating young and innocent girls to have random sex with strangers; whether guys that nickname themselves Animal or fellow naughty girls. As you can guess, “Alice in Acidland” is merely just an excuse to show a series of gratuitous soft-porn sequences and delirious color-effects. The set-up is similar to the one of “Reefer Madness”, with a voice-over narration from a psychiatrist and the poor intoxicated Alice herself. That is kind of weird, since the end of the movie clearly states that the LSD messed up poor Alice beyond repair, so how would she be able to narrate her version? There’s absolutely no dialog in the entire film, presumable to save the viewer some really terrible performances, but the ladies are quite luscious and keep the sex footage at least endurable. 55 minutes might seem incredibly short for a long feature film, but believe you me, in the case of “Alice in Acidland” is more than long enough and perhaps even a bit overlong.