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The Acid Eaters
[Something Weird Video]
1968; color
Directed by Byron Maybe
Starring: Pat Barrington, Buck Kartalian & Lila Lamont
Weed
[Something Weird Video]
1971; color
Directed by Alex De Renzy
Starring: Alex De Renzy
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The Acid Eaters is a bit of an oddity among the films associated with David F. Friedman - which is really saying something if you're familiar with his filmography - and, really, it is a complete oddity even by exploitation film standards. In many ways this is one of those films that you just have to marvel at and celebrate purely based on it's mere existence. Because in this day and age, who can even conceive of the idea of anyone making a film, and not just making it but having it released in theaters, where the collective goal of the main characters is to shake off the doldrums of the 9-to-5 world by hopping on their motorcycles and heading off for a weekend of boozing, drugging, and carousing; all leading up to finding a mythical pyramid of acid. And then they find it! If you think you've seen it all, wait until you see the David Friedman version of hell as filtered through an acid trip. (Unlike Roger Corman, I'm guessing Dave didn't go the extra mile required for "method filmmaking.") In closing, this movie is ridiculous! And awesome! And ridiculously awesomely ridiculous! Watch at your own risk.
I would offer a series of adjectives for it's DVD partner, Weed, as well but that would put too much of a negative spin on this review. The director of this documentary is a fella named Alex De Renzy, who went on to have a fairly extensive career as an adult film director who obsesses over anal sex. Or at least, according to his IMDB page, he's made a whole hell of a lot of movies featuring the words anal, butt, booty and / or backdoor in the title. Interestingly, many of his other offerings appear to be gang-bang films. (Hmm, I wonder what a date with him is like?) Just for the record, I bring this topic up not because I'm anti-anal sex or gang bang films (or, uh, wait…) but because I really have very little to say about this non-anal sex, non-gang bang, "straight" movie. Except that it commits the worst sin a documentary film can make - it made it's subject seem completely unimportant and boring. In fact, even weed itself did not help make this any less boring. Not that we tried that… OK, fine, we did. Then we ate some garlic hummus and tortilla chips. That part was rather satisfying. The movie though? Not so much. I mean, Michael Moore this guy is not. And hello - Michael Moore hasn't made a movie worth watching since the late '80s. Enough said.
Rounding out the package we have the usual and expected (but no less welcome) selection of extras. This time in the form of a series of appropriately themed trailers; a couple of those weird films they apparently used to show school children about the horrors of drugs and alcohol (one of which features Sal Mineo as a narrator, natch); and an gallery of David Friedman exploitation art. Clocking in at over 3 1/2 hours of grass, ass and LSD disguised as Styrofoam, this one is probably not for the casual SWV user.
—Bunny
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