So I watched Gas-s-s-s...
Dec. 28th, 2010 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkthatbledAlso known as Gas! or It Became Necessary To Destroy The World In Order To Save It.
I think there is one scene in this movie that perfectly encapsulates the feeling that this film engenders within myself.
Early on in the film, the two lead protagonists leave Dallas to roam, and every other scene there is a shot of roadside signs reading "VISIT THE ORACLE, FIND THE ANSWER". As these signs keep cropping up throughout the movie, it's not too much of a stretch to believe that these guys are making their merry way to find this Oracle, and the answer it provides, meeting weird people and getting involved in strange situations.
About an hour into the film, our heroes find the Oracle. Or, to be more exact, a massive message scrawled on one of the biggest rocks: THERE IS NO ANSWER BUT KEEP LOOKING -- THE ORACLE.
A long excursion with some kind of a point that turns out to be utterly worthless. That is Gas-s-s-s in a nutshell.
And there is still fifteen minutes of film left after that!
The plot of the film can be written on a postage stamp: After the planet is overrun by a biological weapon that kills everyone over the age of 25 by "instant old age" (the Gas-s-s-s of the title, obviously), the remaining civilisation try their best to make do with what they've go. Two hippies, Coel and Cillia (who just so happened to be working with the scientist who developed the killer gas) leave Dallas, which is apparently turning into a police state, with several others (iBen Vereen, Bud Cort, a younger Shirley Feeny, and a younger AADRIAAAAN! *ahem* Sorry, cultural gag reflex.) in order to... Well... Uh... Well, it's not exactly explained. Ostensibly, they're looking for the Oracle, but the only hint we get of that is the constant shots of those roadside signs they pass by on their journey.
Most of the time, they drive down the highway, and stop and get themselves into some weird-ass situation, including having their car stolen by some used-car rustlers, who they face down in a Western style showdown where they shout the names of Hollywood western actors as ammunition for their guns (invoking John Wayne, of course, is fatal); getting kidnapped and forced into a gang of American football bandits, complete with a leader who talks in gridiron metaphors; getting kidnapped AGAIN by some Hell's Angels running a country club (following them, for some reason, deciding to dress like squares, despite the fact that a good majority of them would have probably been killed by the gas, instead of say, gathering food or weapons...) and escaping, leading to a painful parody of America' situation during the Vietnam War; and finally, finding a small pueblo in New Mexico where several hippies have banded together into a peaceful commune, which just so happens to come under threat from the gridiron bandit gang from earlier.
This film is random and disjointed, an episodic mess that has very little plot besides the characters roaming along, and stumbling across the next bizarre situation. Strange elements routinely appear, with the least amount of amusement: Edgar Allan Poe rides a yellow motorcylce, following our heroes, with a stuffed raven on his shoulder and Lenore riding shotgun. God is a side character in this movie, talking like a stereotypical American Jew, without the Yiddish. Our heroes meets a pissy Native American who's smug that the gas somehow means they can reclaim America, and starts "giving back" everything the white man has given them. Adrian explodes like a hand greande after eating decades old canned food (!!!). One of the characters decides to be left behind, in a dangerous place full of dangerous people, just because she found a working jukebox.
And through all of this, I didn't find it all that funny, just frustrating. The fact that it's well documented that AIP, the studio that distributed this film, slashed it to ribbons after director Roger Corman handed in (what he said was) his final cut of the film doesn't help matters one bit. Gas-s-s-s is just another stoner film, from a time when stoner films were all the rage, and not a terribly good stoner film either.
I think there is one scene in this movie that perfectly encapsulates the feeling that this film engenders within myself.
Early on in the film, the two lead protagonists leave Dallas to roam, and every other scene there is a shot of roadside signs reading "VISIT THE ORACLE, FIND THE ANSWER". As these signs keep cropping up throughout the movie, it's not too much of a stretch to believe that these guys are making their merry way to find this Oracle, and the answer it provides, meeting weird people and getting involved in strange situations.
About an hour into the film, our heroes find the Oracle. Or, to be more exact, a massive message scrawled on one of the biggest rocks: THERE IS NO ANSWER BUT KEEP LOOKING -- THE ORACLE.
A long excursion with some kind of a point that turns out to be utterly worthless. That is Gas-s-s-s in a nutshell.
And there is still fifteen minutes of film left after that!
The plot of the film can be written on a postage stamp: After the planet is overrun by a biological weapon that kills everyone over the age of 25 by "instant old age" (the Gas-s-s-s of the title, obviously), the remaining civilisation try their best to make do with what they've go. Two hippies, Coel and Cillia (who just so happened to be working with the scientist who developed the killer gas) leave Dallas, which is apparently turning into a police state, with several others (iBen Vereen, Bud Cort, a younger Shirley Feeny, and a younger AADRIAAAAN! *ahem* Sorry, cultural gag reflex.) in order to... Well... Uh... Well, it's not exactly explained. Ostensibly, they're looking for the Oracle, but the only hint we get of that is the constant shots of those roadside signs they pass by on their journey.
Most of the time, they drive down the highway, and stop and get themselves into some weird-ass situation, including having their car stolen by some used-car rustlers, who they face down in a Western style showdown where they shout the names of Hollywood western actors as ammunition for their guns (invoking John Wayne, of course, is fatal); getting kidnapped and forced into a gang of American football bandits, complete with a leader who talks in gridiron metaphors; getting kidnapped AGAIN by some Hell's Angels running a country club (following them, for some reason, deciding to dress like squares, despite the fact that a good majority of them would have probably been killed by the gas, instead of say, gathering food or weapons...) and escaping, leading to a painful parody of America' situation during the Vietnam War; and finally, finding a small pueblo in New Mexico where several hippies have banded together into a peaceful commune, which just so happens to come under threat from the gridiron bandit gang from earlier.
This film is random and disjointed, an episodic mess that has very little plot besides the characters roaming along, and stumbling across the next bizarre situation. Strange elements routinely appear, with the least amount of amusement: Edgar Allan Poe rides a yellow motorcylce, following our heroes, with a stuffed raven on his shoulder and Lenore riding shotgun. God is a side character in this movie, talking like a stereotypical American Jew, without the Yiddish. Our heroes meets a pissy Native American who's smug that the gas somehow means they can reclaim America, and starts "giving back" everything the white man has given them. Adrian explodes like a hand greande after eating decades old canned food (!!!). One of the characters decides to be left behind, in a dangerous place full of dangerous people, just because she found a working jukebox.
And through all of this, I didn't find it all that funny, just frustrating. The fact that it's well documented that AIP, the studio that distributed this film, slashed it to ribbons after director Roger Corman handed in (what he said was) his final cut of the film doesn't help matters one bit. Gas-s-s-s is just another stoner film, from a time when stoner films were all the rage, and not a terribly good stoner film either.
