The greatest movie ever made..!

Sadly Over-hyped

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

A gas is let loose upon the world that kills anyone over twenty-five years old.Coming from Roger Corman, I wanted to like this, but it never seemed coherent and I think not enough thought was put into a plot or story arc. There are things I enjoyed, such as the permit guy with the whip and how this was an alternate version of "Logan's Run" (this film came out after the novel but before the film, so whether or not there was an influence, I have no idea).There was a problem in that almost no one was under 18. This seemed to be teenagers and young adults cutting loose, but who was watching all the infants?

Roger Corman's Gas-s-s-s, his final film as director for AIP, is dated (and probably even was for the period it got released), but somehow it's almost part of its charm. It's an irreverent comedy about a noxious gas that wipes out everybody- at least in the US much as we can figure- who's over the age of 25. Party-time! In what appears to be, in the premise, as a slight twist on Corman's own Last Woman on Earth, it's an epic of low-budget proportions, a rampant fiasco of kids in hippie-wear (or not as case turns out) and the Darwinian struggles that take place as the roughnecks, jocks and bikers-on-country-clubs face off against those darn 'commie-anarchists'. Certainly a good premise indeed, at least for those who love the exploitation fare of the period (myself counted, even as I'm from after that era).While it might be one of Corman's (intentionally) funnier pictures, there's a nagging feeling that something's not totally there. It is cheap, it is slapdash, it's episodic. The problem, as with some of Corman's other movies, is that a little more effort would make something even more interesting. If there was, for example, another snappy and sharp writer alongside George Armitage, who could whip the script into a tight and awesome shape, it could even be one of the great exploitation films. As it stands, it's merely OK overall. Luckily the good tries to outweigh the bad, which is that there are some really, actually clever one-liners ("Hey, we all have our own inconsistencies, that doesn't stop the revolution," to "Drop that chloride, you commie anarchist!") and seeing the biker country-clubbers and the God lightning bolt climax.Best of all is to see a running-gag in-joke for Corman- probably more than one, actually. The first is more obvious, and laugh-out-loud, which is a biker Edgar Allen Poe, who just shows up here and there like some sage wise-man (who is, of course, not over 25) with his wife and occasional raven on his shoulder spouting garbled quotes. The second is a little more subtle, which seems to be a play on his film the Trip, as in the psychedelic-type scenes (i.e. dancing to Country Joe and the Fish) with the camera zooming in and out fast, lots of hand-held, etc). Corman's gone through this all before, so it has to be questioned: how much of this is tongue in cheek, and how much is just almost shoddy film-making? Can't be sure. At least there was consistent chuckling to be had, especially at seeing a young Bud Cort in a cowboy hat, and, of all people, Talia Shire!

This gloriously gaga dippy hippie early 70's end-of-the-world counterculture cinematic artifact deals with a man-made airborne germ warfare virus which accelerates the aging process, thus killing off everybody who's twenty-five and older. Only young kids are left to inherit the world and maintain some semblance of civilization. Naturally, in the hands of these crazy, carefree, amoral, unsupervised, and totally uninhibited youths all-out anything-goes anarchy, hedonism, and pandemonium soon become widespread: California degenerates into a fascist Nixonian police state, football-inspired brutality reigns supreme in Texas, greasy bikers enforce conservative moral rectitude on the golf links (!), and horse-riding, pistol-packing psycho cowboy bandit car thieves terrorize the dusty back-roads of America.Directed with customary gusto by legendary exploitation movie maestro Roger Corman, adopted from a bold, biting script written by the great, ever-underrated George Armitage (who later wrote and directed the terrific "Miami Blues"), further enhanced by Ron Dexter's garishly excessive, heavy on the bright lurid colors and flashy psychedelic visuals cinematography and a groovy, fuzz-tone and saxophone blastin' lowdown blue-eyed soul rock'n'roll score by Country Joe and the Fish, this breezy, irreverent, playfully mordant black comedy riot satirizes both the establishment and the counterculture alike, biker pictures, brooding Gothic horror films (Edgar Allen Poe appears as a grimly philosophical Greek chorus astride a black chopper with Eleanor as his motorcycle mama!), and apocalyptic sci-fi cinema in general. Robert Corff and Elaine Giftos are quite affable as the increasingly confused leads, while Ben Vereen as an angry black militant, Cindy Williams as a chirpy, pregnant ditz, Talia Shire as a daffy, rock music-loving flower child, Bud Cort as a smarmy longhair, and Armitage as the deranged Billy the Kid contribute deliciously grotesque supporting performances. A wonderfully kooky and cockeyed one-of-a-kind delight.

I think if you are into the sixties kind of thing, as I am, you are obligated to waste about 80 minutes of your life watching this barely watchable trainwreck. The saving graces of this oddity include a surprisingly apt social commentary on sixties values along with a number of relatively well known actors caught in early (and embarrassing) footage. It's as if the producers of Laugh-In sat down and decided to write a full length film, covering all the high points (and more) of the issues between the flower children and the establishment, then put it in the hands of a couple of hippies and gave them about a $10,000 budget to complete it. Hardly a classic, but in its own way it does capture how truly strange that time was, the silliness, the over-idealism, and the uptightness of the establishment. Clearly not for everyone.