Bad Movie of the Month: Reefer Madness

I may not be devoting all of my time and effort to covering bad movies these days, but that doesn’t mean I stopped loving them. So once a month, I’ll spread a little bit of that love…

Is summer over already? Yes it is. Time for all the kiddies to head back to school with bright, clean sneakers and a wheelbarrow full of new school supplies, and time for me to get back to... doing the stuff I always do, I guess. 

The whole back-to-schoolness got me thinking I should take our Bad Movie of the Month back to school. Bad Movies 101 is now in session, and today's lesson will be all about the great-granddaddy of bad movies. There are older cult films, but as best as I know, this is the first so-bad-it's-good movie experience. I'm talking, of course, about...

Contrary to popular belief, propaganda films aren't limited to World War II. Even back in the '30s, propaganda films were commonly used in another kind of war – the War on Drugs. Yes, long before Nancy Reagan made a Very Special Appearance on Diff'rent Strokes to “Just Say No,” there was a War on Drugs... specifically on the "unspeakable scourge" of marijuana. Reefer Madness, originally titled Tell Your Children, fights that war. One ham-fisted scene after another. 

The ham-fistery starts right out of the gate with this scrolling text: "The motion picture you are about to witness may startle you. It would not have been possible, otherwise, to sufficiently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marihuana is that drug – a violent narcotic – an unspeakable scourge – The Real Public Enemy Number One!" 

It goes on like that for three whole minutes, even going so far as to describe the effects of smoking up. And while I'm not well-versed in the ganja, it's pretty apparent that the makers of this film have never, ever been anywhere near marijuana. 

After those three minutes of reading, we get… more reading! Newspaper headlines tell us all about the evils of dope, and that we should all "Come! Hear! Listen!" to the esteemed Dr. Alfred Carroll talk about "Tell Your Children." Which doesn't make a lick of sense to me, but people come out in droves just the same. After outlining exactly how one can grow, process, roll and even hide pot – just what you want in an anti-drug film – Dr. Carroll tells a tale that happened in this very town. 

Mae and her beau (and pimp?) Jack are drug dealers who host parties for potential/current clients. We very quickly see the effects of “the dread marihuana” when a piano player sneaks off for a joint and starts tweaking and twitching like Seinfeld’s Kramer on too much Mountain Dew. Jack’s new marks include Jimmy, his sister Mary and her boyfriend, Bill.  They seem like good, wholesome all-American teens, the kinds who enjoy tennis, hot chocolate and Romeo & Juliet, though by "teens," I mean "actors well into their '30s." Good to know that's not limited to '90s television.  

One of the "teens" of Reefer Madness, in mid-madness.

When Bill first joins Jimmy at Mae's place, he clearly does not approve of all the decidedly not family-friendly partying but crumples like a paper cup under the slightest bit of peer pressure. Unfortunately for Bill, “the dread Marihuana” is even more addictive than Angry Birds, and seemingly overnight, Bill is cheating on Mary, screwing up in school and acting like Bobby Knight. 

Meanwhile, Jimmy gives Jake a lift to his supplier, and smokes up a bunch while waiting in the car. Naturally, that makes him crazy!  Jimmy drives like a mad man and runs down an elderly gent trying to cross the road, which is more the actions of a street punk from a Troma film than a pothead. What were they lacing their weed with back in the ‘30s?

Mary goes to Mae’s to find out what the Sam Hill is going on with her brother and Bill, and gets assaulted by Jack’s creepy buddy, Ralph. Bill hallucinates that Mary is hooking up with Ralph, and goes on one of those crazed pot-fueled berserker frenzies you always read about. Jack steps in, a gun is pulled, and suddenly it’s the inspiration of Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana.”

Yes, Reefer Madness aims for Hamlet-level tragedy: an innocent life is lost, another hangs in the balance. “Let’s make an example of this kid!” shouts the jury foreman, because suddenly this film takes place in Texas. There’s even a character who ends up pleading guilty to “fostering moral delinquency” (though I can’t imagine how much jail time that would land someone) before committing suicide. Yet another character is sent to a mental institution for life due to his “reefer madness.”

So instead of Hamlet-level tragedy, with its cheesy performances and bizarro depictions of marijuana use, the film is about as sad as a scantly-clad Will Ferrell running wildly in public. It’s no mystery why it’s such a popular midnight movie or why NORML latched on to it in the ‘70s for circulation around college campuses: This movie is pure, un-cut camp.

A true original! Congratulations, Reefer Madness: You are the Bad Movie of the Month.