Exclusive: Jeff Lieberman Talks Blue Sunshine, Cult Classics, and Horror Structure at Fantasia 2022

Blue Sunshine (1978) follows Jerry (Zalman King) as he becomes falsely accused of a series of murders, forcing him on the run, as more killings take place. As Jerry struggles to clear his name, he eventually becomes privy to the truth: the killings are tied to a bad batch of LSD that causes people to go bald and homicidal.

Blue Sunshine marks the second feature for director Jeff Lieberman, who is now known for his cult sci-fi/horror films like Squirm, Just Before Dawn, and the aforementioned. Lieberman attended the 2022 Fantasia Film Festival, showing a 4K restoration of Blue Sunshine, and sat down with MovieWeb to chat about the film, among other things.

“It was inspired by the sci-fi movies of the ‘50s. And the reason is that what they did in the ‘50s… was the government was telling you we’re going to get into an atomic war… and they had documentaries on TV, public service; how to build a bomb shelter. They made you crazy. And they had these things about what radiation might do to people and animals. They just made this [expletive] up… So, in the ‘70s, they did the same things with LSD. They made up stuff. It makes you this or that, you jump off a roof, a big fear campaign. But what Hollywood did in the ‘50s, is they took the fear that the government was selling and said, ‘Let’s make movies to cash in on that fear.’ Which is smart because you’re already afraid of the subject, so now you just make a story that goes along with it. In the ‘70s I said, ‘I’m going to do the same with LSD,’” explained Lieberman.

Creating a Cult Classic

Instead of speaking to audiences on accounts of sheer entertainment — movies like Transformers or Jurassic World that are more about the spectacle — cult classics tend to, as almost self-explained in the label, become what they do because of how they speak to culture and people. At least, as critic Desson Thomson put it for NPR, “I think what happens with cult films, they appeal to us in another group. Big Lebowski, for instance, by the Coen brothers, that appealed to the sort of slacker in us, the guy who wants to sit around on the couch drinking White Russians and wondering about life and sort of feeling that life has swept him by. So, it became sort of an odd cult phenomenon… it reaches you on a cultural level rather than necessarily on the entertainment level.”

Though, Thomson notes that there are, of course, many variables to consider. Is the film revolutionary? Are there layers to why it is enjoyed, both ironically and genuinely? Does the film appeal to mainstream audiences right away? When The Wizard of Oz came out in 1939, “it didn’t make but three million dollars.” Despite being critically acclaimed, it didn’t show out so hot at the box office. It wasn’t until later that it fully picked up, “thanks to television showing it at Thanksgiving and Christmas.” Does its initial box office clunk classify it under cult status today due to its televised and academic ubiquity?

For Lieberman, the luxury of being routinely televised on Thanksgiving and Christmas to such extents wasn’t afforded, and so the former — speaking to culture — is more applicable to Blue Sunshine. Lieberman notes, however, that what makes his film a cult classic is up to you. “That’s up to you… you know, you do a movie, it says the end, and then you do another movie or not… but you don’t think about the future or the life of the thing. Like if you did a drawing, and you went, ‘Gee, I wonder if this is going to end up in a museum someday,’ it’s more likely it’s going to wind up in a garbage can. So, I never envisioned any of this stuff…. I talk to other people, friends that I know that went through the same thing, and they go, ‘Why would you?’ You’re not doing the movie for posterity; you’re doing the movie for the moment you do it. It’s up to people to make it a classic, or for it to resonate. So, I really believe if you hit truths, and the movie could take place anytime, but there are some basic truths… if you hit them, it doesn’t get dated because the emotions, the truth, the human element doesn’t change,” he explained.

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Motivating Audiences with Fear & Structure

As noted, one of the ways to capture cultural truths and elevate stories, as seen historically, is by capitalizing on a collective fear of the day. Like what Lieberman replicated from Hollywood in the ’50s for Blue Sunshine in the ’70s. Pair that with an audience’s sense of superiority, and you have what can be considered the structure for many horror movies today.

“People want to get scared. I don’t know why,” commented Lieberman, “somebody said that the audience gives you 10 minutes of their time. Meaning they go into a room, the light goes down, ‘I’m all yours,’ right. And I know this from screenwriting, too. It’s 10 pages. If you don’t engage in 10 pages, they’ll glaze over… Sam Arkoff, he used to be the head of a company called American International Pictures, he was the king of the B movie. He always said, ‘Something at the beginning of the movie has to hook the audience.’ He always said, ‘The first person you see in a good horror movie is not going to last three minutes. They’re going to be dead. The very first person.’ And it’s true… now the audience knows something. We’re going to cut to whoever it is, and it’s going to take them 20 minutes or 30 minutes to find out what the audience already knows in the first three minutes… the audience feels superior, and then when finally, the character knows, okay, now what are you going to do about it?”

Jeff Lieberman’s films have been an influence on many today. In addition to his own films, he has also written on many projects including Doctor Franken and The NeverEnding Story III.