Entry Thirty-Six: Liquid Sky (1982)

Liquid Sky (1982)

Dir: Slava Tsukerman

"The craziest science fiction movie ever..."

Okay, after only one movie, I need a break from hardcore.  But I'm sick and I can't sleep due to a rattling cough, so I'm heading back to the Basement of Sleaze and hoping that shooting up a little Liquid Sky will make me feel better...

Androgynous Anne Carlisle (Crocodile Dundee, Larry Cohen's Perfect Strangers) plays both bisexual, new-wave fashion model Margaret and gay junkie model Jimmy (who has a great, '80s Bowie look).  Margaret lives with her irritating, volatile performance-artist girlfriend Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard, Alice, Sweet Alice), who deals the titular drug.  A tiny flying saucer lands on Margaret and Adrian's windowsill, piloted by aliens who are addicted to a pheromone released by human beings during orgasm.  While a German scientist who's been tracking the aliens (the awesomely-named Otto von Wernherr, also in Perfect Strangers) arrives in NYC on the trail of the aliens, Margaret fucks her ex, who ends up dead with a crystal shard in his skull (the aliens' "harvesting" of the pheromone results in the death of the victim).  After she's raped by one of Adrian's junkie customers (who dies in a similar manner to her ex), Margaret gleans some notion of what's going on, and both Jimmy and Adrian die after having sex with Margaret during a photo shoot.  In the movie's best scene, a vengeful Margaret dons glow-in-the-dark makeup and picks up a guy who'd tried to rape her earlier.  She brings him back to her place and seduces him, ensuring his demise.  When von Wernherr shows up to capture the aliens, Margaret kills him and, as the diminutive E.T.s prepare to depart, shoots herself up with heroin (which produces the same endorphin as orgasm) and disappears.

This was (deservedly) a big underground hit on its initial release.  It has a great, garish 80's new-wave look, stunning makeup, bold optical effects (the aliens' "heat vision" beat the similar effect in Predator by 5 years) and an eerie, synth-drone soundtrack.  Carlisle is great in her dual-role.  As of this writing, Tsukerman and Carlisle are planning a sequel.  Also, I just bought the novelization of this flick from Amazon for a quarter...THAT'S the power of the internet!