Blue Sunshine 4K UHD Review

Synapse Films

Blu-ray Release: April 15, 2025 (originally a website exclusive, released June of 2024)

Video: 1.85:1/2160p (HDR10/Dolby Vision)/Color

Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo and 5.1

Subtitles: English SDH

Run Time: 94:49

Director: Jeff Lieberman

Eight friends throw a party in a secluded lodge when one of the guests suddenly goes on a shockingly violent, murderous rampage. There is something wrong with his hair and pure evil in his eyes. What he does to three of the girls there is too hideous to describe. Falsely accused of the brutal killings, Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King) goes on the run. Following more bizarre murders, he discovers the shocking truth: The people losing their hair and turning into violent psychopaths may be connected to a drug each killer took a decade before. A drug known as 'Blue Sunshine.' (From Synapse’s official synopsis)

Despite the enormous impact of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), zombie fiction took years to fully embrace the mechanics of his particular living-dead mythology, at least until the release of his second apocalyptic opus, Dawn of the Dead (1978). A small contingent of films – Jean Rollin’s Grapes of Death (French: Les Raisins de La Mort, 1978), Amando de Ossorio’s Blind Dead movies (1972-75), and Jorge Grau’s The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (Spanish: No profanar el sueño de los muertos; aka: Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, 1974) – embraced gory flesh-eating antics, while other filmmakers expanded Romero’s idea of contagious psychosis.

Movies like David E. Durston’s I Drink Your Blood (1970), Romero’s own The Crazies (1973), Bob Clark’s Deathdream (aka: Dead of Night, 1974), and David Cronenberg’s Shivers (aka: They Came from Within, 1975) explored zombism as a result of the counterculture and posed pertinent social questions about the terrors of war, the ethics of medical experimentation, and the dangers of bureaucracy. I Drink Your Blood cast hippies as rabid killers and LSD dosing as a means of assault. It’s probably the least subtle version of the hippies-as-zombies idea, actively mocking the counterculture misfits. The other lysergic acid diethylamide shocker, Jeff Lieberman’s Blue Sunshine (1977), isn’t critical of hippies per se, but where the generation ended up a decade after the Summer of Love.

Author/expert Kim Newman compares Blue Sunshine to Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill (1983), which was the definitive mainstream film study of counterculture Boomers coming to terms with their banal suburban lifestyles. But similar themes are also embedded in the subtext of Dawn of the Dead, where humanity has become mindless murder machines in pursuit of commodified happiness, and especially Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where disenfranchised, aging San Francisco hippies fail to combat a takeover of emotionless alien facsimiles. Blue Sunshine even climaxes in a shopping mall. Did Romero steal the fake-out scare where a character is startled by a mannequin? Maybe!

Lieberman’s film primed the yuppie horror ecosystem, flavoring Baby Boomer angst with sci-fi/horror trappings before Dawn of the Dead or Invasion ‘78 and tackling hippie guilt before The Big Chill, the Reagan administration, or the codification of the term ‘yuppie.’ The political angle is magnified by a subplot in which the estranged husband of one of the alopecia killers – who dealt the offending drug to classmates at Stanford a decade prior – is running a successful bid for congress, drawing amusing parallels to former president Bill Clinton’s insistence that he didn’t inhale when he sampled marijuana in college (the character’s campaign slogan is, I kid you not, ‘Make America Good Again’).

Tonally, Blue Sunshine feels of a piece with Larry Cohen’s high-concept sci-fi/horror films, God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and especially The Stuff (1986), which fits the larger Body Snatchers theme and has a similar, though more pronounced sense of humor. Blue Sunshine tends to allow the inherent silliness speak for itself, though there are still plenty of funny gags, like the scene where lead Zalman King can’t rescue two children, because he is quietly trapped in the world’s slowest elevator. The scares might not be as potent as they once were, but Lieberman maintains a steady sense of paranoia. While it might sound goofy on paper, the fact that the killers experience hair loss really works, because it leaves the audience intensely scanning hairlines in search of suspicious wigs.

Blue Sunshine was Lieberman’s second feature after the gonzo killer worm classic Squirm (1976) and he followed it up with one of the greatest First Wave Slashers, Just Before Dawn (1981). His shot at the mainstream was the 1988 make a high-concept, sci-fi teen romcom, Remote Control. When that flopped, he made a living as a documentarian and screenwriter. His final film as of this writing was the black comedy Satan’s Little Helper (2004). King could be seen a few years later in Bruce D. Clark’s Roger Corman-produced Alien knock-off Galaxy of Terror, alongside Robert Englund and Sid Haig, but became better known as a producer/director of super-softcore erotica, including Wild Orchid (1990) and the late-nite cable series Zalman King’s Red Shoe Diaries (1992).

Bibliography

• Nightmare Movies: Horror on the Screen Since the 1960s by Kim Newman (Bloomsbury, 2011)

Video

Blue Sunshine hit VHS via Vestron, then bounced around a lot of North American DVD, from Synapse to Shout Factory to the now defunct New Video. It debuted on Blu-ray in 2016 from another defunct company, Filmcentrix and the first UHD versions came in 2021 from French studio Le Chat qui Fumem and Camera Obscura in Germany (along with Blu-ray editions). It has now ended up back with the rights for a new UHD, which features a 4K scan of the original camera negative. I believe that this is the same remaster seen on the French and German discs. It definitely took them a while to get their collection out, as they announced it in 2022 and released the site-exclusive edition almost two years later. 

This review pertains to the wider release, still limited edition 4K/Blu-ray combo pack. The images on this page are taken from the 1080p transfer. Despite not showing off the extra 2160 resolution or Dolby Vision upgrade, they are still a decent indication of the clarity and color temperature of the UHD. This is a gritty film and the grain levels can fluctuate, but this is preferable to over-scrubbing textures. The very darkest sequences still have an occasionally muddy appearance, but the remaster and HDR boost help clarify a lot of previously indiscernible shots. Colors are rich without betraying the naturalistic and largely neutral overall palette.

Audio

Blue Sunshine is presented with original 2.0 mono and 5.1 remix options, both in uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio. The remix first appeared on Synapse’s DVD and is fine, but, as per usual, I’m personally rarely interested in 5.1 remixes of mono tracks, so this review mostly pertains to the single channel option. Dialogue is crisp, but not tinny, and the minimalist soundscape has an even-handed soundfloor that eliminates buzz without crushing environmental ambience. Charles Gross’ aggressively orchestrated score sounds a little better on the remix, probably because Synapse had access to the stereo music tracks, but isn’t overly flattened or muffled on the mono track. 

Extras

• Commentary with Jeff Lieberman – The original 2003 Synapse DVD track features a well-prepared Lieberman who keeps things moving with a bit of help from moderator Howard S. Berger. 

• Commentary with Jeff Lieberman – This 2016 track is moderated by documentary and DVD extra producer/director Elijah Drenner and was recorded for the Filmcentrix Blu-ray release. It’s closer to an interview and has surprisingly little overlap with the older track. I personally prefer the content and tone of the second track, but they’re good companion pieces, nonetheless.

• 2025 introduction by Jeff Lieberman (1:29, HD)

• Video interview with Jeff Lieberman (40:44, SD) – I’m not sure where this 2003 interview originated, because it doesn’t seem to have been included with Synapse’s original DVD. In it, Lieberman discusses his inspirations, his filmmaking career, his opinion of the horror genre at the turn of the century, and the making of the film.

• Fantasy Film Festival interview with Jeff Lieberman (14:03, SD) – Original recorded to air on Z Channel, this archival interview with the director is conducted by series host and future filmmaker Mick Garris.

• Lieberman on Lieberman (30:13, SD) – Also from the 2003 DVD, this interview with the director covers his early life and wider career up to that point, including oodles of personal anecdotes.

• Fantasia Film Festival 4K Premiere Q&A (36:29) – Lieberman fields questions from moderator Michael Gingold and the audience.

• Anti-LSD scare/propaganda films:

  • LSD-25 (1967; 26:41, HD) 

  • LSD: Insight or Insanity? (1968; 18:03, HD) 

• The Ringer – 1972 anti-drug short written and directed by Lieberman that satirizes the commodification of drug abuse with a fictional nose ring fad (funnily enough, the rings in question do not appear remotely absurd to modern eyes): 

  • Original uncut version (19:44, HD) – This is taken from a projection print source and includes optional 2003 commentary by director Jeff Lieberman, moderated by Howard S. Berger.

  • Final release version (18:32, HD) – This is sourced from the original camera negative.

• Two theatrical trailers

• Still gallery

Disc 2 (Blu-ray)

• 1080p version of the film and extras

Disc 3 (CD)

• Original soundtrack by Charles Gross (13 tracks, 34:50)

The images on this page are taken from Synapse’s 4K restored Blu-ray – NOT the 4K UHD – and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.