Down on Us (1984)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Horrible all the way around. Only if interest for fans of REALLY obscure cinema, I rate this for the bottom 200. In fact I would put this right at number 50, because like everything else in this piece of garbage it has Just Enough to save it from a 1 star rating.First the Good. The Jimi Hendrix actor is passable. Jim looks like a Halloween costume, and Janis looks nothing at all like Janis Joplin.All the songs are soundalikes, obviously as a movie of this budget could never get the rights to classic hits. BUT, the soundalikes honestly do sound like what the artist would be doing in 1982, had they lived. Too bad this movie takes place in 1968-1971. Get my drift? There is enough here to bear watching this train smash --- but only to have it fail 90% of the time.The actual story was kinda decent, has it been directed by an Oliver Stone, we might have an actual movie here.The budget SEVERELY limits this film... instead of Janis's signature 1/5th of SOCO she drinks from a pint of whatever, and even uses and 80's style juicer.In the scene where the UK cover of Electric Ladyland is shot, instead of a mountain of nude women, we get 2 topless ones...It goes on and on and on... deserves a Rifftrack... but this movie runs 2 HOURS... are you kidding? Only of interest to people who like to go to sleep or vomit. It's bad.

Bad plot, bad dialogue, bad acting, idiotic directing, the annoying porn groove soundtrack that ran continually over the overacted script, and a crappy copy of the VHS cannot be redeemed by consuming liquor. Trust me, because I stuck this turkey out to the end. It was so pathetically bad all over that I had to figure it was a fourth-rate spoof of Springtime for Hitler.The girl who played Janis Joplin was the only faint spark of interest, and that was only because she could sing better than the original.If you want to watch something similar but a thousand times better, then watch Beyond The Valley of The Dolls.

Larry Buchanan. Yep, same guy who did "Attack of the THE Eye Creatures" and two (count 'em: TWO) conspiracy movies about Marilyn Monroe. He's to blame, here.Adding onto his ever-growing pile of folders left over from Oliver Stone's "eh-I-grew-out-of-it" conspiracy drawer, here's "Down On Us (i.e.- "Beyond the Doors") which is the working definition of historical inaccuracy.Forget everything you THOUGHT you knew about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, says Big Lar', cuz this is the real deal! Y'see, the three big names in rock of the '60s were KILLED BY THE GOVERNMENT because they were subversives or counter-productive to Truth, Justice and the American Way, or sumpthin' like that there. I knew it all along.Anyway, three people (Chatman, Meryl, Wolf) who look eerily like their real life shadows (that is, if you completely close your eyes, turn your backs and walk five miles away from them) show that instead of their recorded deaths, the good old US of A put hits out on them! Yep, it's the truth!Man, I cannot believed I watched this movie. It's facts, when not stretching credibility to the snapping point, are ludicrous; the acting makes TV commercials look like high drama and if you honestly watch it through to the end, you deserve the "twist" ending. You really, really do; I swear. Genius.But like the man said: "Rock and roll is dead - long live rock and roll."Not this flick, though.No stars for "Down on Us". And that's the movie audience describing the film, by the way....

Schlock master Larry Buchanan combines his love of conspiracy theories with his amazing ability to present unrealistic history in this movie, perhaps the worst rock music related film ever made. The actors only vaguely resemble Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, and produce amusing sound alike fake music for the soundtrack. All musical performances take place on the same cheap set which is said to be in different places all over the world. Everything has an extreme bargain basement quality about it. A lot more fun to watch than Woodstock.