CineBad!!!

No, they didn’t actually say this in the film, but I was sorely tempted to yell it at Scooter while we were watching “Death Drug.” This is the story of Mr. Tubbs from Miami Vice battling the drug WHACK– not the same as our good friend Crack, as PMT explains in this film’s intro, but similar (being part of a broader class known as the “ack” drugs.) This was the weirdest part of this tape– even though PMT made this film in 1978, way ahead of his Miami Vice days, the rental version was spliced together with some 80’s footage, in a sad attempt to capitalize on the TV show. This made for some really weird shifts in continuity– in the movie PMT is a jazz musician, but in his music video he’s a new-wave rocker. In the movie he dies undiscovered and penniless– but two minutes later on the news, he’s a major celebrity and his death is a national scandal. They obviously added this footage on purpose… you’d think they’d at least try to make it fit somehow.

You gotta love the boy, though. In the intro he goes on about how sometimes an actor is handed a role which really challenges him to look deep into himself… how sometimes a role is more than just a job! This dude was gearing up for the Academy Awards banquet! PMT was obviously having a deeply personal looking-into-himself experience, because he only has about three lines in the entire movie. His main job is to run around hitting things during the drug flashback scenes.

Anyway, if you haven’t already guessed, PMT plays a starving musician / plumber (I can’t remember what his character’s name was, and the IMDB is no help, so I’m going to keep calling him “PMT”) who suddenly hits the big time one night in a club. Unfortunately, evil whack dealers are also on hand to give PMT his first taste of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. For a while, PMT thinks he’s on top of the world, until the drug starts to take over, and he lashes out at his band, his producer, and his pregnant wife (qualifying this film as a cheesy tearjerker.)

Rosalind Cash (from The Omega Man) is also in this movie, and she’s becoming one of my favorite actresses. PMT’s wife runs into her at the community center and confides that he’s using the whack. Dr. Rosalind takes her to the clinic to see the whack detox ward– a horrifying place full of wailing, moaning whack victims who do things like thrash around on gurneys and have convulsions in whirlpool bathtubs.

In the final scene, PMT’s wife brings their five-year-old son to visit daddy’s grave, and while she’s busy having a hysterically poignant crying fit, the tot wanders off to the far end of the cemetery… where, behind the fence, lurks the same whack dealer who gave PMT his first hit! And, as if the cheese couldn’t get any thicker than this… there’s a largely pointless outro featuring PMT harping on about drugs, etc. etc. This boy can’t stop mugging for the camera!

Normally I would recommend seeing most films in the theater if you can… but this rental tape is really something special. I really don’t know what else to say. Words fail me!