Michael Ledo Not since "She" has there been a more bizarre post apocalyptic movie. In this "Logan Run's" film everyone over 25 dies. leaving the world divided in various outlaw anarchist group. The story centers on a hippie couple who preach open love on their way across Texas to Pueblo to find the oracle and "The Answer." They follow billboards as one was traveling on I-95 to "South of the Border."The various gangs include those with golf carts and a those who "rape, kill, and loot" dressed up as a high school football team complete with an marching band and cheerleaders.The humor was offbeat which explains the 4 stars. In one scene the woman says "Let's create and ancient legend...anyone who bathes naked in this pool of water after the first cold wintry wind will find the key to happiness." At this point her boyfriend finds a hotel key on the ground, "Sands Casino and Hotel, Las Vegas.The film talks about sex and rape but doesn't show anything "R" rated. Young girls screaming being chased and thrown on a bed is about as risque as it gets.No f-bombs that I recall. I watched the film for free on "Epix Drive-in" which normally doesn't edit anything out.This is a Roger Corman film with regrettable roles by Cindy Williams, Ben Vereen, and Taliha Shire. Mike Castle who played Burroughs in this film went on to become the Claw salesman in Galaxina.

Coventry Roger Corman is undeniably one of the most versatile and unpredictable directors/producers in history. He was single-handedly responsible for some of my favorite horror films ever (like the Edgar Allen Poe adaptations "Masque of the Red Death" and "Pit and the Pendulum") as well as some insufferably cheap and tacky rubbish quickies (like "Creature from the Haunted Sea" and "She Gods of the Shark Reef"). Corman also made a couple of movies that are simply unclassifiable and – simply put – nearly impossible to judge properly. "The Trip", for example, as well as this imaginatively titled "Gas-s-s-s" can somewhat be labeled as psychedelic exploitation. In other words, they're incredibly strange hippie-culture influenced movies. Half of the time you haven't got the slightest idea what's going on, who these characters are that walk back and forth through the screen and where the hell this whole thing is going. The plot is simply and yet highly effective: a strange but deadly nerve gas is accidentally unleashed and promptly annihilates that the entire world population over the age of 25. This *could* be the basic premise of an atmospheric, gritty and nail-bitingly suspenseful post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi landmark, but writer George Armitage and Roger Corman decided to turn it into a "trippy" road-movie comedy. None of the characters is even trying to prevent their inevitable upcoming deaths; they just party out in the streets and found little juvenile crime syndicates. "Gas-s-s-s" is a disappointingly boring and tries overly hard to be bizarre. The entire script appears to be improvised at the spot and not at all funny. Definitely not my cup of tea, but the film does have a loyal fan base and many admirers, so who am I to say that it's not worth your time or money?

MisterWhiplash Roger Corman's Gas-s-s-s, his final film as director for AIP, is dated (and probably even was for the period it got released), but somehow it's almost part of its charm. It's an irreverent comedy about a noxious gas that wipes out everybody- at least in the US much as we can figure- who's over the age of 25. Party-time! In what appears to be, in the premise, as a slight twist on Corman's own Last Woman on Earth, it's an epic of low-budget proportions, a rampant fiasco of kids in hippie-wear (or not as case turns out) and the Darwinian struggles that take place as the roughnecks, jocks and bikers-on-country-clubs face off against those darn 'commie-anarchists'. Certainly a good premise indeed, at least for those who love the exploitation fare of the period (myself counted, even as I'm from after that era).While it might be one of Corman's (intentionally) funnier pictures, there's a nagging feeling that something's not totally there. It is cheap, it is slapdash, it's episodic. The problem, as with some of Corman's other movies, is that a little more effort would make something even more interesting. If there was, for example, another snappy and sharp writer alongside George Armitage, who could whip the script into a tight and awesome shape, it could even be one of the great exploitation films. As it stands, it's merely OK overall. Luckily the good tries to outweigh the bad, which is that there are some really, actually clever one-liners ("Hey, we all have our own inconsistencies, that doesn't stop the revolution," to "Drop that chloride, you commie anarchist!") and seeing the biker country-clubbers and the God lightning bolt climax.Best of all is to see a running-gag in-joke for Corman- probably more than one, actually. The first is more obvious, and laugh-out-loud, which is a biker Edgar Allen Poe, who just shows up here and there like some sage wise-man (who is, of course, not over 25) with his wife and occasional raven on his shoulder spouting garbled quotes. The second is a little more subtle, which seems to be a play on his film the Trip, as in the psychedelic-type scenes (i.e. dancing to Country Joe and the Fish) with the camera zooming in and out fast, lots of hand-held, etc). Corman's gone through this all before, so it has to be questioned: how much of this is tongue in cheek, and how much is just almost shoddy film-making? Can't be sure. At least there was consistent chuckling to be had, especially at seeing a young Bud Cort in a cowboy hat, and, of all people, Talia Shire!

Woodyanders This gloriously gaga dippy hippie early 70's end-of-the-world counterculture cinematic artifact deals with a man-made airborne germ warfare virus which accelerates the aging process, thus killing off everybody who's twenty-five and older. Only young kids are left to inherit the world and maintain some semblance of civilization. Naturally, in the hands of these crazy, carefree, amoral, unsupervised, and totally uninhibited youths all-out anything-goes anarchy, hedonism, and pandemonium soon become widespread: California degenerates into a fascist Nixonian police state, football-inspired brutality reigns supreme in Texas, greasy bikers enforce conservative moral rectitude on the golf links (!), and horse-riding, pistol-packing psycho cowboy bandit car thieves terrorize the dusty back-roads of America.Directed with customary gusto by legendary exploitation movie maestro Roger Corman, adopted from a bold, biting script written by the great, ever-underrated George Armitage (who later wrote and directed the terrific "Miami Blues"), further enhanced by Ron Dexter's garishly excessive, heavy on the bright lurid colors and flashy psychedelic visuals cinematography and a groovy, fuzz-tone and saxophone blastin' lowdown blue-eyed soul rock'n'roll score by Country Joe and the Fish, this breezy, irreverent, playfully mordant black comedy riot satirizes both the establishment and the counterculture alike, biker pictures, brooding Gothic horror films (Edgar Allen Poe appears as a grimly philosophical Greek chorus astride a black chopper with Eleanor as his motorcycle mama!), and apocalyptic sci-fi cinema in general. Robert Corff and Elaine Giftos are quite affable as the increasingly confused leads, while Ben Vereen as an angry black militant, Cindy Williams as a chirpy, pregnant ditz, Talia Shire as a daffy, rock music-loving flower child, Bud Cort as a smarmy longhair, and Armitage as the deranged Billy the Kid contribute deliciously grotesque supporting performances. A wonderfully kooky and cockeyed one-of-a-kind delight.