By the early 2000's, when the dvd revolution was in full swing, Something Weird Video jumped on this bandwagon like everyone else and released double feature after double feature, always loaded with extras. Exploitation films we never heard of were popping up left and right. "Sploitation" genres we never knew existed made their presence known. Something Weird brought them all back, introducing all kinds of unknown, unreleased and forgotten Drive-In trash epics to a new generation. As well as directors that may not have as long lasting of a legacy as a Herschell Gordon Lewis or an Ed Wood. Today. we're going to talk about a film directed by a guy named William Grefe', who directed films like Sting Of Death and Death Curse Of Tartu. In the early 70', This micro-budget Florida filmmaker also made a movie that can really only be described as Christiansploitation. Electric Shades Of Grey was filmed in 1971, yet, never actually released until Something Weird Video picked it up and retitled it. And 30 years later, this film finally found a home. This is The Psychedelic Priest.
What we have here is several things, really. A Christian drama, a drug movie, as well as an Easy Rider type deal for the pothead/hippie crowd of the times. We begin with Father John lecturing a group of stoners outside the school, too high on his horse to notice the drink he was just offered has been spiked with LSD. They seem like an okay bunch, so, lecture over. Father John's gonna take his questionable hair and step over there and go fucking crazy for a while! John has tunnel vision, he stares directly into the sun a bit, and then goes into his church which spooks him right into an entirely new life. We cut to John in his car, some time later. It's not clear if it's now the next day, the next week, or 20 minutes later. But Father John is no longer a Father. He's just john. Some pot smoking hippie on a road trip of self discovery. We get the idea he's not doing so great since his "experience".
John comes across a hitchhiker, a cute hippie chick named Sunny. They hit it off immediately. She's troubled as well, after several bad acid trips and a recent raping. John and Sunny ride around, getting high with people, helping a woman give birth, making friends with a black guy who ends up getting murdered by some racist cops. The usual 70's road trip hi jinx, I guess. It's extremely unclear as to how long they've now known each other, but things get complicated when Sunny develops feelings for John, and is practically told to piss off once her feelings are expressed.After lecturing Sunny about shit that has nothing to do with her, John explains that it's just not a good time for all that, as the acid still has him too confused to go there. Early the next morning, Sunny cuts out while John's still asleep, too heartbroken and embarrassed to face him. When John awakens to realize he's now solo again, his road trip suddenly has a purpose: Find Sunny and tell her he's a fucking idiot! And now would definitely not be the time to descend into drug and alcohol addiction...
For such a bad movie with such one dimensional characters, and such a rushed story, The Psychedelic Priest does offer a surprising amount of depth and heart. However, my only complaint is that it could have used a couple extra scenes showing that time is actually passing. We're sort of left to assume how much time has passed at certain points. Who knows? Maybe it was intentional just to mess with the acid head half of the audience.As for the Christian half, well, I don't see why there should be any complaints, as Religion is never shown in a negative light. It's just the story of a man who may or may not have decided his calling too early in life, who takes a breather from it all after an unfortunate first trip, to figure out what will truly make him happy. He finds love, he witnesses hatred and pain, and ends up experiencing a lot of both, himself. John reaches rock bottom, and only then does he finally grow enough to find himself. This may just be another dumb Exploitation flick. The portrayed impact a single psychedelic experience has on one's life is a good indication of that. As well as what comes off very much as improvised acting by a tiny cast who appeared in nothing else before or since. Yeah. A bad movie, but The Psychedelic Priest just might make you think. 6/10
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