As I understand it, the original Reefer Madness (1936) started life as a church-group-funded PSA morality tale entitled Tell Your Children which ran out money. The property was then bought up by Dwain Esper who supplemented the footage and retitled the project. It’s fucking awful. The whole thing is a jingoistic reactionary caricature inspired by the anti-marijuana agenda of the 1930s, spearheaded by newspaper magnate and bastard-about-town William Randolph Hearst.
The 2005 musical film borrows from the fundamental plot points of the original (which appears as a special feature on the DVD) but it otherwise bears no resemblance. The ensemble cast includes Kristen Bell, Christian Campbell, Alan Cumming, Ana Gasteyer and Steven Weber and it features hilarious and brilliant performances by heaps of supporting actors including John Kassir, an accomplished voice actor popularly known as the voice of the Cryptkeeper.
Financed and released by Showtime, the scale and complexity of the movie is genuinely impressive. If hilarious irreverence with a sizable dollop of social commentary is your thing then please don’t let this gem pass you by.
Oh, and it features Kristen Bell’s seriously sweet ass in an all-too-brief S&M fantasy sequence that will give you and the Mister or Missus something to dine out on in bed for days.