The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to preserve the legacy of genre movies through collection, conservation, and distribution. Located in Austin, Texas and founded it 2009, it benefits from having a number of high-profile advisors from within the industry. With an archive containing over six thousand film prints, there’s certainly no shortage of celluloid to delve into.
Since the end of World War II, the US has had a strange relationship with drugs and the way successive administrations have tried to tackle the issue. This culminated with President Richard Nixon’s ‘War on Drugs’ in the 1970s and crackdowns from the CIA and FBI, which to say the least were often heavy-handed. A part of this strategy included educating Americans through a series of awareness films. The Scare Film Archives Volume 1: Drug Stories! brings them together.
While public service films in the UK tended to resemble something akin to folk horror, The Scare Film Archives Volume 1: Drug Stories! demonstrates the weird and wonderful spectrum of material created in the US. In particular, the response to the issue of young people taking LCD. This archive provides a fascinating snapshot into a society and a period. Some of the material borders on satire at times, but The Scare Film Archives Volume 1: Drug Stories! is never anything less than fascinating.
Special features:
Includes new 2K preservations of these uncut scare film classics:
BEYOND LSD; THE BOTTLE AND THE THROTTLE; CURIOUS ALICE; THE DISTANT DRUMMER; DRUGS, DRINKING, AND DRIVING; LSD: INSIGHT OR INSANITY; LSD 25; NARCOTICS THE DECISION: GOOFBALLS AND TEA; NONE FOR THE ROAD; THE TRIP BACK with Florrie Fisher; USERS ARE LOSERS.
The Scare Film Archives Volume 1: Drug Stories! Is released on Blu-ray by 101 Films on 18 April.
