10 Essential Trash Films You Need To Watch

Unshakable in its belief that a single puff of the devil’s weed will send any Shakespeare-loving student down the path of murder, attempted rape and frenzied piano solos, Reefer Madness was funded by individuals determined to save America’s youth from the soul-destroying effects of Marijuana.

Unfortunately, they had no idea what actually took place behind the doors of pot parties and were reacting to a scare campaign fuelled by William Randolph Hearst, who as the owner of vast acreages of timberlands was desperate to stop hemp from becoming America’s paper source.

You sense an ulterior motive at work from the opening text crawl, which informs us that Marijuana is a “violent narcotic” whose use leads to “incurable insanity” and “acts of shocking violence”, such as killing your entire family with an axe. No joke – that’s exactly what a character says at one point.

Unsuccessful on its initial release, Reefer was resurrected as a midnight movie when a public domain print was discovered in the Library of Congress in the early 70s, becoming a hit with potheads and attracting a lawsuit from distributor Dwain Esper, who wanted his cut from a movie he claimed to have created for the good of his country. The case was thrown out of court.