When I see or hear people talking about the worst movies ever made, I am surprised that I so often hear about Ed Wood but not this wretched little exploitation film. While it IS famous for being bad, I wasn't prepared for just how awful the movie was! The acting is among the worst I've seen, the dialog is pure crap and the film appears to have directed by a gibbon.

The film begins with a boring narrator talking to his audience about the evils of marijuana. Then, he tells a "TRUE" story about some kids who dabbled in pot--only to have their lives ruined! He explains that pot is WORSE than heroin or cocaine and it leads to insanity or death!! The narrator disappears and we see some people who look way too old to be students and the actual story begins. You can tell these MUST be kids, though, despite their apparent ages because they say "golly" and "swell" in almost every sentence! Plus, considering how badly they read their lines, they CAN'T be adults! The movie concerns young wholesome American Billy and shows his rapid slide from all-around swell guy to a man accused of murder! In addition to poor Billy, you are treated to a man who goes insane due to repeated marijuana use as well as a lady leaping through a window to her death. Golly that's bad! Gee it's a hoot seeing the crazy pot user when his girlfriend is maniacally playing the piano.

The film is unintentionally hilarious and VERY exploitative (showing a lot of skin and "racy" scenes for 1936). It's a shame, though, as some who laugh at this film for its way over-statement of the effects of pot may think that drugs are okay--or even fun. In fact, I would think drug abusers would LOVE this film because it might make them laugh at the idea that drugs can kill--after all, they might reason that if the movie is mostly a big lie about pot, maybe other drugs aren't so bad as well. So, very possibly this little film warning about the evils of drugs actually encouraged drug use!

First let me say that we've come a long way in our thinking on marijuana. Now many advocate its use for medicinal purposes to alleviate pain. It will probably be legalized within the next 20 years in all states.

I grew up in the Sixties when the effects of marijuana were being questioned and the view that Reefer Madness espouses was being ridiculed. From my own observation those who used it in the Sixties certainly had a different experience than what you see here. Those that I saw use it became laid back and mellow. What they lost with too much use was a drive to get up and accomplish something. Reverend Jim Ignatowski on Taxi was a perfect example of that. I also remember a public service commercial from the Seventies and Eighties showing these two thirty somethings puffing on the weed and yelling down to one of the smoker's mother that he'll do it tomorrow. That's far more the effect of overindulging in the devil's weed as Reefer Madness shows. Then overindulging in any pleasure is never good.

Joseph Forte small town high school principal after a brief prologue tells the tale of a pair of high school kids, Dorothy Short and Kenneth Craig who fall into the evil clutches of dope peddlers Carleton Young and Thelma White. It results in death for one and near death for the other. There's also a friend of Young and White played by Dave O'Brien who had a substantial career in B westerns playing second string leads and sidekicks. He's presented as the model for the crazed dope fiend and he also has an unpleasant fate. O'Brien's performance also presents an exact opposite picture of the marijuana users I knew back in the day.

Carleton Young had a most substantial career becoming a member of the John Ford stock company and he got into some classic films for Ford and others. Everyone else in this cast toiled in obscurity.

What can you say about a film that is so horribly wrong and dated, with performances and a story that are laughable and looks like it was shot with an old Bell&Howell camera? Give it the bad rating it so richly deserves.

REEFER MADNESS is one of the infamous exploitation movies of the 1930s, an anti-marijuana "message" movie that also qualifies as a quasi-documentary movie as well as a sensation film. The complex structure sees a couple of straight-laced teenagers taking marijuana for the first time and becoming involved in a hedonistic world, while others succumb to the evils of the 'demon weed'. It's a low budget production for sure, one whose effect is to provoke outright laughter in viewers. Certainly the overacting and overdirection of the key sequences in the film can't be taken seriously by any right-minded viewer, thus awarding this film a 'cult' status.