I watched this movie on a recommendation of a game I was playing as an example of the setting. I watched it another 3 times because I couldn't figure out why they wanted me to watch it. Frankly, I hated it. However, over the years I've pondered this dark comedy as much as any film I've seen including "A Clockwork Orange", "Brazil" and many other acclaimed dark comedies. I've found myself quoting it and even discussing it with friends. Based on that, I'm going to give it a 7 as I think it is due more credit than I originally gave it and I think it is worth an adventure if you have the time. It speaks a lot about society and there is a lot more to it than face value. I don't love it but I do think it was valuable time spent unlike the 3 episodes of "2 Broke Girls" that I was subjected to.

Liquid Sky is set against the 80's punk scene, with most of the main characters working as avant-garde models. If the movement had been as bizarre as what is depicted in the film, I have no doubt it would still be around today. For a film with such a low-budget, the acting is surprisingly good. Anne Carlisle (who also worked on the script) plays dual roles. She stars as the main character, Margaret, a small town girl who moved to New York City seeking fame and fortune. While Margaret realized her dreams, life as a successful model seems joyless and empty. She has a monologue near the end of the film that is truly heartbreaking. These moments of cinematic magic occur when terrific acting meets terrific writing. Carlisle also plays Jimmy, a gay male model who serves as Margaret's antagonist. Paula Sheppard is perfectly cast as Margaret's girlfriend, a lesbian drug dealer. ...Then the aliens show up. While the special effects are a constant reminder of the film's 500,000 budget, they do possess a certain rough charm. The aliens themselves are never seen, and their spaceship is roughly the size of a dinner plate. Sometimes the film is shot from the alien's point-of-view, a cheap effect achieved by polarizing the film stock. What turns Liquid Sky from a mere curiosity into a cult classic is the deft direction of Vladislav Tsukerman. He creates a rich sense of mood and character through the use of unexpected and original camera angles and framing. With the help of some precise editing, he juggles a myriad of characters and subplots that don't converge until the end of the film. The overall effect is interesting, never disjointed. Admittedly, the downstairs heroin addict is given too much screen time and he has little to do with the overall plot (despite the fact that his drug of choice provides the film with his name.)

Herion influenced.So why did it look like a bad acid trip?Artistic (hah) view of self-obsessed models in NYC during the (very) early 80's. This film is so dated it's almost a crime. Unfortunately only people alive in that era will like it.Pint sized Aliens land on a ledge in Manhattan and give a local model a killing.....no won't say it. However she uses it a lot and doesn't seem to be to upset by it. The male and female leads are the same person. Anna Carlisle doing double duty here. Not hard to tell really. The technical specs are very amateur.Paula Sheppard might be recognized from "Alice Sweet Alice." She almost steals the film with her OTT monologues. The rest of the cast were just there.A 100% Russian production.....in 80's NYC.

The time is the 80's. Everyone is either A. on cocaine, B. a rapist, or C. a model. Those who are class B and C. are also class A. Everyone is dressed like extras from "Flash Gordon" with more fish-net, and all the music comes out of a Casio. Two androgynous bi-sexual models named Adrian and Margaret compete in the New York fashion underground for who is cattiest bitch and the most stylish a$$. Both characters are played surprisingly well by the same actress, to heighten both the androgyny of "the scene" at the time, and the repetition. Margaret is the main character, described by her male incarnation Adrian as "...an uptight WASP c*#t from Connecticut.", bookending the film, but being largely absent from its mushy middle. Amidst the usual backstabbing, s*^t talking, runway stomping, and sexual assaults (virtually the only kind of intercourse the film displays) visitors from beyond the stars have also taken an interest in the sordid little events.These aliens live in a tiny, largely invisible UFO, positioned on top of our heroines apartment where they can observe the events inside through a heavily pixilated color blur that resembles Chris Marker's invented film style "The Zone" from "Sans Soliel" or the heat vision the Rasta-lizard of "Predator" views the world through. This psychedelic point of view is repeated throughout the film, as the aliens are the most constant though silent narrators. Their interest in the Manhattan fashionista junky set comes from the same reason that so many are/were attracted to such places; the sex and the drugs. Human orgasm produces more chemical reactions in the brain than at any other time in life. The brain becomes the body's dealer, and the body explodes, shivers, and shrivels back to down to size, patiently awaiting or screaming for it's next fix. For tiny aliens the only drug in the universe better than our cum-chemical's, are these fluids when they come from the opiate riddled brain of a junky."The ancient Egyptians weren't afraid of euphoria", says a drug addled screen-writer in one of the films many inter-connected sub-plots.Thus aliens begin turning up at the fringes of "punk sub-culture" where the junk-cum getting is good and no one cares if people go missing. "New Wave" models are the next evolutionary step forward (for one they have more money drugs). So the junkies wait around to score, and the aliens wait for the junkies to score with each other. Unfortunately there is no way for the aliens to extract these chemicals without killing those they take from, which to Margaret who is often being raped by whoever is spilling their seed, it's as if God himself has suddenly taken an interest in her life. Not enough of an interest to stop her from being raped, but enough to make the bodies of the bad men (and women) disappear after they have done their business. It doesn't take long before she realizes that sex with her leads to death. "Margaret: I kill with my c^*t.". This new sexual power gives her both confidence (to get revenge on those who abused her), and a renewed sense of alienation (what little sexual release and connection she did have is now impossible)."Campy" is something of an understatement for describing "Liquid Sky", a film drenched head to day-glo toe in nihilist attitude, decadent fashion, disturbing sex, and surreal black humor. But also this campiness and seeming lack of "content" and seriousness make enough room for the moments of sincere cultural insight and emotional pathos to stand out in ways that would seem truly alien in a John Waters or Dusan Makavejev flick (two filmmakers "Liquid Sky" is indebted to).The ending of the film once Adrian and Margaret's feud has come to a literal and figurative "head" (couldn't resist the pun…I'm a bad person) is also surprisingly and even unnecessarily sad and vulnerable than would be required of something this "tasteless". Imagine if at the end of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" Brad and Janet had a serious talk about their changing sexuality, or their stifling childhoods or something. And now imagine that scene being successful.What would it be like to come to New York in the 80's from the suburbs? What would it be like to suddenly be surrounded by a never ending race for sensual pleasure and aesthetic perfection, where the tongues are either in your mouth or barbed, forked, and spitting venom at anything resembling "sentimental", or "soft"? What would it be like to thrive in this environment? Would it feel like being food for alien creatures, or would it feel it like feeding them. In a world built around the sexual image, would sex feel liberating, or just like another way to be used. "Liquid Sky" is an absurd pageant, but one not based completely in irony, it's cynicism is hard one from experience. Margaret's inevitable "falling in love" with the UFO, feels like a tragic romance, not a schlocky b-movie. The movie contains both styles in the end, and finds a parasitic way of letting one feed the other to make both aspects stronger. Who is top and who is bottom in this scenario is up to debate."Liquid Sky" is more of an "attitude" than a film, and I know how cheesy that sounds, but divorced from this attitude the performances fall flat. Devoid of the music the scenes would fall flat. Devoid of the humor the dialog would fall flat, and devoid of the dialog the film would fall flat. If any one part of this film were to be altered the rest would fall into chaos like a game of Jenga.As it is they all balance each other out in "cult classic" bliss, which may indeed be more style than substance. Of course Adriane might say something like "substance is for ugly people who lack style", and who am I to argue.