Customer Reviews

The Acid House

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"the acid house", reunites 3 different stories written by irvine welsh...(writter of "trainspotting" , and co-writter of "dockers")...about misfortune,football,drugs,god,neighbors and of course,coco!

these hilarious shorts are really bizzare!...the title says it all! it's very "acid".

the first segment of the film is called "the granton star cause"...in this introduction, boab (stephen Mccole) an apparently mediocre football player is being rejected from his team, his fiance,his parents and to top it all,beaten by a bunch of cops and punished by GOD!(maurice roeves)...after a long arguement with boab.,god finaly decides to transform him into an insect.(what happens next is just too long to explain)

the second part of the film is entitled " a soft touch",it's the most depressive and detestable moment of "the acid house"..johnny,(kevin mckidd) is married to catriona (michelle gomez),a self-destructive,dumb wife who sleeps with her neighbor,prostitutes herself and eventualy gets pregnant..the neighbor,larry(gary mccormack) uses johnny's electricity,he comes and goes in johnny's flat,sleeps with his wife..etc..the ending of this short film is very annoying!...but the acting in this segment is simply magnificent, and frightfully realistic!
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the final, and 3rd part of the acid house...called "the acid house", and is without a doubt the best short of this trilogy. it's about coco (ewen bremner),who is struck by lightning and suddenly swaps his mind (or soul) into a newborn baby...the reslut is simply hysterical!...

the direction: the acid house was paul mcguigan's first film . after that,followed the exellent "gangster number one" and recently, "morality play"...his style is very recognizable!,and works even better in "gangster number one",(it's a more mature work IMHO)...the same goes for andrew hulmer (his editor),who also worked on G.number1 and Morality play. his style goes pretty wild on the final segment of the film!

the acting and cast:
the best thing about the "acid house" is it's cast of incredible actors...from michelle gomez (who also played in michel blanc's "the escort" starring daniel auteuil & who also was in the "stage version" of trainspotting), to kevin mckidd (also known for his part in trainspotting as "tommy", topsy-turvy, small faces) , there's also maurice roeves (beautiful creatures , last of the mohicans) , stephen mccole (orphans , band of brothers , my name is joe), garry sweeney (small faces) , gary mccormack (gangster n.1 , gangs of new york) and ewen bremner or "spud" (trainspotting , naked , julien the donkey boy , snatch , black hawk down, morality play )

the music...if you dont own it already, make sure to buy the soundtrack of this film ,it features great groups such as "primal scream" , "oasis" , "chemical brothers" , "texas" , "the pastels", "beth orton" , "arab strap"..etc......etc..

the acid house is not as good as "trainspotting" but it's worth checking!. (try fo find the dvd version of the film if possible, it contains interesting stuff such as irvine wlesh's commentary and interview,theatrical trailer,and of course a glossary (you'll need it!,some words have different and several meanings..)

if you love irvine welsh, this is a MUST!! trainspotting left a <few> details out to be desired, but the acid house follows every element of the short stories. the scottish accent gets a bit thick at times, but you get use to it eventually. definately a great experience for those of us who love to get lost in irvine's realistically twisted worlds.

This movie is excellent. I suggest you read the book before you see the movie though, otherwise you'll really not know what the hell is going on because its very difficult to understand what thoes goddamn people are trying to say even though it has subtitles. This movie take three main stories from the book and recreates them into live action, following strictly to the written material. It was cool to see the movie after reading the book because it gave me a new view on how to picture everything in my mind, from the way the cities looked, the way that the characters looked and so on. This movie was dead on. Everything that I imagined while reading the book is what I saw on the screen when i saw the movie. Irvine Welsh has done it again. He is a literary god!

The Acid House is an exciting trilogy of stories that involve God, a possessed baby, and some disturbing sexual material. The movie is a trip into the exotic and unexplainable. Irvine Welsh wrote the screenplay, that he adapted from his book, and he did an excellent job. Most people know him as the writer of Trainspotting. If you like Trainspotting, then The Acid House should be right up your alley. With twisted humor, intriguing characters, and twisted plot lines, The Acid House delivers a good time for the whole dysfunctional family.

I hadn't read the Irvine Welsh book from which this movie is based. A friend of mine though said that he thought 'The Granton Star Cause' was one of the best short stories he ever read and of the 3 stories within this film it certainly works the best. I first saw the film in North America and if you happen to be from the Celtic side of the pond the use of English subtitles for English dialogue can be quite disjointing and takes away from the enjoyment of the film. Nevertheless the 'Granton Star Cause' creates a big impact in the guise of a modern fable. Add to that the satirical nature of the policemen's investment, God's theological justifications and Nick Cave's brooding, melancholic soundtrack and you wonder why more filmmakers (indeed writers for that matter) don't incorporate more traditional story-telling elements in their work.

'A Soft Touch' proves to be morbidly depressing, while 'The Acid House' story itself just works as an extended pop video. All in all it doesn't work as a full feature, the remaining 2 stories develop as a huge anti-climax to the magnificent and insightful narrative of the first. Watch just for 'The Granton Star Cause'.

The film expressed this atrocious resonance through-out the film. From the first story through the thrid one. It certainly showed lunacy with acid trips and switching of bodies and mind. Some satiric behaviors were inflicted upon two characters. One had a really awful day then meets a man that changed his life entirely. Then another, that was just fed up with his life and significant other's actions. I've yet to read the book but I think it's still too early to judge which is better. I'm guessing the book.

I VERY MUCH enjoyed this, yes, was blown away by the orginality and vision of the filmmakers. You do not need to read the book before seeing this movie (I have never read the book). If you like psychedelic exploration, originality, twists and turns, well executed weirdness, and an existential viewing experience, watch this movie!

I would like to quote reviewer pappymccree, who accurately defined "Acid House" as "an underrated work of madness"!!

By the way, this is an excellent movie to watch while "altered"... But, just as that state is not for everyone, this movie is not for everybody. It's a classic example of "love it or hate it". To each his own!

A collection of three films strung together with wildly different results.

The first film (The Granton Star Cause 8/10) is a pleasant surprise and high comedy. It is a take on Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis mixed with God, elderly S and M, and a football team. Outrageous and funny it is great black comedy involving a bloke named Boab who is having a very bad day indeed. And as God lovingly points out it is his own lazy incompetence that is basically responsible for his troubles.

The second film (The Soft Touch 10/10) is a top-notch drama that, for me at least, hit close to home. Kevin McKidd portrays a get along cuckolded husband with perfection while Gary McCormick, as Larry is stunning as the upstairs neighbor. American audiences are not used to seeing their protagonists pushed this far without pushing back but to this ear it rang realistic and very sadly true. The third film

(The Acid House 2/10) is a very overlong train wreck that may have worked on paper but fails miserably in film. It includes such Trainspotting regulars as that horrible mechanical baby (Like a demented Chucky) and brainless Coco who amuses for about five minutes before becoming tiresome. Add horrendous dialog, endless poop jokes and an acid trip left over from a Peter Fonda film and you have one great mess. As a five-minute bit it could have worked but time seems to stand still while it drags its bloated carcass on the screen.

God (who appears in all 3 segments wonderfully played by Maurice Roeves) may seem vengeful in the first film and carelessly sadistic in the second, but this viewer was praying to him during the third segment to make the pain go away.

This film was a very bizarre characterization of the Irvine Welsh collection of stories of the same name. While Trainspotting was a spot-on adaptation of a similar kind of book (random stories and characters) and excellent on-screen, The Acid House is better left for the printed page, although the unusual Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting's unforgettable "Spud") is a stand-out here.

I heard about this movie a few years ago from a friend. What mainly interested me was that it was based on a novel by Irvine Welsh who also wrote Trainspotting. I loved the movie Trainspotting and so i decided to watch this, hoping it would be similar. It's really not. The film has its moments, but the camera work and the editing make parts of it very choppy. The story is not one story, but three and there is only a loose connection between them. It doesn't have near the drug content (or the drug related humor) that Trainspotting did. If you're a fan of Welsh's books then this may be worth watching, but if you're looking for another humorous take on drug addiction in Scotland, this is not Trainspotting 2.