Product Details

• Actors: Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Sheppard, Susan Doukas, Otto von Wernherr, Bob Brady
• Directors: Slava Tsukerman
• Writers: Anne Carlisle, Slava Tsukerman, Nina V. Kerova
• Producers: Slava Tsukerman, Nina V. Kerova, Robert Field
• Format: Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Mti Home Video
• VHS Release Date: November 16, 1999
• Run Time: 112 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00002EPG7
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,297 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

This 1983 science fiction oddity, set in the subterranean world of heroin addicts, performance artists, and androgynous models in New York's East Village, became a staple of the midnight movie circuit and college campus film societies. A tiny UFO lands on the roof of a grungy penthouse apartment inhabited by androgynous model Anne Carlisle and her drug-dealing lover Paula E. Sheppard (the former child star of Alice, Sweet Alice). As explained with deadpan gravity by hilariously naive alien hunter Otto Von Wernherr, the UFOs congregate in areas of intense heroin concentration and feed off the highs of addicts. This alien has found a better high: orgasms. Russian émigré Slava Tsukerman's punk sci-fi feature takes the alien in alienation seriously, charting the mental disintegration of Carlisle as every sexual partner dies in climax and she turns herself into a heroine-chic angel of death. Easily the strangest to come out of the New York indie explosion of the early '80s, this low budget classic is talky and overlong at almost two hours, but remains an imaginative use of bargain-basement effects (heat aura photography, stop motion animation) for a tale of a most unusual alien encounter. Tsukerman co-composed the minimalist electronic score (in the Laurie Anderson vein). Carlisle, who cowrote the film, also appears as a surly gay male model. --Sean Axmaker

Product Description

Item Name: Liquid Sky; Studio: Telavista

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 80's fashion, music and fantasy flick: bizarre characters!, March 5, 2004

By 

"hedwigschmidt" (SEATTLE, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Liquid Sky [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have loved this movie since 1984. It's a cult classic that rivals films like THE WALL, REPO MAN & THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. And it's better than any of the above, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION. I never known a film-maker with such a bizarre, fantastic imagination, a native sense of pure shock-factor and just plain fun!!! The dark atmosphere/mood is unparalleled.

Basically, LIQUID SKY is the irresistible story of a gorgeous, androgonous, female fashion model who is addicted to heroin (or something equally bad news), and who gets her drugs from her female lover Adrian. She dresses as both a man and a woman--the height of 80's beauty and mystery. The actress, Anne Carlisle, who plays the protagonist could not have been better cast. In fact, I think she helped write the screenplay and the novel on whivh the film is based. She's pure genuis and pure sexuality.

There are elements of sexual & chemical adiction, male-hatred by lesbians and lots of voyuerism.

Thhis movie is so far out, nothing has even come close to its allure since 1983, when it was first released on VHS.

YOU MUST SEE THIS FILM!!!!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Love it or you'll Hate it, but you'll always remember it..., June 27, 2006

By 

Russell J. Grasso (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Liquid Sky [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have a special attachment to this movie in that a) I met Ms. Carlisle personally at a family function and discussed the film; b) In the neighborhood which the movie takes place, I saw one of the first screenings; and c) I own and listen to the vinyl LP to this day.

I remember Ms. Carlisle relating to me in 1985 in her own words: "those involved with the movie did not expect it to do as well as it did." This is a testament to the quality of the film artistry (costumes, acting, cinematography, scene interleaving, etc..) albeit in the obvious face of low budget constraints. I think of the film as having the "best artistic bang for the least production buck".

The viewing value is not in its plot, moral commentary, projection of role models or "feel good" character, but rather in its brilliant snapshot, in grand vivid fashion, of that unique New York subculture which occurred in a specific place and at a specific time. It was a stroke of genius to stop and make this snapshot when it was and where it was or else it's neo-pristine form could have been lost forever. Without it, we would have at best some gothic shopping mall pop culture remnants. The reviewer from March 2002 below is right on target when he says "...the film gets interesting is in its look at the early 1980s New Wave subculture before it got watered down through commercialism and got swallowed up into pop culture". We are speaking of that area between Greenwich Village and the, often-photographed in the film, Empire State building; we are speaking of that period between disco and the compact disc.

One of the vehicles used to portray the subculture realistically, to the film's merit, is the depiction of the subculture envelope boundaries with the main stream. This is done by several "main stream" character developments: the level-headed logical German scientist who flew in from Berlin with a bad haircut; Jimmy's beautiful, affection-starved, Jewish middle-aged TV producer mother; and Owen, the silver-haired middle-aged college professor. The interaction of the main stream with the subculture is a key component to the film's (arguable) success.

Although the soundtrack, using an 8-bit synthesizer exclusively in minimalist style, can be rough on the ears in many places, it is one of the main components for the scene setting and decidedly one of the artistic forms the film uses in expository fashion. Simultaneously there is a set of more pleasant musical numbers which are actually electronic revisions of classical music, specifically a) Marais' hypnotic, but yet Baroque "Bells of St. Genevieve of the Mountain.."; Carl Orff's "Trionfo di Afrodite"; and Anthony P. Heinrich's "Laurel Waltz".

Why should you view such an off-normal film? After all, the main characters are unreliable drug addicts, the rape scenes are numerous, the colors are unrealistically vivid, the make-up is heavy, the neon is overplayed, the sex is deadly, the aliens are indomitable, and "good" coexists (but does not prevail over) "evil".

The answer is: like all the various substances consumed by the characters of Liquid Sky, it should be best appreciated for its "effect" rather than for its "taste".

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not too serious, but definitely fun, November 6, 2005

By 

Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Wow, the reviews here are pretty high strung, like they're expecting this to be some kind of serious avant garde film, critiquing the early 80s, the art/fashion scene rebellion against the dullness of suburbia, sexuality, etc. I suppose you could try to load all of that into this, but I saw it as a parody that pokes fun at these types of pretention more than anything else. You get some of the atmosphere from that time, the characters and acting are pretty good, and it hangs together as scifi. There are some fun mind games in it as well, which are surprising to some viewers, but I do not want to reveal the hilarious plot twists. That is about it, no big deal, nothing all that deep. If you look at it as, well, entertainment, you can allow yourself to enjoy it for the fairly simple thing that it is.

Recommended. Warmly.