Liquid Sky

Overview: Liquid Sky is another movie that makes a number of cyberpunk lists. Personally, I don’t think so. It has absolutely NO cyber aspects (it does have scifi aspects though). However, it’s so strong on the punk side that from a visual standpoint I suppose a case can be made for inclusion. This is a very low-budget art film that is emphasizes “weird” from the get go. If I were to rename it, I would call this “The movie where the Punks say Fuck!” as they do so every other word. The real effort here is NOT in the acting (most is horrible, but Carlisle is decent), or the story, or the pacing. The goal is to create a weird punk immersion that gives the film an other-worldly quality. This is emphasized by the completely non-sensical alien pie-plate spaceship.

Liquid Sky takes place in modern times (early 1980s) where a very small alien space ship is looking for a heroin fix and settles on top of a punk-apartment building where drug addicts are the order of the moment. The space ship “steals” the emotional state of the heroin addicts to give itself energy. We soon find out that the aliens can also get their fix from people having orgasms. In line with this, the aliens follow around Margaret (played by Liquid Sky writer, Anne Carlisle, who also plays the role of the androgynous Jimmy in the picture above), who is continually getting raped and forced into having sex with people she doesn’t like. She never orgasms, but her partners always do. At first, the aliens appear to steal this energy by impaling the victims with a crystal scepter, but later, the victims just disappear. Anne starts to think her vagina has the power to kill, and either tries to stop having sex with people she likes (which fails) or seeks out those she hates in order to kill them. All the while, a European scientist, who’s big on the narration (this is the only way we learn what’s going on) is tracking down the alien ship and is attempting to warn the punks.

Overview: This movie is a massive cheesefest in every sense of the word. It is quirky enough to be interesting though (hence the 5 stars instead of 4), and is certainly original to the point that I could certainly imagine some enjoying this multiple times. Again, for the moment I’ve decided to include it as a cyberpunk flick, but I’m sorely tempted to move it to the “not cyberpunk” category. Even though the visuals qualify in a strange way, there is no cyberpunk themes to speak of here.