Reefer Madness (1936)
A high-school lecture frames the tale: clean-cut teenagers try marijuana once and spiral straight into hit-and-run, manslaughter, madness and a fall from a window. Made as a church cautionary film, recut by an exploitation distributor, and rediscovered decades later as unintentional comedy.
Scare film to campus midnight movie in one generation. The hysteria is the joke; the film plays it with a completely straight face.
Background
Reefer Madness began life as a film produced with backing connected to religious groups intended to warn parents about the supposed dangers of marijuana, before an exploitation distributor bought the rights, re-edited it, and released it more widely under a sensational new title. The film follows clean-cut teenagers who, after trying marijuana once, spiral rapidly into reckless driving, violence, and madness, presented with complete dramatic seriousness.
What to watch for
Because its copyright lapsed, the film circulated freely for decades and was rediscovered in the 1970s by audiences who found its wildly exaggerated warnings unintentionally funny, turning it into a staple of college campus screenings and midnight movie showings. Watch it for that gap between its original earnest intent and how it plays today: the film never winks at the audience, which is exactly what makes its over-the-top claims about the drug so entertaining to modern viewers.
