Blue Sunshine (1978, Jeff Lieberman)

I was ambivalent about Zalman King in Sleeping Beauty, but his particular intensity was perfect for this one – he’s sort of a late Jean-Pierre Leaud mixed with early Sean Penn. Zalman’s at a swinging party with some friends, when Dr. Richard Crystal has his wig torn off and sorely overreacts, beating up the party girls and burning them in the fireplace. Zalman follows and fights his buddy, throws him in front of a truck, and ends up being blamed for all the deaths so he spends the rest of the movie in hiding. Zal’s girlfriend Alicia (Deborah Winters of some forgotten 60’s and 70’s movies) helps him investigate, finding other balding psychotics who participated in a psychedelic experiment in college, including babysitter Ann Cooper (of the similarly titled Blue Thunder and The Sunshine Boys) who chases a child with a knife, and the bodyguard Wayne (Ray Young, best known for playing Bigfoot on TV) of politician Mark Goddard (TV’s Lost In Space and The Detectives).

The parrot survives the massacre:

Zalman and Deborah:

Politician Ed’s slogan: