SideFX
Tags: pornographic, violence, murder

Plot synopsis:
NOTE: Read SideFX as Side Effects, and the moral of this movie will fall
into focus.There's a new drug called AYCE on the University campus in Dallas, and
party animal Matt [Todd Swift] can't wait to slip it into his friends' drinks at his super
Halloween bash next Friday. Tuesday [Amanda Phillips], the girl with whom Matt is staying,
doesn't want the party to be held at her house, so Matt is going to hold it at
a secret location. If you want to go, you'll need to call him the morning of
the party to find out where.Like all good friends looking out for another friend's reputation, Erin [Christie Courville]
and Andy [Ryan Fraley] suggest to Matt that they try some AYCE ahead of time, just in case it
isn't all that great and Matt winds up looking like an idiot. So, that night
they do some, and when Tuesday isn't looking, Matt slips some AYCE into her
milk, too. The AYCE seems to make Erin super horny, so on the way home, she makes
Andy stop the car. While they're kissing, Andy hears a noise outside the car,
gets out to look around, and is attacked. [He is found later, his throat torn
open. Police say that Andy was attacked by dogs. The news media suggest it
might be a blood cult killing.] The AYCE gives Tuesday bad dreams. She awakens during the night,
rushes to the bathroom, throws up what looks like blood, and calls her friend
Shay [Amber Heard] to take her to the emergency room, where she throws up again. The doctor
suspects drugs, maybe ecstasy or acid, and has the vomitus analyzed to see if
it's really blood.The next day, Matt takes a call from Tuesday's friend Monica [Marta McGonagle]. Erin has
been taken to the hospital having some sort of nervous breakdown. Matt,
Tuesday, and Shay pay her a visit, but when Erin sees Tuesday, she begins
screaming until the doctor gives her something to knock her out.
Later that evening, as Tuesday is studying in the library, she notices an
old man watching her. A bit later, she sees him in the street, freaks out, and
starts to run. He follows her, catches up, and grabs her. He promises not to
hurt her if she'll just tell him where the AYCE is. She kicks him strategically
and gets away.The next morning, Tuesday wakes up to a telephone call from the doctor's
office. Her lab tests have come back. It WAS blood that she was throwing up,
only it wasn't her blood. She hears a noise outside the front door and opens it
to find a note taped to the door. It says: "It makes you drink blood. Destroy
it all before it's too late!! Meet me at Sunset Park." Suddenly, the old man is
standing on her front porch. Tuesday slams the door in his face, but now it's
all beginning to make sense. Tuesday wonders whether the blood she threw up
might have been from killing someone and drinking his/her blood and that it's
the AYCE that made her do it. That evening, Tuesday and Shay go to Sunset Park to look for the old man.
Turns out his name is Carson Wilson [Chad Allen Black]. As a chemistry student at Berkeley in the
1960s, he re-invented AYCE...actually, RE-invented because the drug has been around since
the Middle Ages and is the basis for the vampire legends in Romania and
Bulgaria. AYCE is fermented from a rare, fungus-infected yeast and results in
the ultimate high. It affects people in different ways. In some people, it
makes them crave blood. Vlad Tepes was a notorious abuser of AYCE, he says. The church
stamped it out, or so they thought.Suddenly, Tuesday remembers that tonight is Matt's Halloween party where
he intends to get everyone high on AYCE. The party is being held in an
abandoned farmhouse. Tuesday and Shay race over. Tuesday tries to get Matt
and his friends to listen to her, but they don't believe that AYCE is going to
make everyone turn into vampires, until Monica kills Kendall by biting his neck
and drinking his blood. They tie up Monica and intend to keep her that way for
the next 12 hours, until the drug wears off. But the drug is already starting
to affect others. One by one, they all become either vampires or victims. A
virtual bloodbath ensues.Epilogue: Another party, another time. Some guy is spiking drinks with AYCE as
others are discussing how that Tuesday girl hacked everyone up with an ax.
Tuesday, who is now confined to a padded cell, babbles over and over, "It
wasn't me! It was the drug! It wasn't me! It was the drug!!" [Original synopsis
by bj_kuehl]

Review: A good variation on zombie movies..
A good way to describe the plot of Side FX is to say it's a variation of a zombie movie.
A new drug that's supposed to be 10 time better than ecstasy has a little side effect.
It makes the user lose their normal state of mind and crave blood.
By craving blood, I mean bite chunks out of other people's neck, arms, whatever, as a means of getting it, like the zombie films.
The difference is that they can be killed just like you could kill a normal human being, but if you wait long enough the drug wears off.
It's a nice variation on the living dead theme.
This film was very well done for an Independent film company on a low budget.
The special effects were good.
The acting was OK and in the case of the main character "Tuesday" played by Amanda Phillips I thought it was pretty good.
The special effects were effective.
The music was good.
All around I found it a very enjoyable movie.
The second half of the movie definitely has the most action but there's plenty of blood throughout the film to keep the viewer on edge.
It's a real blood bath.
For horror fans, it's worth a viewing..
Not Good.
Somewhere in this junk there is a good concept for a horror movie.
A group of teens take a new drug that gives them an overpowering thirst for blood.
A good script with a decent budget could spin this into something really frightening and effective.Sadly, this is not that film.
Among the myriad of problems encountered are: Terrible acting by most of the cast, including the lead "actress"; poor lighting in many, many scenes that leaves you unable to see what is going on (was this lit by candlelight?); badly mixed sound that renders a lot of the dialogue inaudible and occasionally provides a loud squawk of sound effects that grates on the nerves rather than shocking; and a poorly written script that meanders around, taking a break for a couple scenes of stupid teens doing stupid things and getting attacked by their stupid friends.The final party scene is so badly shot that it is impossible to tell what the hell is transpiring.
I'm guessing that it had to be shot in this slipshod manner because of budget constraints that show that only about eight people are at this "major" rave.
The same nonsense happened in the even worse movie House of the Dead.
Note to editor: no one is being fooled.
It reeks of low budget badness.The director seems competent, adding an occasional touch that works, but it's hard to tell if he really is any good with all the other problems.
Avoid..
A Good Try. Once again at the local Block Buster's previously viewed section.
I saw this film.
It sounded like a clever vampire story so I gave it a shot.
What's there to lose right?
($7.99) thats what.
The movies story was alright.
The actor's and crew really seemed to try on this one.
The movies story wasn't too bad.
I think most of the problem came from the budget.
The effect's weren't very good but again budget!
It looked like everyone's first film and for that I think they did a good job.
It was very far from scary but had some nudity.
The acting was far from great but again I think it was a lot of people's first film.
The only thing that made this movie anything was one actress.
She played the lead.
She made the movie the best it could be.
Her acting was easily the best in the film.
Her level of hottness and acting forced me to give this film a 5.
If you are bored and in the mood for something a little different then check this one out.
All and all I think they did a good job with what they had.
Plus there's a hotty in it..
Bad student flick.
As a film student attempt, it was OK, but as a movie, it sucked big time.
The basic plot is that a drug that can be traced back to medieval times makes some of the people taking it to want to drink blood.
So it's like a vampirism inducing drug without the super powers, teeth and fear of sun and garlic.
Where does that leave you?
To lots of bad actors with blood pills.The lead was OK, the rest were just awful and so was the quality of the film itself, starting from sound, editing, camera movements, etc and ending with the dialogue and basic script.
The major flaw of the movie, though, is that it's not scary.
Some people found it amusing, I guess if one would be watching it together with intoxicated friends one could find it so :).
i laughed all the way through this movie.
to summarize: i've seen better student films.
terrible sound editing & dubbing (can we say 'onboard mic'?).
cheesy editing, dialog, effects.
shallow characters, major plot holes, continuity issues.
bad compression flaws.
was this shot w/ mini-dv?
on the pro - the lead actress is pretty good.
despite the horrendous quality of the movie, her skills come across pretty strongly.
also - the 4 of us that watched it together laughed all the way through it.
so as a comedy, i'd rate it an 11.
and if you're looking for the mandatory gratuitous breasts shots & random lesbian moments (ie female objectification) of your classic senseless horror flick, this is the film for you..
Ecstasy drug, but no ecstasy to be found.
This is an okay movie if you find yourself in awe of the local high school drama productions.
Otherwise this movie is one you probably want to give a pass.
Despite the promise of an ecstasy type drug (Ace), there's very little nudity or sex.
Which is one of the plot holes of the movie: the drug seems to give about 30 seconds of sexual bliss, and then people start drinking other people's blood.
So you have 30 seconds of great sex and then start killing people: who would take this drug?
There's a toss away line about how the drug affects different people differently, but still, it hardly seems worth it.The only decent sex-type scene is with Amanda Phillips solo.
She manages to be more erotic with her clothes on (although how erotic can the drug be if you keep your clothes on after taking it?), then the other actresses who go topless.
However, she doesn't seem to be hopelessly addicted.
Phillips has some talent throughout, doing an amusing Renfield impersonation at some points, and conveying the paranoia of the drug in others.
Hopefully she'll move on to bigger and better things.The other actors are execrable.
Todd Swift is the worst example, coming across as a poor man's Jake Busey.
His character Matt has no redeeming social value whatsoever: moving in with his "friend" Tuesday (how that comes about is never explained), slipping her a drug, leaving her with the tab for delivery pizza, and casually blowing off the deaths of two of his friends.
However, nobody else is any better, Ms. Phillips excepted.
Swift just gets more screen time.Plot holes abound.
Tuesday apparently kills two of her friends, somehow tracking them several miles as they're driving in a car and passing over hundreds of other potential prey.
As noted, the sex drug only seems to cause ecstasy for about 30 seconds.
The zombie- victims go from bouts of insanity to perfect lucidity.
Some of the zombie-vampires wear masks, which prevent them from actually biting people.The movie also provides a near-perfect example of Chekhov's smoking gun maxim: the guys find a functional gun in an abandoned house for no particular reason, and you know they're going to end up using it later.And despite their relatively short run time, the movie is hopelessly padded with scenes of people walking...
and walking...
and walking...
and staring off into the dark trying to see something.
And then more walking.Production values are non-existent, and the flashback historical sequences seem to have been mounted by dropouts from the local SCA group.Really not much to recommend for this one other then Scene 6, but you can watch for the unintentional camp value..
Dracula Film ?.
This film starts off telling the audience about drug percentages in this country and explains about some university people who created a drug that makes people do way out things.
The effects of this drug seem to stimulate the desire for red hot sex which leads to getting thirsty and not for a glass of water, but for something more colorful.
In the first scene of the film you see a guy putting a few drops of liquid into a young blonde's cocktail glass and not too long after she takes off her bra and he and she do their thing together.
Gals and guys get over heated through out the picture and there is a very stupid explanation as to why this is all happening, it is a date rape drunk that makes you want to do many more things than make love.
If this type of film interests you, you had better view a good Christopher Lee film about Vampires, you will enjoy the film and certainly not this ONE !.
Another dog attack..
A drug makes people black out and crave blood.
Matt (Todd Swift) is planing a party where he plans to distribute the drug.The film was low budget so the party was no rave.
The limit budget made the party small with no decent music whereas a larger budget would of had 100 people in costume, Billy Idol or NIN playing and tons of people attacking each other.
Instead it was a whimper.
The background information could have been presented a bit more interesting.This was Amber Heard's first major motion picture for the large screen long before Johnny Depp used her as a punching bag.Guide: F-word, sex, nudity.
Available on a multi-pack if you don't want any extras other than other bad films.