videorama-759-859391 Yeah, I know- you were expecting Trainspotting. How sorely disappointed you are. I know, it does happen in movie world. With Jackie Brown, you thought it was gonna be another Pulp Fiction. With The Acid House, you get something completely different, which will have you questioning where did the movie go. The movie you could say, is absurdly compelling, in trying to understand where the movie's coming from. Does it have a point? Running short of two hours, we have three stories, them themselves not that interesting or absorbing in that 112 minute grinding stretch. It would be hard for me, in fact, to tell you which one I like the best out of the three. We have a couple of stars from Trainspotting, which I will tell you, the third one I did like the best, but we'll get to that later. First story has an overweight teen who plays soccer. Things really go bad for him. He gets fired for playing shi.house, get kicked out by his parents and dumped by his big breasted girlfriend, oh yes, and he becomes a fly, at the hands of a god, masquerading as a bum, who even spouts "Vengeance Is Mine". On the whole, this is just a weird concept with hardly any potency. Moviong on: Story 2, I guess the real acid house which involves a squabbling young couple. The girlfriend has the hots for the new beef head who's doesn't have many brain cells left. He's just moved into the building and starts taking over the relationship in many ways. This story is comical, but the beefcake is played with a such a engaging performance, so this story doesn't count as a total loss. Now story three, involving our Spud, much more fu.ked up than in Trainspotting, supported by her girlfriend. Look, just watch it if you love Spud, as he is comically captivating. At the end of this movie, you'll be in wonderment, or stupefaction, a film slightly better enjoyed on the second view, but The Acid House sours, no Trainspotting. I found it a disappointing watch, despite it's oddity and originality which I approved of. It's just a really disappointing comedown, with no morals. This and Trainspotting are in totally different worlds, which has me thinking, was the writer on acid.

brianhemstreet I saw this movie at the Film Forum in NYC back in 1998. In my opinion it is one of the funniest movies ever made. In fact the audience was screaming and falling on the floor. The portrayal of God (and I am a Christian) is classic. There was a scene in the movie I will not detail, but you must see the sex scene with the older couple. I will not sugar-coat this--there are some very disturbing situations with drugs. And even though the movie is in English, subtitles were used do to the heavy Scottish accent. This movie is clearly not for everyone, but for its genre--the Trainspotting genre--it is as funny as anything ever made. Also beware of the fairly harsh language. But If you love dark comedies, there is none darker.

Shawn Watson The Acid House was unfairly judged as an inferior Trainspotting imitation upon its release. It's completely inaccurate as director Paul McGuigan was offered the job before that movie was even released and deliberately held-off on watching so as not to be influenced by Danny Boyle's overrated drug-fest. The Acid House is actually a very colorful, sporadically atmospheric, and so totally over-the-top movie experience that it makes Trainspotting look pedestrian.Adapted by Irvine Welsh himself from his own outrageous short story collection the film features three 35-minute stories of depravity, revenge, existentialism, and nihilism. Dark matter indeed, especially for a comedy, but there's literally not one minute without a moment of humor.The first story features Robert Anthony Coyle, more commonly known as Boab, a fat, lazy, unambitious loser still living at home with his parents at the age of 23. In the space of a few hours he loses his place on his football team (the pretentious Granton Star), his friends, his girl, his job, and is kicked out of home. Feeling sorry for himself over a pint of lager in a scummy pub he meets God, who is none-too-pleased with Boab for simply folding with the cards he has been dealt in life instead of playing the game. He punishes Boab by turning him into a fly. Because God is evil.The second story is about the enduring romance of Jonny and Catriona, a spineless door-mat of a man and his utterly disgusting, horrifically common wife. They have a baby, but the odds are very high that it's not even his, and live in a squalid flat in the now-demolished tenement rows of Niddrie in Edinburgh. Life is miserable enough until Larry, a wacky, aggressive, hedonistic playboy moves in upstairs. Within moments he's taken a shine to Catriona and wastes no time taking over Jonny's life, who just lets it happen. Larry is one of the funniest, most realistic, characters I've ever seen in any movie and Gary McCormack plays him to absolute perfection. His impromptu musical number as he sings 'Hot Love' by T-Rex and Marc Bolan is just plain brilliant.The third and final story features Colin 'Coco' Bryce, a Hibs casual who takes an acid tab and has a very, very bad trip, hallucinating his tyrannical father before being actually struck by lightning. When he comes to he is in the body of a newborn child to a middle class couple (played by Martin Clunes and Gemma Redgrave). The baby is in Coco's body, and Coco's gorgeous girlfriend Kirsty is taking full advantage of the situation by recreating him as her perfect man.It's all very funny, highly surreal stuff. And despite the metamorphosis, body-swapping, magic, and a truly repugnant production design I can't help but find it an accurate depiction of Scottish life. Spend five minutes in a deprived area of this country (and believe me there is a lot of deprivation) and you'll encounter half of the cast of this film.One of my favorite movies, and I am virtually word-perfect. There are many other stories in Welsh's collection that can be made into short movies. I wonder if we'll ever get a sequel.

Superunknovvn Wow, those accents. I did catch the occasional f- and c-words but most of the rest was like a foreign language I don't speak. "The Acid House" is a reminder of that short period of time when drunk, violent, sexually perverted and/or drug-addicted Scotsmen were the hippest thing in cinema. "Trainspotting" had established that kind of hipness and "The Acid House" tried to cash in on that success by bringing some lesser short stories by Irvine Welsh to the big screen. Well, "The Acid House" doesn't come close to "Trainspotting". It's silly stupid in its best moments and incredibly annoying in its worst. The stories are neither very original, nor are they very entertaining and the editing already seems hopelessly dated (after all almost ten years have passed since 1998). In the end "The Acid House" serves as little more than a reminder why it sucked growing up in the late 90's with rave music and bad drugs.