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Down on Us is a low budget 1984 movie about a US government plot to assassinate 1960s rock stars Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix, using an elite force of killers. It is sometimes known as Beyond the Doors.
| Down on Us | |
|---|---|
 Teaser poster | |
| Directed by | Larry Buchanan |
| Written by | Larry Buchanan |
| Produced by | Murray M. Kaplan Larry Buchanan |
| Starring | Gregory Allen Chatman as Jimi Hendrix Riba Meryl as Janis Joplin Bryan Wolf as Jim Morrison |
| Cinematography | Nicholas Josef von Sternberg |
| Edited by | Larry Randolph |
| Music by | Jeffrey Dann David Shorey |
| Distributed by | Omni Leisure International |
Release date |
|
Running time | 117 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The movie does not use any of the original songs of the artists portrayed due to high royalty fees.[citation needed] Instead, they used songs written to sound like the originals.
Author F. Paul Wilson used a similar premise in his 1987 short story "The Years the Music Died."
Plot
editThe story of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin, and how their message for their generation made them targets of a US government plot.
Reception
editVariety's review was largely critical of the "campy" reproductions of concerts and other events. The review read, in part, "Pic's only revelation is the claim that Morrison faked his own death in order to regain his privacy".[1]
A review in Austin American-Statesman called it, "the Reefer Madness of conspiracy theory movies".[2]
A review in The Daily News read, "...the whole project is so out of it, it seems like the work of a Martian whose understanding of the counterculture comes entirely from reading old issues of Life magazine".
References
edit- ^ "Film: Beyond The Doors." Variety. Vol. 337, Iss. 7, (Nov 22, 1989): 20, 22. Via Proquest.
- ^ Taggart, Patrick (1984-09-07). "Rock movie is conspiracy of bad ideas". Austin American-Statesman. p. 23. Retrieved 2021-02-13.
External links
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