And speaking of Dazed and Confused…
The Stoned Age hit video store shelves in 1994 and got written off almost immediately as a cheap Dazed knockoff – which is a shame, because it’s nowhere near the same ballpark. It might have been too high to explain itself, though.
Sure, the basic setup’s somewhat familiar, you get Long-haired burnouts spending one blurry Saturday night cruising for women, dodging trouble, and trying not to puke before sunrise. But where Dazed is loose and observational, The Stoned Age is a bit more feral. It’s not a mood piece, it’s a teen party movie with a good 8-track stereo. It’s Loud, subversive, and brimming with So-Cal suburban spillover energy. No relatable coming-of-age arcs here either – you just get an earful of leather and denim heavy metal attitude.
It was shot before Dazed ever hit theatres, but it got buried in its backyard – mostly because it didn’t ground itself in the period as much, and it didn’t bother having any sort of budget. It’s unapologetically cheap, and like a later Jay and Silent Bob movie, it fully owns its own idiocy, which is also kind of great.
It’s closer in ambition to Mallrats or maybe Detroit Rock City, but its certainly not Dazed and Confused. And it deserves to be remembered for the beautiful dirtbag poetry it is. -Pop