If you look in different places you will find the title in two different formats. the DVD cover and the trailer list it as Gas-s-s-s, while the title card on the film says Gas! or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It (clearly an homage to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). Whichever way you choose to take the title, it is an odd one to be sure. As for the movie itself? I feel pretty confident in saying I have not seen a movie quite this trippy in a long time, and I have seen some movies that were rather out there. It is the sort of movie you are either going to get behind and enjoy the heck out of it, or you going to turn it off in a matter of minutes, never to look at it again. To take that a step further, if you watch it while enhanced in some manner, it could very well become your new favorite movie of all time. (the author and this site in no way, shape, or form advocate becoming enhanced while watching movies.)
Released in 1971, Gas-s-s-s is one of the last films that Roger Corman ever directed. He had a couple of films released the same year, followed by a couple unofficially directed films in the next decade. The only other film he has directed since is 1990s Frankenstein Unbound with Raul Julia. Corman is a legend in the business, but sometimes you have to wonder just what in the world he was thinking. This movie is seriously out there, has only a gossamer thread of a plot to follow, and there is virtually no flow from one sequence to the next. It is more like a loosely connected sketch show that relies on music to carry you from one place to the next.
This movie brings together all sorts of ideas into one big melting pot where the ingredients don't really want to place nice. It is the kind of film that probably graced many drive in and grindhouse screens. Think about the union of the hippie road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller, science fiction, comedy, and drama. Mind blowing, ain't it?
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