Liquid Sky (1982)

This unusual science fiction cult-classic comedy from Russian emigre film director Slava Tsukerman became a popular midnight movie that ran for four years at New York's Waverly Theatre. The very successful independent film has often been called an updating of Andy Warhol's Trash (1970). Coincidentally, the film was released the same year as Spielberg's friendly alien film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

It emphasized the pronounced and ugly connection between sex and death, in its story about a tiny space alien creature in a UFO or flying saucer (the alien was visually represented as a tiny, disembodied optical nerve or a bloodshot eye) that landed on the top of a NYC apartment building, where a number of drug-addicted individuals lived. The goal of the non-physical, shapeless alien creature was to search for heroin while hiding in a ceramic mask hanging on a penthouse's apartment wall, where it was able to observe the actions of the apartment's addicted residents.

• in the film's opening, two models were introduced in a New Wave fashion show in a Manhattan dance nightclub - the models were one performer (the film's main star, gender-fluid Anne Carlisle) who was playing two roles of different genders:
  • Margaret (Anne Carlisle), a bisexual (lesbian) yet non-orgasmic, androgynous, bohemian, face-painted coke-addict and aspiring 80s New Wave punk fashion model; the nymphomaniacal Margaret lived with her lesbian lover-girlfriend in a downtown penthouse apartment - a heroin-dealing, performance-artist roommate named Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard)
    [Note: Originally, Margaret was a young Connecticut-bred WASP before she became a fashionable New York model.]
  • Jimmy (also Anne Carlisle), Margaret's nemesis - an androgynous, arrogant, vampish, David Bowie-like, drug-addicted gay male model, who was indebted to his expensive heroin habit, and continually begged drug-dealing Adrian to supply him with drugs

		Picture of Margaret (Anne Carlisle) as a 16 Year-Old WASP Before She Moved to NYC
Margaret (Anne Carlisle) - A Bisexual, Lesbian Coke-Addict and Punk Fashion Model in NYC
Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard) - Margaret's Lesbian Lover-Roommate	Jimmy (also Anne Carlisle)	Note: The film's gender-fluid star Anne Carlisle in a posed model photo

• a married couple was also introduced, who lived in the same downtown penthouse building where Margaret and Adrian lived:
  • Paul (Stanley Knapp), a failed heroin-addicted artist-writer who was preparing a spoonful of heroin to inject to stimulate and inspire him ("Everybody wants euphoria...I use it to open my blocked creativity")
  • Katherine (Elaine C. Grove), his short-haired wife
• Paul spoke to Katherine about heroin, using its original slang term: "Liquid sky, the key to heaven, the milk of paradise"; Katherine called heroin "dangerous," and strenuously objected to his drug usage that was causing him to be a failed individual: ("I do not want heroin in my house")
• after punk fashion bisexual model Margaret returned to her apartment with young soap opera actor Vincent (Jack Adalist) to do drugs, he abusively slapped her around and forced her to take quaaludes (instead of promised cocaine); when she realized his motives: ("You just wanna get laid. You'll say anything to get laid. Just like everyone else in California. What, do you have a cock for a brain, baby?"), he viciously attacked her and raped her from behind in the stairwell
• meanwhile, the strange alien occurrences in Margaret's and Adrian's building were being witnessed (via telescope) by the film's narrator, who observed an alien craft that had landed on the roof of the apartment building where Margaret, Adrian, Paul, and Katherine lived
  • Johann Hoffman (Otto von Wernherr), a West German UFO astrophysicist-scientist who at first was observing the alien presence from atop the Empire State Building

Saucer-Shaped Alien Spacecraft Over NYC

The Alien Creature (Represented as Disembodied and Shapeless)

UFO Scientist Johann Hoffman (Otto von Wernherr) Spying on Apartment Building

• Margaret expressed her belief to both Adrian and Paul that sexual identities were not static but fluid: "I'm always curious about people who have to make those kind of sexual definitions...Homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual. Whether or not I like someone doesn't depend on what kind of genitals they have, as long as I find them attractive, don't you think?"
• the tiny, shapeless alien (a color-shifting creature) was feeding off the pleasurable endorphins or pheromones that were produced by the rampant heroin drug use within the apartment building; however, as explained by scientist Johann, the alien seemed to be discovering another food source that was more preferable to heroin -- the endorphin-pheromone chemicals created in the human brain during sexual orgasm
• on her rooftop, Margaret conversed with her older lover and former college acting teacher Owen (Bob Brady) (aka "Professor"), who cautioned her about looking like a hooker and becoming self-destructive; after being criticized for her lifestyle and fashion choices, Margaret stated how she didn't want to behave or look like a slavish "sweet housewife" - and preferred the independence of a hooker appearance and lifestyle: "I'm nobody's victim. It's only fair that I warn them this pussy has teeth"; Owen believed that Adrian's influence had turned Margaret into "a real mean bitch," and that she was living in a "freak show"
• Owen expressed his interest in making love to the non-orgasmic Margaret, and began to seduce her; as he laid on top of her for intercourse, the alien observed that Margaret's male sex partner was providing a sexually-climactic substance, represented by 'animated' chemicals exploding in his brain during orgasmic stimulation; the alien realized that the sex pheromone was more powerful and available to more fully satiate its heroin-like addiction; Owen became Margaret's first sex victim; it was the start of an epidemic of unexplained "strange deaths" in the NYC punk rock community that occurred during sexual intercourse orgasms

The Film's Representation of Pheromones Chemically Exploding in Owen's Brain When Produced During a Sexual Orgasm with Margaret

• after Owen expired following orgasm, a sharp, translucent glass crystal spike bloodlessly protruded from his skull or head; it evaporated or disappeared (or spontaneously combusted) when Margaret completely removed it; Adrian was disturbed by the unexpected presence of Owen's naked corpse in their apartment: ("What the f--k is going on in here?"); she threatened to have sex with the corpse (she sat on Owen's head and orgasmed), but then got into an argument and brief switchblade fight with Margaret, before the two decided to hide Owen's body in a cardboard box that they moved to the rooftop
• meanwhile, Johann decided to move closer to the building where the alien craft had landed: ("The alien craft is about the size of a dinner plate"), to conduct more telescope surveillance; he was surveilling from a building across from Margaret's apartment, in the apartment of a horny, lonely Jewish female named Sylvia (Susan Doukas), Jimmy's youthful mother, who worked as a TV producer; she constantly made sexual advances toward Johann as he tried to conduct further research and spy on Margaret's apartment and the rooftop
• during the remainder of the film, Margaret's casual sex partners suspiciously died after intercourse or disappeared by vaporization (or spontaneous combustion); Margaret's next victim was her neighbor - heroin-addicted and unmotivated Paul, who had just had a domestic quarrel with his wife Katherine in the midst of a party with her clients; she had demanded that if he had no self-respect for her as his wife, that he should leave; she claimed he was personally humiliating her and ruining her career, as he had ruined his own life: "You want to just prove to everybody that you're a failure, that you take dope, you take drugs, and you never made any money from any of your films or books or anything that you've ever done. But mainly, you want to humiliate me, that's your point. Then I'm such a fool to put up with you"
• Paul arrived in Margaret's nearby apartment to forcibly seduce or rape her (he called her a "dyke") and to teach her about sex: ("I'm gonna make you cum"), but she rejected him: "You make me sick, you wimpy junkie...You sick pig, I don't need your cock for anything" - although she deliberately and vengefully let him have sex with her - and he ended up suffering the same fate as Owen; confused, she yelled from the window to the unseen alien entity about how it was killing people: "Hey you! What's with these glass arrows, Indian?...I can't have all these bodies....You did it for me, Chief? Why, who are you?"
• in the film's most outrageous scene during an evening's drug-fueled get-together in Margaret's penthouse that also included a promised roof-top photo-shoot, Margaret and Jimmy - dubbed as "two Miss Americas" in a photographic essay, were challenged to have sexual intercourse together - and the chanting from the onlookers began: ("We want to see you f--k her. F--k her, f--k her. Get him Margaret, you whore. Do it, do it...!"); as expected, when Jimmy stood up and received oral sex from Margaret, he orgasmed and died, and his body disintegrated and disappeared; Margaret was apologetic: "You made me do it. Oh s--t. This pussy has teeth, no one should f--k me ever...I killed him"
• Margaret repeatedly warned Adrian who antagonistically demanded sex: "Adrian, you should leave me alone. You should leave me alone...I killed him...I kill all the people that f--k me. That's it, if you f--k me, you'll die....I'm serious...Adrian, you should stay away from me, I'm a killer....I don't want you...Because I'm killing all the people that I f--k"
• as a dare, a domineering Adrian, who was skeptical that sex was dangerous, kept offering to make love to the submissive Margaret: "How many people want me to see, uh, see me f--k Margaret and not die?...I'll bet you $300 I can f--k Margaret and not die"; resistant and pleading for her to stop, Margaret had to be held down during intercourse (with Adrian taunting: "Kill me, baby"), and after orgasming, Adrian also disintegrated; Margaret (a black widow of sorts) admitted and warned, in one of the film's most memorable lines, as her face floated in the dark, illuminated by a fluorescently-painted mask that her vagina was a deadly killer: "It's easy to explain. You wanted to know who and what I am? I'm a killer. I kill with my c--t"
• and then in a memorable and devastating monologue (as she painted her masked face with bright and glowing fluorescent colors), Margaret then chastized everyone in the audience for her upbringing, and for promoting society's false goals and hypocrisy:
  
  "You can write about it in Midnight Magazine. Or National Enquirer. It's gonna be the new sensation. You wanted to know where I'm from? I'm from Connecticut, Mayflower stock. I was taught that my Prince would come. And he would be a lawyer. And I would have his children. And on the weekends, we would barbecue. And all the other Princes and their princesses would come, and they would say, 'Delicious, delicious.' Oh, how boring. So I was taught that I should come to New York, become an independent woman. And my Prince would come and he would be an agent. And he would get me a role. And I would make my living waiting on tables. And I would wait till 30, till 40, till 50. And I was taught that to be an actress, one should be fashionable. And to be fashionable is to be androgynous. And I am androgynous not less than David Bowie himself. And they call me beautiful. And I kill with my c--t. Isn't it fashionable? Come on, who's next? I'll take lessons, how to get into show business. Be nice to your Professor. Be nice to your agent. Be nice to your audience, be nice. How to be a woman? Want them when I want you. Or how to be free and equal? F--k women instead of men, and you'll discover a whole kingdom of freedom. Men won't step on you anymore, women will. So come on, who's next? Who wants to teach me? Come on, teach me. Are you afraid? You're right, because they're all dead. All my teachers"
• after the partiers left and disbanded to the nightclub, Margaret met up with Vincent, her previous rapist, who vengefully became her 4th victim-lover (after Paul, Jimmy, and Adrian); through his telescope in Sylvia's apartment, Johann viewed Margaret zapping Vincent after intercourse, while he was also being propositioned by Sylvia; fearing that Margaret was in "great danger," Johann went over to her apartment to warn her about how the alien creature was seeking the sex hormone 'opiate' and extracting the endorphins produced in the brains of her sexual partners and causing their deaths; the non-orgasmic Margaret had survived all of her sexual encounters
• meanwhile, Margaret spoke to the invisible alien: ("We killed them all, there's no one left. We can be together now"); when Johann arrived, Margaret ignored his entreaties to escape from the deadly alien creature on her roof: ("It is killing to get this substance") and lethally stabbed him in the back (Sylvia witnessed the murder through the telescope); then, Margaret begged the alien: "Come out, you can feed on me if you want to. It's okay, I don't mind. I know you care for me. We can be happy. I wanna make love with you"
• she didn't want to be left behind when she saw that the alien craft was departing, and screamed out: "Don't leave without me!"; she deliberately injected an over-dose of heroin into her arm to induce a wild, arm-flailing, autoerotic orgasm or convulsion; like her other sex victims after orgasm, she was vaporized in a beam of light and taken aboard by the alien spacecraft as it hovered over the penthouse rooftop and then flew off; her departure was witnessed by Katherine and Sylvia