The Acid King

The Acid King gets its name from Kasso’s nickname on the streets as an LSD dealer. The filmmakers interview people who grew up with him in North Port, Long Island, as well as folks directly tied to the media representation of the murder at the time. There is a band named Acid King that has some songs inspired by Kasso. Jones and Pollack interview band leader Lori S. and use some of their music for the soundtrack. During the Cinema of Transgression movement, there was an attempt to make a feature-length film based on Kasso called Where Evil Dwells. Unfortunately, most of it was lost to time as a fire consumed the prints. However, the directors include Tommy Turner and some footage that survived.

I read David Breskin’s Rolling Stone column on Kasso, “Kids in the Dark,” back in 1984. It was the only piece that presented first-hand testimonies from his peers and dispelled the notion that any Satanic cults were involved. This movie has the audio recordings Breskin used, and you get to hear them, which is really amazing. Then Breskin himself shows up and explains how his article was later plagiarized for the 1989 true crime book Say You Love Satan, which played up the sacrifice lies.

“…the ultimate Kasso documentary.”

There was also a short movie from the 90s based on Kasso called My Sweet Satan, which was distributed on VHS by a little periodical called Film Threat. The Acid King interviews that film’s director Jim Van Bebber, who has a lot of insights into the Mafia-style motivations of drug retaliation of the murder as opposed to the cult hogwash. I told you this truly is the ultimate Kasso documentary.

The generational self-reflexivity shown in The Acid King makes it Generation X’s version of The Big Chill. To quote the punk band X, we get to See How We Are. To see teenagers labeled dirtbags by the world now regular middle-aged citizens is a revelation that we weren’t bad after all. We were just labeled that way by those stinking Boomers. Also, there was more focus on the abuse Kasso suffered from his family, who made him move out when he was only 13. Most of the participants seem to feel that suburbia was to blame, and instead of facing that, suburbia blamed the devil. This is required viewing of the highest priority for everybody. Right now.