brianhemstreet I saw this movie at the Film Forum in NYC back in 1998. In my opinion it is one of the funniest movies ever made. In fact the audience was screaming and falling on the floor. The portrayal of God (and I am a Christian) is classic. There was a scene in the movie I will not detail, but you must see the sex scene with the older couple. I will not sugar-coat this--there are some very disturbing situations with drugs. And even though the movie is in English, subtitles were used do to the heavy Scottish accent. This movie is clearly not for everyone, but for its genre--the Trainspotting genre--it is as funny as anything ever made. Also beware of the fairly harsh language. But If you love dark comedies, there is none darker.

Shawn Watson The Acid House was unfairly judged as an inferior Trainspotting imitation upon its release. It's completely inaccurate as director Paul McGuigan was offered the job before that movie was even released and deliberately held-off on watching so as not to be influenced by Danny Boyle's overrated drug-fest. The Acid House is actually a very colorful, sporadically atmospheric, and so totally over-the-top movie experience that it makes Trainspotting look pedestrian.Adapted by Irvine Welsh himself from his own outrageous short story collection the film features three 35-minute stories of depravity, revenge, existentialism, and nihilism. Dark matter indeed, especially for a comedy, but there's literally not one minute without a moment of humor.The first story features Robert Anthony Coyle, more commonly known as Boab, a fat, lazy, unambitious loser still living at home with his parents at the age of 23. In the space of a few hours he loses his place on his football team (the pretentious Granton Star), his friends, his girl, his job, and is kicked out of home. Feeling sorry for himself over a pint of lager in a scummy pub he meets God, who is none-too-pleased with Boab for simply folding with the cards he has been dealt in life instead of playing the game. He punishes Boab by turning him into a fly. Because God is evil.The second story is about the enduring romance of Jonny and Catriona, a spineless door-mat of a man and his utterly disgusting, horrifically common wife. They have a baby, but the odds are very high that it's not even his, and live in a squalid flat in the now-demolished tenement rows of Niddrie in Edinburgh. Life is miserable enough until Larry, a wacky, aggressive, hedonistic playboy moves in upstairs. Within moments he's taken a shine to Catriona and wastes no time taking over Jonny's life, who just lets it happen. Larry is one of the funniest, most realistic, characters I've ever seen in any movie and Gary McCormack plays him to absolute perfection. His impromptu musical number as he sings 'Hot Love' by T-Rex and Marc Bolan is just plain brilliant.The third and final story features Colin 'Coco' Bryce, a Hibs casual who takes an acid tab and has a very, very bad trip, hallucinating his tyrannical father before being actually struck by lightning. When he comes to he is in the body of a newborn child to a middle class couple (played by Martin Clunes and Gemma Redgrave). The baby is in Coco's body, and Coco's gorgeous girlfriend Kirsty is taking full advantage of the situation by recreating him as her perfect man.It's all very funny, highly surreal stuff. And despite the metamorphosis, body-swapping, magic, and a truly repugnant production design I can't help but find it an accurate depiction of Scottish life. Spend five minutes in a deprived area of this country (and believe me there is a lot of deprivation) and you'll encounter half of the cast of this film.One of my favorite movies, and I am virtually word-perfect. There are many other stories in Welsh's collection that can be made into short movies. I wonder if we'll ever get a sequel.

Superunknovvn Wow, those accents. I did catch the occasional f- and c-words but most of the rest was like a foreign language I don't speak. "The Acid House" is a reminder of that short period of time when drunk, violent, sexually perverted and/or drug-addicted Scotsmen were the hippest thing in cinema. "Trainspotting" had established that kind of hipness and "The Acid House" tried to cash in on that success by bringing some lesser short stories by Irvine Welsh to the big screen. Well, "The Acid House" doesn't come close to "Trainspotting". It's silly stupid in its best moments and incredibly annoying in its worst. The stories are neither very original, nor are they very entertaining and the editing already seems hopelessly dated (after all almost ten years have passed since 1998). In the end "The Acid House" serves as little more than a reminder why it sucked growing up in the late 90's with rave music and bad drugs.

Andy (film-critic) As I review more and more films they are slowly becoming more and more difficult to review. Why? There are just some films out there that are this solid mix of great and average that it is difficult to give a definitive answer. Did I like it or didn't I? The lines are getting more and more fuzzy as the films continue to pour on. The only ones that I do not have trouble with are the uncreative lacklusters that Hollywood is notorious for releasing. Thankfully, that is not the case with The Acid House. Considered by some to be Trainspotting 2, I think that in actuality it is below Trainspotting. While Trainspotting had a definite plot and characters, this one is simply random stories that have come together in the end. There is no doubt in my mind that Irvine Welch's stories are superb. The styles in which these are portrayed and carried out are very imaginative and realistic (in a surreal sort of way) which really kept my attention. What they do lack is structure. That is why I have added this collection of stories to my list of books that I would like to own, but not the film. I cannot read the other stories that Irvine Welch has imagined for his home country, sadly, I am not interested in seeing anymore short stories theatrically released. Don't get me wrong. This was my type of film. It was graphic, yet poignant, subtle yet powerful, and very brilliantly written with some interesting messages about life, it was just that I think it was too much for the director to handle. This was director Paul McGuigan's first film, and you could tell that he was just a little rough around the edges. He has transformed into a brilliant director since this film, but it just seems like this first film was pushed and again, rough around the edges. For example, the child in the final story eerily resembled Chucky from the Child's Play films. This cheap way of creating this character thoroughly distracted me from the story, but McGuigan was able to redeem himself with the final scene of this film when CoCo comes back to his body. This was the type of 'give and take' that you had to accept with this film. While there were some horrible scenes, there were equally amazing scenes. I almost felt that I was watching a rough-cut of a Guy Ritchie film. There were just scenes that stood out that seemed like they were his classic moments.I enjoyed the way these stories all came together. I loved the second story the most because it was so brilliantly depressing that you just couldn't help but find a piece of you somewhere in there. The first story was decent, but a bit too grotesque for my liking, while the third was surreally comical. I loved the subtitles (that were random throughout my version of the film) that allowed me to fully understand what these characters were saying. It was a good film. Not quite the potential that Trainspotting had, but still a decent film. I cannot wait to read the book and see what I missed from watching this first.Overall, fun to watch the first time, but a continuous viewing will not be necessary.Grade: *** out of *****