Have y’all ever felt a deep-seated nostalgia for a time that predated your existence? I was born in the mid ’90s, yet I’ve always been beyond infatuated with late ’60s to early ’90s culture. I grew up in a bit of a bubble so I had just assumed that the long haired heathens on my screen, partying into oblivion, was just a way of life. I thought my life would be filled with metal festivals and parking lot parties. My pals and I have tried emulating the lifestyle lived in Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986) but it just will never be the same. There is something sacred about a certain time and place in history – We just don’t party the way we used to, you know?

Though watching a bunch of headbangers go nuts outside of a Judas Priest concert in 1986 is undoubtedly rad as hell, the events discussed in Sleeze Lake (2020), a documentary all about van culture in the 1970s, manages to be even more carefree and fun to witness. The documentary interviews various folks who just so happened to be degenerate teenagers in 1977. Vanning culture, wherein folks that owned those big, sleazy camper vans all got together to camp (party), peaked with the creation of ‘Sleeze Lake’ – An improvised van ‘resort’ that all the folks attending built together.

All 20,000 folks at that legendary van-in played a part in building the community, which included a bar, disco, casino, an x-rated movie theatre, a pube barber shop (you read that correctly), and my favourite – A maze where it is mandatory to get high prior to entering. There were not only tit contests, but cock contests too. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering what the fuck happened to how we party? I’d already been under the assumption that things are significantly more lame in present-day, however this documentary really hammered down that inclination for me.

Much like the party itself, Sleeze Lake is short but chocked full of entertainment. I really dug the opportunity to take a glimpse into such a close-knit, rad community people my age have no other way of experiencing, really. It embodied the attitude held by several of those Sleeze Lake attendees – “Fuck you, we do what we want!”

Watch Sleeze Lake on-demand via https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/ until June 28th, 2020.

FOR MORE INFO ON CUFF, PLEASE VISIT THEIR WEBSITE: https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/