10 Pretty Poisons

Potions, tonics, elixirs, toxic waste - all the good stuff that did cool things and usually came in an even cooler bottle. They weren't always used for good (actually, looking them over, they all turned bad) but man they made for good Cinema. Salud!

- Paul

Formula 86

The Witches

I don't want any mouse powers, nor do I want to inflict mouse mutations on anyone else. I'm not at all interested in the mouse thing. I've only ever been here for the impossibly small glass bottle - something that cute and ornate can only ever contain something fantastical and dangerous. I want it. 

The Elixir of Life

Death Becomes Her

Here's another race where the small beautiful bottle comes out ahead. Besides, its effects are questionable at best: perky breasts & no wrinkles vs. cracking & peeling & potentially spending eternity as a severed head. 

Gleemonex

Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy

Indicative of the 1990s but also predicting the future: a pill that puts you in your happiest memory (the side effect is that it traps you there, turning you into a drooling zombie). Put this on the market today and the majority of the population would embrace it specifically for the zombification consequences. Predictably my even dumber ass just likes the pretty red pill. 

TGRI Mutagen

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

It had many iterations, backstories, and colors, but here in its own movie its appearance ranges from Creepy Crawlers goop to glow stick fluid, making everything even more aggressively 1991. (Shredder demonstrates that it can be taken orally.)

Magic Flying Dust

Santa Claus: The Movie

It's the secret ingredient that makes the reindeer fly (as well as unsuspecting children and eventually a greedy John Lithgow). It's also flammable/explosive so it's probably a bitch for digestion, but I adore it because in its purest form it's a sparkly gold sand that can only be enhanced by 1980s special effects. 

Torpedo Juice

The Master

The ingredients range from paint thinner to rocket fuel to god knows what else, and there are definitely some allusions to the nature of its taste, but it clearly has a seductive "power" with a promise of changing your mood. Or potentially killing you. 

Vegetable Medley

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Time for my periodic push to make the Vegetable Gremlin a star. The Splice O' Life laboratory is really the key to the whole movie - it's how we got an actual variety of gremlins. While every deformity was the result of exposure to some serum or chemical, I single out the vegetable potion because a.) he's one of my favorite gremlins, and b.) I imagine it tasting like V8 (which isn't actually something I like but it has personality). 

Bio-Restorative Formula

Swamp Thing

Another green glowing goo from the pages of comics meant to turn men into monsters (for better or worse). It's basically baked into Dr. Holland's body, transforming him into Swamp Thing, while Arcane (the villain) just straight up drinks it. Results may vary.

The Lazarus Potion

Casper

Technically fuel for a machine that turns ghosts into living humans - you don't even need the body, it's all inclusive! I honestly find the set design in this movie to be really lame and fake, but this beautiful heavy duty glass bottle with the illuminated Hawaiian Punch is the best effect they offer. 

Adrenochrome

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 

I've no real experience with drugs and this movie (or book) doesn't really sell me on them. However, if the setting's right (kitsch Vegas hotel populated by anti-drug law enforcement) then I suppose I could be tempted by a little glass bottle of anything.