Under the influence of LSD (illustrated by the filmmakers using various psychedelic effects), the hippies engage in nude dancing and uninhibited sex, and one girl experiences a bad trip.

"[12] Following the premiere, Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Emerson Batdorff wrote that Sign of Aquarius was better than two previous films made in Cleveland, Uptight (1968) and Double-Stop (1968), but was still "amateur in the extreme," with "five or six separate plot lines put together with bubble gum," one of which "resolves itself into a killing which is summarily reversed so everyone can dance in some street garbage for a finale.

"[13] Gene Siskel later wrote that the original version of the film, which according to him was called The Aquarians, "did no business," leading to "a title change and hot, but misleading, advertising.

"[8] The film was retitled Ghetto Freaks, and a drugged orgy scene where Sonny seduces Donna was modified by adding approximately two minutes of footage showing "the black leader of a kinky love cult"[5] and his female followers performing a blood ritual with a knife.

[5] Jet and Ebony magazines denounced Ghetto Freaks as being a hastily-made attempt to capitalize on the popularity of "black films" such as Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Shaft (1971).

Siskel, reviewing the Ghetto Freaks version, called the production "technically inept" and "shot on a frayed shoestring", and observed that despite "being billed as a black film ... the title characters are almost without exception middle-class white kids who have left home and let their hair and paranoia grow."

[2] In his Psychotronic Video Guide, Michael Weldon later described the film (under the title Love Commune) as an "embarrassing, plotless hippie/drug movie with imitation Hair songs".

A Turner Classic Movies review summarized it as "an impressive compendium of hippie clichés and kitsch that are belabored into a fine pulp of unfocused tedium.

[24] The original movie soundtrack album was released in 1970 under the title Sign of Aquarius on the Adell label (ASLP 216) and contains thirteen songs, including "I'm Gonna Dodge the Draft.