By Matt Harries
It is 1943. Dr Albert Hoffman of Sundoz Labs, Switzerland, sets off on one of the more notable bicycle rides in history. Through accidental absorption of the drug he synthesised in 1938, Hoffman became aware of the remarkable properties of LSD-25. He ingested a deliberate, and much larger dose, some days later – the first deliberate acid trip. Little could he have realised how his actions on that day would echo down the years. Indeed he remarked himself, upon his 100th birthday in 2006:
“In human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD. It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be.”
There is no doubt that LSD is a powerful substance. In attempting to recreate its visionary, hallucinatory glories, what better medium could there be than cinema? For cinema allows representation of the visual aspect of ‘tripping’ in a way that is surely unparalleled in other artistic media. Not only can the vivid, mirage-like nature of hallucinogenic activity be represented, so too can the dizziness and disorientation, the heart-poundingly revelatory. The reality-disturbing. The downright twisted.
For one of cinema’s finest examples of this parlous state of being, witness Terry Gilliam’s 1998 classic Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Our intrepid hero, the erstwhile Doctor of Journalism H.S Thompson (played by Johnny Depp), and his attorney Dr.Gonzo (a demonic Benicio del Toro), descend upon the lobby of a hotel in the hallucinatory neon jungle of 70s Vegas. Their task: to check into said hotel. Thompson, his system under the influence of a literal trunk-full of the kind of chemical arsenal that would be enough to raze a boutique music festival, is beset by visions that would threaten the sanity of most people. A flood of thick blood, a woman’s head erupting into a giant Moray eel, as well as more ‘recognisable’ visuals such as those induced by those typically mind-warping ’70s hotel carpets all combine with the frankly lunatic assembly of ‘punters’ in the bar, to make the apparently simple task of checking in and grabbing a drink into some kind of psychedelic voyage in and of itself.
Fear and Loathing…an apt description perhaps of cinema’s own portrayal of this potential harbinger of mankind’s evolution. Certainly for every moment of blissed out psychedelia, there are others which tell a different story. For every hippy tale of fractals and universal harmony there is a counter-tale, what Hunter Thompson described as “meathook realities”. Even in its most riotous and celebratory expressions, such as Fear & Loathing itself, there is a flipside of equally mind-shattering proportions. Even the noble dreams of Dr Hoffman himself form the basis for one of the most terrifying cinematic journeys through the doors of perception. Here, in the name of scientific research, Brutal As Hell takes a look at some of cinema’s notable examples of the ‘LSD film’ – not just the psychedelic flick, but the ones in which LSD itself played a major role.
LSD, far from the modern perception of it being a ‘hippy’ or rave culture drug, has always been inextricably linked with the scientific community. From Hoffman’s initial synthesis, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert’s clinical study, through to John C. Lily’s ‘psychonautic’ research, LSD has always been subjected to rigorous analysis. So it was that against a laboratory backdrop came perhaps the first explicit mention of acid in cinema, with Vincent Price vehicle The Tingler (1959). This camp classic centres on the studies of Price, who discovers the presence of a centipede-like parasite – which he dubs the Tingler – that affixes itself to a person’s spine. Nourished by the fear of its host, if left to grow unchecked it has the capacity to kill by crushing the spine. Luckily, Price discovers that in order to weaken the creature and prevent death, the host must emit a scream. This leads to much silliness as the rather lumpen puppet Tingler escapes into a cinema, of all places. We hear Price exhorting the audience to “scream, scream for your lives!” as the screen darkens to mirror the lights going out in the film. Presumably the idea was to whip the real life cinema goer into a frenzy of terrified shrieking. The audience participation element was enhanced by the use, in some larger stateside theatres (and indeed at the Abertoir Horror Festival in Wales some years back) of the “Percepto!” gimmick; this was a buzzer attached to some seats designed to simulate the tingling sensation that Price discovers is caused by the titular parasite. All this silliness pales in comparison with my personal highlight of the film; Vincent Price tripping. This unlikely act, shot in plain old black and white and without any of the visual effects that become so prevalent in future hallucinogenic film scenes, sees Price overcome with pure fear. The very reason he takes the drug was because, as his partner David (Darryl Hickman) says “it gives you nightmares” – and what better way to study the fear hungry Tingler, right? Not long after injecting himself with twice the normal dosage (steady, Vince!), we see him in the full throes of a psychedelic breakdown, as he lurches from side to side, dramatically attempting to stop the walls from closing in, all the while affecting his unique take on a man racked by vivid hallucinatory torment.
Focusing the acid experience through the filter of Vincent Price’s camp monologues is, as you might imagine, bloody funny and in keeping with the film’s general air of enjoyable nonsense. What is interesting about this cinematic debut of LSD is the connection not with life-affirming hallucinatory revelation, but with fear. Price takes the drug to induce pure terror, and boy does he experience it! It’s a fitting demonstration of the relatively conservative, psychedelically inexperienced society of 1959, prior to hippie culture and all its now familiar tropes.
Fast forward to 1967 and western society had undergone an incredible change. Flower-Power. The Swinging Sixties. Hippy culture. Revolution and revelation. Consciousness-expansion. The slow grind toward a society built upon ideas of equality and freedom. LSD is indelibly linked with this heady, epochal era. Now, for the psychedelically savvy cinema goer, acid has become a more familiar facet of modern life, a counter-cultural symbol of inner discovery and outer awareness. Rather than inducing pure fear, acid is now an intriguing possibility for the curious and adventurous.
Enter Roger Corman’s The Trip, in which we are literally taken on a voyage of discovery as Peter Fonda’s film director decides to take acid in the wake of his divorce from his adulterous wife. Fonda’s character Paul chooses a straight ‘guide’ John (Bruce Dern) to help him on his way, dropping the stuff in the coast-side split-level psychedelic wonderland apartment that John owns. You have to question the wisdom of the whole affair, as the bearded Dern exudes an innate natural menace and the place itself is already about as close to an acid trip as home decoration could ever come. Also, what sort of LSD ‘guru’ lets someone on acid go swimming?! Perhaps unsurprisingly ‘freaked out’, Paul escapes and heads off into the night, leaving John to try and track him down.
We follow Paul on his blundering, paranoid journey throughout the evening, during which he wanders haphazardly from location to location while heavily under the influence of LSD. What stands out most about our viewing of Paul’s experience is that we ‘see’ the very same visions he does. Rather than only watching someone acting ‘high’, we are assaulted by a cornucopia of abstract patterns of fantastical colour and intensity, created through the use of strobe lights and liquid projectors the likes of which were used at rock concerts at the time. As well as these classically psychedelic visuals we also witness a recurring scene of Paul being pursued by figures on black horses, one of several scenes which are symbolic of his paranoid subconscious. So we have multiple viewpoints; Paul’s own eye view of the swirling, spinning visuals; scenes from within his psyche reflective of his own inner turmoil (most of which involves his wife); and finally we, the viewers, see Paul himself as if we were bystanders.
The three way depiction of the Trip makes it a more complete encapsulation of the acid experience than had been witnessed in cinema until that point. However, overlords American Pictures International (for whom Corman had produced a whole host of horror-themed pictures in previous years) were wary of the film being seen as a positive LSD story. At the end Paul stands looking out at the ocean, stretching langourously after a night which ended with him bedding the lovely Glenn (Salli Sachse). Despite him appearing to be a little spaced out, he seems relaxed. At the last though, the camera jumps in close on Paul’s face. An optically inserted effect makes the screen appear to shatter. The suggestion is clear – Paul is still in complete turmoil. He has not resolved the complex issues that plagued his journey of the previous night – he is still psychologically broken. By all accounts, Corman was most displeased with this summation. After all, the character of Paul was in part based on Corman himself, the director having recently enjoyed a positive experience of LSD. So it was that another perspective is added to the narrative. The conservative powers-that-be, represented by the studio itself, reflecting a very different agenda to the director, and far less eager to present LSD experience in a favourable light.
Generally, portrayals of LSD continued to focus more on the negative, the bad trip providing an apparently richer set of possibilities in cinematic terms. Peter Fonda, alongside fellow The Trip star Dennis Hopper, would return as an acid-head in the classic search-for-freedom picture Easy Rider (1970). The two of them hit the road and embark on a journey of discovery fuelled by grass, gas, cocaine and – in one memorable scene – LSD. After wandering their boozy way through New Orleans, the duo, along with a couple of prostitutes (played by Karen Black and Toni Basil) wind up in a cemetery. Not the first choice of most would-be trippers, and so it would prove that the importance of ‘set and setting’, long espoused by Timothy Leary, would again become clear.
We don’t see any of the kaleidoscopic imagery of Peter Fonda’s last big screen trip. Instead, the bleached bone white of the cemetery forms the backdrop to action intertwined with Catholic prayer and heavily spliced footage of the foursome, acting out a collective bad trip in between and on top of the tombs. Fonda spends much of his time with his face pressed up against a statue of a woman, sobbing to his recently deceased mother. Karen Black’s character at times resembles someone plucked from a madhouse, crouching and cackling and crying. Her female companion wastes no time in getting naked, and Dennis Hopper…well he pretty much continues in the same vein as he does the rest of the film. Certainly, unlike other iconic moments during the film, there are no attempts to beautify the experience here.
Grindhouse ‘classic’ I Drink Your Blood (1970) presented the audience with the triple threat of hippies, acid and Satanism. Bad enough you would think, for a remote and isolated populace, without the possibility of rabies infecting the whole bunch of them and turning them into blood-crazed hydrophobic maniacs. Films of this ilk are hardly hotbeds for socio-political commentary – and this one is no different. Again though, cinema can be reflective of cultural norms, and once again LSD, ostensibly the drug of the ‘peace and love’ generation, is linked with people whose lives are in fact some kind of grotesquely debauched moral vacuum. After all, as gang leader Horace Bones (Bhaskar Roy Chowdury) announces at the film’s beginning – “Let it be known, Brothers and Sisters, that Satan was an acid head.” What would Dr Hoffman have said upon hearing his discovery linked not just with the hippy menace, but with the Prince of Lies himself?
Part 2 of Matt’s feature coming soon…