disgusting, overrated, pointless

Crappy film

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Richard Rush's "Psych-Out" is a true snapshot of a movie. Set in San Francisco at the height of the hippie movement, it contains everything that one could anticipate in a hippie-themed movie. Having been born long after the '60s, I only know about the era from stories told by my elders, but this movie makes the whole Haight-Ashbury scene look like, well, a gas.Susan Strasberg gets top billing, but the most obvious cast member is of course Jack Nicholson*. For much of the preceding few years he'd appeared in some Roger Corman movies, but it's safe to say that this movie set the stage for his appearance in "Easy Rider" the following year. And I would be remiss in not mentioning the music. Strawberry Alarm Clock appears, and their "Incense and Peppermint" gets featured prominently. This flick is one psychedelic experience.Even though the flower power movement only lasted a brief period, it was still an important one. As Hunter S. Thompson noted, "For a brief moment, (the hippies) had control." It was ironic that 1967's Summer of Love gave way to a series of bad things in 1968 (the Vietnam War's escalation, the assassinations of MLK and RFK, the crushing of the student uprising in Paris, the crushing of the protests at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the massacre of protesters in Mexico City right before the Olympics, and then Nixon's election). All that we can do is continue trying to make the ideals of the '60s a reality.The rest of the cast includes Dean Stockwell, Max Julien, future director Henry Jaglom, and "Happy Days" creator Garry Marshall (also director of "Pretty Woman" and "The Princess Diaries").*Robin Williams once said of Jack Nicholson "He's done every drug known to man. He's the only person who could make Keith Richards say 'I gotta go home.'"

I was not sure whether I would like this. I was possibly expecting another 'Zabriskie Point' - loud, long, pretentious - but instead came away pleasantly surprised.It was one of several '60's films to depict ordinary people losing faith with the materialistic world and joining the counter-culture, others include Peter Sellers in 'I Love You Alice B.Toklas', Bob Hope in 'How To Commit Marriage', and a fair portion of 'The President's Analyst' with James Coburn. But those were comedies, whereas 'Psych-Out' is ( depending on your point of view, anyway ) not.The late Susan Strasberg plays 'Jenny Davis', a repressed young deaf woman who runs away from home to join up with her brother Steve ( Bruce Dern ), who lives somewhere in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, calls himself 'The Seeker' and annoys locals by making anti-Vietnam war speeches. Jenny throws in her lot with a struggling rock band, led by the aptly-named 'Stoney' ( Jack Nicholson ). They indoctrinate her into their way of life. "Money?", says Stoney, "You don't need too much of it around here!". Jenny is soon wearing colourful clothes and sharing Stoney's bed. Their relationship is platonic at first, but she eventually gives in.In an amusing scene in a scrapyard, Jenny finds her brother's car, but then she and the others are ambushed by local men, who try to rape her. One of the hippies has taken L.S.D. and seeing the thugs as medieval dragons, beats the life out of them.I do not know how accurate a portrayal of 1968 this was. The only hippies I encountered that year were those student teachers from the local tech who came to school once a month to teach art. My friends and I liked them because they looked nice, were more cheerful than the regular teachers, and if our work was not up to standard, did not yell at us.'Psych-Out''s hippies are altogether in a different league, of course. But I liked the fact that they were not patronised. Indeed the non-hippies are the 'villains'. Drugs are on show, with at least two major characters experiencing bad trips; a man in an art gallery sees his friends as hideous monsters, and almost cuts off one of his hands with a power saw. The other is Jenny, given drugs without her knowledge by Dave ( Dean Stockwell ). Alone in the street at night when the hallucinations start, she sees the whole world erupting into flame.The film is well made, with good performances, particularly by Nicholson. Even here you could tell he was a star waiting to happen. Bruce Dern's 'Steve' is really creepy, his bad home life has driven him to drugs. You expect him to do something insane and sure enough, he does, committing suicide in front of his sister.The main flaw is the climax. Just how did Jenny get into the centre of a busy freeway whilst high on drugs? The film ends so quickly you wonder if the final scene was lost.Music by 'The Seeds' and 'The Strawberry Alarm Clock'. The latter's 'Incense & Peppermints' was re-used in the first 'Austin Powers' movie.An interesting film, overall. Certainly not a commercial for recreational drugs use, the opposite in fact!

I purchased this movie recently as one of those "MIDNITE MOVIES", that MGM has put out as a double feature on DVD. I absolutely love this movie. If you want to know what 1968 looked like, really looked like in the hippie world at that time, this movie is for you!Some people might think it's a bad movie, or corny. Well, it's 1968, when people acted more like philosophers than the arrogant, ignorant "HEY YO" types of today. I would much rather have the former than the latter. In my opinion, 1968 was the Best of times, and the Worst of times. We had Vietnam, the end of the Johnson era, and the beginning of the Nixon-Agnew regime. (and those were the good old days!) There was the young people's movement on College Campuses, War Protestation, Untimely demises of leaders such as Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. What was once a small exclusive lifestyle in San Francisco California blossomed into a lifestyle for this country and the entire world ultimately. It was the movements of the mid-late 1960's that still fuel us today!!!Jack Nicholson classes up any movie, and he does so here! I love Susan Strasberg, and there are many other great young actors. Bruce Dern, Dean Stockwell, Adam Rourke, to name a few. The music is mostly by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, and there is a scene called "The Beads of Innocence" that you shouldn't miss!!! The Colors, the Sounds, the Lights! It's all good!So if you are in a mellow mood to tune in and trip out, then Psych Out is your movie! I give it a full five stars! Loved it!

Psych-Out is as much a skewed look at the world of hippies as much as it is a praise-full one- Clark knew that he couldn't show hippies as they really were, despite that he could get filming rights in Haight-Ashbury and other sections of San Francisco, but hey if you're not going for realism, go for ciche! And what ciche it is: Strausberg is a deaf runaway looking in San Fran for her brother, played by Bruce Dern (a near Jesus look-a-like), named the Seeker, and yet instead falls in with a psychadelic rock group called Mumblin Jim, headed by Stoney, Jack Nicholson in a pre-Easy Rider look. The plot is used as a thread to showcase various cliched scenes; the pad filled with hippie-people, the acid-freak out, the scuffle with the fuzz (one of which a young Garry Marhsall), the scuffle with the regular folk, and the music scenes, one of which is a abhorrition on Hendrix's Purple Haze (it's the opening chords played backwards!). Yet, I can reccomend this movie to nostagia-fanatics, ex-hippie film buffs, and for those who'd like to see Nicholson before he started making money in Hollywood, and this is not saying he's bad in this, he's quite good considering the tripe of a screenplay. Another small plus is Kovacs on photography.And hey, don't forget the Strawberry Alarm Clock and the seeds! B