After sparking off the biker cycle of films with The Wild Angels, Roger Corman and AIP kicked off another sub genre of films, albeit a shorter-lived one, with this, which led to a series of LSD films. It’s actually one of Corman’s more personal films, with the character played by Peter Fonda (a TV commercials director who dresses conservatively and decides to take LSA and does it in a very methodical way) seemingly based on Corman.This has about 20 minutes of story – Fonda takes some LSD at a friend’s (Bruce Dern’s) place, hallucinates a bit, goes running through the streets, goes back to the friend’s place and chats with a drug guru (Dennis Hopper – alright!), picks up a girl and has sex with her and wakes up the next day. Most of the film is taken up with Fonda’s hallucinations, and most of them are well done.
AIP inserted a Reefer Madness-like “drugs are bad” opening spiel and took the final frame over Fonda at the end and put a “crack” in it to indicate a smashed mirror – but for all that it is pretty much an ad for LSD: Fonda is freaked out a little but also has lots of cool visions and gets to go to bed with a hot chick. Lots of groovy 60s visuals, like the scene where Fonda and ex-wife Susan Strasberg make love amidst psychedelic lights. (This is perhaps Corman’s sexiest film, with a surprising amount of nudity - bare boobs, Peter Fonda’s arse.) Great music.
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