Movie review – “Psych Out” (1968) ***

Enjoyable piece of hippy-sploitation from AIP clearly designed to give the audience all the hippie clichés in one bright package: long hair, flowers, love-ins, hash cafes, Haight-Ashbury District, groovy clothes and music, drug freak outs. It also has a fun cast: Susan Strasberg is a deaf girl looking for her brother – she is helped by Jack Nicholson (in a pony tail as the womanising member of a band) and Dean Stockwell, and the brother is Bruce Dern. All it really lacks is Peter Fonda and/or Dennis Hopper. Nicholson is a confident, relaxed leading man, a very believable scallywag; Dern is enjoyably crazy; Stockwell all hippy integrity. The ending is a bit of a downer but I guess that's what happens when you take drugs.