Top Ten Movies To Watch On LSD

Posted on Mar 9, 2010

The Mondo Film & Video Guide Presents – Top Ten Movies To Watch While On L.S.D.

A Comprehensive Collection of Memory Time Tripping Inside A VCR……

Written By: Mondo Justin
Mondo Film & Video Guide Co-Founder

Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan leaves you with not a heck of a whole lot to do.  There where the obvious places to frequent, the coffee shops, the records stores, the book stores, and the best damn hot dog  joint in the entire universe, Yesterdog.  While these things where great, I think my amigo’s and I all needed something more.  This is probably why my best and closest friends from adolesence have long  since disappeared into the United States void. This I can understand, but at the same time, don’t really appreciate.

Usually our weekends where spent together, at one or the others house coveting our interests in a deep darkened basement.  I think we enjoyed each other so much because of our extreme dis-interest in high school life, and our extreme interests in things outside the normal high school exsistence. Some of us enjoyed writing short stories and poetry, others liked playing music, while others just enjoyed listening and talking about it.  As cliche as it is, there where even a few of us, that enjoyed the casual dungeons and dragons experience.   Myself, since the age of three , had a stern obsession with the movies.   And as all of us progressed, we started to see just how movies stop being a form of entertainment, and can become art.

We weren’t typical outsiders, we where (and still are) like most outsiders, and outcasts, extremely smart and outgoing, but just not adjusted and agreeing within the system. In fact, I think none of us really liked the system.  To look at us now, you’d glimpse, a high school teacher, a magazine writer, a motorcycle builder, a army transportation specialist, a music DJ,  and a vice president of a multi million dollar company who is also a amateur film reviewer with an extreme dis-taste for the Leonard Maltins of the world.

Looking at film as art, is clearly all a “state of mind.”  However, for us, we loved doing this by simply partaking in weekly journeys into our VCR’s with nice keen doses of LSD.   There’s that mythos about kids that taken or have tried LSD or acid (pending your slang usage).  People worry they’re gonna jump off a building, thinking they can fly, or get behind the wheel or a car, and hurt someone.  We never did any of this, and I am not condoning the use either.  I am simply saying we did alot of it, and we hurt no-one nor did anything TOO stupid, and it was A LOT OF FUCKIN FUN…….

I saw Jesus on a telephone pole, and my best friend turned into a skeleton on me once or twice.  I saw the band “Nirvana” on LSD and I even went to a strip club once.. PS…don’t ever do that. Trust me.   We climbed radio towers, and sand dunes, and even got stopped by the police while walking down the street. I rode in the back of a police car once, and they didn’t even know I was tripping!  Of all the “trips” we took, which was a fair share, we always made it to a point to stop, and spend alot of time, as friends, watching movies.  Timothy Leary famously said, “Tune In, Turn On, and Drop Out,” Well, we turned on, inserted a VHS tape, and sat on the couch!”   So avoid any and all mirrors, find a seat, sit back, see the tracers, taste the colors, here are my Top Ten films to watch while under the influence of LSD….OR….A Comprehensive Guide Of Memory Time  Tripping Inside a VCR…

#10 – Wild At Heart (1990)
Written & Directed By: David Lynch

1990′s Wild At Heart is directed by artistic guy next door, David Lynch.  And there is NO ONE better at being  the artistic guy next door than Lynch.  His  art includes a “Do It Yourself Chicken Kit” which was a cut up chicken glued down to a canvas, and featured instructions on “How To Assemble”.. Wild At Heart stars Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as too star crossed lovers on a  escapism roadtrip fighting to overcome unstoppable obstacles from tearing them apart. ” This is a snakeskin jacket!  It’s a symbol of my individuality, and my belief, in personal freedom.” They encounter an all star cast of weirdos and creeps, and Laura Derns mother is actually played by her real life mother “Diane Ladd.”  See Nicolas Cage sing like Elvis, and dance and shake in a snake skin jacket to a death metal band, and See Diane Ladd deliver the “you wanna fuck Lulu’s mama” line, in a mens bathroom!  See a weird film with this strangely weird subplot and Wizard Of Oz overtone.  It’s David Lynch… And that’s Swahili for, “I gotta scratch my head, cause I don’t know what the fuck is going on here!”  While boasting no pseudo-psychedelic imagery, it does have a very strange and uncomfortable story line, that begs you to ask your self over and over and over, while heavily dosed, How the hell did I get here…and what the fuck did I just take?

#09 – Casablanca (1942)

Directed By: Michael Curtiz

Some will say that this is the strangest pick on my list. Well, screw you!   This is a great film. It’s timeless, and classic, how could Leonard Maltin be wrong!   I’ve chosen this film, because, once, during a heavy psychedelic session on a saturday afternoon, my VCR had died.  And we caught a showing of Casablanca on TNT I think. Not sure. Anyhow, hitting your acid peak comes when you’re not paying attention usually, and mine came while we where stuck in Casablanca with Boogie and Bergman  I’ve had the experience of watching a ton of B&W while tripping in the past, and nothing  has had an effect on me as much as this movie.  I won’t cover the story here, you know it and if you don’t YOU ARE A RETARD!  Move to Planet Earth!   Anyhow, the film has a rich deep texture in it’s cinematography, and I found that I was engrossed in that aspect during my journey. I felt like I could, taste and touch the characters, and smell the smoke and corruption in the air through my television. You can’t get into a character deeper while dosed than those of 1942′s Casablanca. Trust me , you WON’T be sorry.   It’s purely a “psychedelic romance”  here.  A kiss is just a kiss, a SIGH is but a SIGH….

#8 – Multiple Maniacs (1970)

Written & Directed By: John Waters

I don’t know where to start here.  I’ve only watched this John Waters orgasm once while tripbathing. I was early into a trip years back with some friends, and I had NO IDEA what to expect.  Being a great admirer or Waters, especially, Pink Flamingos, (which I base my life philosphies on!)  I hadn’t actually seen MM, for some reason. This was before DVD, and early Waters VHS tapes where not that easy to come by in my home town.  But we found it, and got it rollin’.  Multiple Maniacs is the story of a sleazy freakshow owner (played by Divine)  who takes his/her Cavalcade of Prevision around to the small suburban towns of the East Coast, and offends everyone.  The early Waters cast is all here.  It’s kinda of tame, (once you’d seen Flamingos) everything is.. However, this one is especially tame, with the exception of the “Stations Of The Cross” sequence, which while tripping my face off, was forces to quietly and under my breath, repeat several “Hail Marys” over and over, as this psychedelic blasphemy kept my eye lids open wider than Malcolm McDowell in “A Clockwork Orange.” What the fuck was this,  and none of us could figure it out.! It’s like starring at a car wreck on the highway!  Then….wait for it…Divine is attacked in a house by a Giant 8 Foot Lobster, which RAPES him!   Didn’t see this one coming, even under the influence of a heavy psychedelic.  We all sat there mouths open wider than a hookers legs’ on a saturday night!   After it was done, we sat there silently, scratching our pimpled faces, over and over in silence, until someone said ” Rewind that!”

#07 – The Doom Generation (1995)

Written & Directed By: Gregg Araki

Ok, Nutlickers, I hope alot of you out there, have taken the time to see Gregg Araki’s 1995 cult acid cum industrial generation X killing spree, road trip movie!  The same night I saw Multiple Maniacs for the first time, I had the honor to see this as well while the acid was peaking.  Holy shit, this movie changed my life in so many ways.  In case you haven’t seen it, It’s the story of two Gen-Xer’s who through dis-enchantment with popular culture, consumerism, sexuality, and gender stero-types, accidentally get caught up in a killing spree across the southwest when they pick up a third sexual protagonist on the side of the road, who loves killing as much as he loves fucking .  The movie is heavily satirizing everything in culture and is extremely visually psychedelic.  For 1995,  it features a pretty heavy all star cast, of then up and comers, like James Duval, Rose McGowen, Parker Posey, and several others that are now partial Hollywood elite.

The Doom Generation strikes a chord in my psyche everytime I see it, and for the first 20 times, I was on acid!   It’s so brilliant and strange, as a consumer and viewer, you totally get what Araki is trying to say here, but you can’t explain it to someone who hasn’t seen it. See a beheading, See a cum shot on a dudes hand, See a guy with a missing arm, with a handicapped helmet on, stalk Rose McGowen with a shotgun, screaming “Bitch!”  See a ton of sex.   See the strangest ending in movie history, that’s guaranteed to give those with epilepsy a major fuckin re-lapse.  True 1990′s psychedelia set to some of the greatest music in history… Check it Out Sunshine, you little purly dew drops drop….

#6 – Friday The 13th Part 3-D (1982)

Directed By: Steve Miner

Ok..I know..I know.  Two kinds of people out in movie land, reading this, are gonna say, No.No.No.  You can’t watch a horror film while tripping on acid.  And others are gonna say, why would you watch this?  Aren’t you worried, it would give you a bad trip.  The answer to both is – Fuck You, and Fuck You.  IT’S IN 3 FUCKIN D!   Why would you not watch it??  I am sure there are better 3D movies out there, but I did all my trippin in the mid 90′s and 3D movies where not something you could download onto a home computer.  No-one even had a computer or ipod back then. We had to walk 5 miles to school in 10 feet of snow, bitches.  At this point, the F13 people had figured out the basic formulation, and they had it down to a science.  The coolest part about tripping and watching this is that you don’t need 3D glasses. Your perception, eyes, and brain are a little slower to process the photographic imagery. You don’t need the 3D glasses,  you see it in 3D regardless.. Well at least I did.  It’s your typical 1980′s slasher fare, but it’s a classic tale.   Jason Is Watching and he see’s EVERYTHING you do!  No un-married sex, No drugs, Jason will get you!

I’d give my left ball (not the right, it’s gone, lost it in a poker game) to be able to go back to the mid 1990′s with today’s technology, plasma screen tv, dvd player, and watch this in 3D on acid with my friends. We’d all be in a mental institutation, banging our heads against the wall, naked, crying..   Whatever happened to Shelly from this movie?

#05 – Return Of The Jedi (1983)

Directed By: Richard Marquand

God!  I’ve attempted with every girl I’ve ever dated, and even tried with my wife, to get them into Leia’s gold bikini.  Yikes..  Back in late ’95 or ’96 when they rereleased the trilogy into theatres..again, we went, and boy did we go big time!  We had planned this for weeks.  But, being young, dumb, and dumb, we waited until 3am to take the strongest acid we’d probably every taken in our lives.  The plan… take acid, hang out for a while, (this day was the hugest snowstorm we’d seen in a few years) go out for breakfast, and swing over to the multiplex, and catch the 10am first showing on Saturday morning of Jedi. My friend Aaron said” It will be great, we’ll get breakfast tripping, and we’ll be the only ones in the movie theatre for Jedi.”  The plan was perfect…  Everything went like clockwork, had a great time hanging out, watched some late night television, the sun came up, and we went to breakfast. Breakfast was obscure and difficult, you’d had no choice but to think that EVERYONE in that Denny’s was starring at you, uttering “Trippin Assholes” under their breath.   We couldn’t wait to leave.

At this time, you know the story of the greatest film franchise in history, so I won’t waste your time..   Anyhow, we where all pumped to get into a empty theatre, put our feet up on the chair in front of us, and watch Jedi, and be “BLOWN THE FUCK AWAY.”    Do you know where your kids are? When we got into the theatre, and opened the door, we discovered, being Saturday, 10am matinee, that the entire theatre was covered wall to wall with parents and their young children!  “Damn guys, this acid is strong!” I said.

Not knowing what to do, we quickly filed down into the empty very very front row, and sat quietly, looking at each other, giggling, as behind us 300 or so, mothers, fathers, and their young 7-12 year old children, couldn’t wait to catch Jedi on the big screen.  “We’re going to hell,” my friend Andy, said.  Yep…we are, but for the next 2.5 hours, Jedi, was bigger than life, as the doses peaked, and we all “Tripped Balls.”  It was like we where in that movie, with those characters, it was a psychedelic IMAX, that you couldn’t escape, it was amazing..  It becomes your entire life.  It’s essential Trip viewing for schizzle my nizzle. I always wonder if all those hundreds of those people behind us, knew we where tripping??? Ha-Ha.

#04 – Delicatessen (1991)

Written & Directed By: Jeunet & Caro

Yep.  A movie about a place that sells cold cuts…. But if you haven’t seen it, you don’t understand that sometimes, the cold cuts, are taken from humans!   Delicatessen is a french film released in 1991, that we didn’t see until 1995. WTF…  This masterpiece of contempary french cinema is the story of a a midget’d fella (Dominque Pinion) who is hired on as a fix-it handyman for a apartment building above a french delicatessan, who happens to be owned by a very corrupt and murderous butcher. He more or less holds his tenants hostage, including his own daugther.  It’s up to the handyman to save the day here, as the film climaxes with this amazing sequence, where the entire place floods with water. It’s simply amazing. There are a TON of sub-plots here, too many to write about, but I’ll give you a taste.  A clown, a monkey, a magic act, a suicidal women, and lastly a love story.  And less us NOT forget the sexual bed squeaking sequence, which the director Jean Pierre Jeunet milked for years after, especially in similar overtones in his film “Amelie.”    While not very trippy for that matter, IT”S JUST DAMN WEIRD.  It’s pure french fry fantasy, and well directed, the characters are all a lot of fun, and it just shouldn’t be missed while dosed in any way shape or form.

#03 – Heavy Metal (1981)

Directed By: Gerald Potterton

This one speaks for itself here, really.  I mean it’s a crazy sci fi cartoon with nudity and the voices of John Candy, and Harold Ramis.  We watched this about 1000 times while on acid.  And the funniest thing is, looking back, NOT realizing at the time was that this movie has cartoon nudity in it.  And we’d didn’t even know! Being that taking acid and watching movies was pretty much a weekly thing back then, the fellas left it up to me, to supply and provide the video entertainment, after all I was known as “the movie guy.”   So in the days of VHS madness, I used to tape everything my dirty little acid laced sweaty hands would see coming onto TV. Back then, I used to read the TV guide weekly, and go through and write down the movies I wanted to record, and then program the VCR.  Man, what a caveman effort.  How great is Tivo now?!   So I recorded Heavy Metal from a 4am showing on TBS, and we lived and died by this tape, watching it every weekend over and over and over again. The visuals for an acid head are great, and it’s just so damn surreal that you are just left sitting there, starring like you’re looking at the light of heaven.   Very psychedelic, with amazing music, and the stories are just so strange. We’d run around outside in the summer in the woods, high as hell, tripping the light, yelling movie qoutes from Heavy Metal.  Sorry guys, about the TV tape, I had no clue there where cartoon boobies in it.  If we had known that we probably would’ve watch it even more!  Essential acid viewing fodder for sure….

#02 – 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Written & Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

There is a damn good reason, why, when this film came out in 1968, that it’s movie theatre poster had the ad tagline “The Ultimate Trip.”  See Picture ..   There have been millions that have probably watched this movie after taking about 50 hits of Orange Sunshine.  There are countless stories of your mom or dad, or inprisoned uncle telling you how they saw 2001 in the theatre on LSD, and the fuckin walls where a meltin’..   Just google it.  I am sure there is a site just dedicated to it…  Crazy.. I love this movie… It’s groundbreaking, brilliant, inspired, and simply genius. Funny thing about LSD is..you aren’t necessarily the most patient.. So back then, we knew we had to fast foward to the “Jupiter” section.  Sorry Kubrick…     But once you hit the “Jupiter” section, you had damn well, better sit back, buckle in, and grab a towel, cause your mind and face are gonna melt all over your t-shirt….    Essential alone just for that sequence..   I highly doubt, Kubrick and special effects mastermind, Douglas Trumble, sat down, and said, “You know, we outta create something for this scene, that will provide a lifetime of “Whoa’s……” for a bunch of trippin asshole across the world..  Well, it’s true!

#01 – Natural Born Killers (1994)

Directed By: Oliver Stone

This brings us to number one…Wow… What a long strange trip it’s been, looking back at these experiences and my friends. God, I miss them so much.. Initally I didn’t wanna even see this movie, but my amigo’s drugged me like Mr. T in an episode of the A-team and pushed me into the theatre complex. Hey Justin, drink this milk, no, it doesn’t contain any sedatives!!!!!!  Geez….   The milk contained about 5 hits of acid, and I was about to be taken to the moon and back with my dick in my damn hand..    Directed by Oliver Stone, and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr, and Tommy Lee Jones, Natural Born Killers is a  disturbing and funny look at how popular culture places importance on mass media, and how in America, mass murderers and serial killers can become celebrity just like the president or your favorite musical group.   This was Oliver Stone’s psychedelic editing period.  Which I thought was brilliant, but I just couldn’t figure out, why?  Was Stone doing what we where doing?  For a while, Stone’s films, Natural Born Killers, JFK, Nixon, U-Turn, all had this crazy schizophrenic attitude in story and presentation to them.  I thought it was brilliant, but at the end of the day, a schizophrenic wears thin of society..  We probably watched this about 2000 times in those days, and it wasn’t until 2005 that I saw it for the first time sober.   I was dumbfounded to realize that the faces of the actors really where morphing and disfiguring when I wasn’t on acid when I watched this.  Strange.. Stone clearly knew what he was doing for the drug sub-culture.  Overall, it’s not a bad film, it’s got a ton of strange trippy stuff going on in it, and overall it’s just so damn weird, funny, violent, brutal, and satirically correct in the good way. If you haven’t seen it, do so today. The Ultimate Trip Film..

“Look Bitch, you KNEW I was a snake”

Honorable mention….  I made a clip tape back in those days for us, when we didn’t have the best of attention spans.  And on this clip tape was as follows: the chainsaw to hand sequence from Evil Dead 2, the first 7 mins of 1972′s “The Grateful Dead Movie,”  the “Dazed and Confused” sequence from the Led Zeppelin concert film, “The Song Remains The Same.” you know that scene where the wizard with the sword swings it, and you get about 800 different colored tracers across the screen. Poetry..Pure Poetry… And lastly the early 90′s computer animation film, “The Minds Eye.” Looking back at this today, you are wondering what you where thinking,  as the animation looks like my 10 year old retarded cousin Bobby, drew up on his Etch A Sketch. And lastly, the music video, to the Black Sabbath song “Planet Caraven,” that was done by Pantera. FUCKING HOS-TILE!!!!! We also watched, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Nightbreed while on acid a few times, but Nightbreed, the hot-tub, and the dog in the woods that got raped by the deer is a more appropriate story for another article….

I am not promoting or condemming the use of LSD in the article, nor supporting or recommending it, it was just something I did a long time ago, ALOT in fact, and it was a lot of fun… Kids, Don’t use drugs….

Mondo Justin is the co-founder of the Mondo Film & Video Guide. You can email him directly at justinb@mondo-video.com