There are many Roger Corman movies that one can think that they were possible to make under influence of drugs, but in this case Roger Corman actually took LSD as a research for 'The Trip'. Cheesy and occasionally (unintentionally) funny, 'The Trip' remains as one of the trippiest movies ever. The film is shallow by story wise - television commercial director (Peter Fonda) decides to drop acid first time and discovers some things about himself. That's it. A guys first acid trip. And then we seem him taking psychedelic road through colorful hallucinations accompanied with experimental rock and jazz music.'The Trip' is bizarre little film about drug usage. Although there is a warning at the beginning of the film that condemn drugs, but the film itself actually don't give any judgment on the matter. It doesn't have much plot and Peter Fonda still hasn't got his acting game together but the film is still entertaining mostly thanks to its visuals and humor. The high point of the film is when Peter Fonda's character is facing the judge who is played non other than magnificent Dennis Hopper. And all this was written by Jack Nicholson.Recommended to anyone who like plotless but visually striking movies.

Peter Fonda plays Paul Groves, a TV commercial director going through a personal crisis. His wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) is asking for a divorce. So he calls upon a psychologist friend, John (Bruce Dern), who's recording the LSD trips of his subjects. In the effort to mellow out, Paul takes some LSD himself. Little does he know just how WEIRD the experience is going to be.Don't look for a whole lot of story here, in this counterculture favourite produced & directed by B movie king Roger Corman, and boasting a screenplay by none other than Jack Nicholson. It's not so hot as a movie, but it IS a modestly amusing experiment to simulate an LSD trip on film for approximately 80 minutes. Of course, it doesn't even need to go on THAT long; the point is made early on, and the initial entertainment value of gazing at these surreal images and psychedelic effects does wear off. Still, this does have an appropriately "trippy" atmosphere, created during an era when experimenting with mind bending substances was one of the hip things to do.The performances are generally agreeable, with Dennis Hopper the perfect choice for playing Max. The landscape is dotted with appearances by people like Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Nader, Michael Blodgett, Tom Signorelli, and Corman regulars such as Barboura Morris, Luana Anders, Beach Dickerson, and Dick Miller.Cinematographer Allen Daviau ("E.T.") was one of those producing the psychedelic effects. The D.P. on this flick was Archie R. Dalzell, who does a decent job. And there's a groovy rock score by Electric Flag.The distributors didn't want the film to be seen as pro-LSD, resulting in a particular image of Fonda near the end that was added against Cormans' wishes.Six out of 10.

Lookout! The Sixties are here! In the form of flashback and deep reflection of consciousness. It's a pleasant vibe of a collaboration between the likes of Fonda, Hopper, Nicholson and the master of Independent and exploitation cinema Roger Corman, showing us just exactly how the groovy people pass the time of day. With a backdrop of Sixties nostalgia: the cloths, the music and attitudes of the loved-up generation intermingling with the likes of those outside looking in. Being the new-kid-on-the-block Paul Groves (Fonda), who with a little help from his friends, the drug dealing Max (Hopper) and his mentor and guide for the evening John (Bruce Dern) all assisting in providing the first acid trip for Groves.The whole show moves and grooves along in the timeline of circumstance and prediction to the point of it looking like an information-pack on the pros-and-cons of the use of Lysergic acid diethylamide.It does not fully feel like exploitation cinema because it simply does not come across as forcible, overly surreal and altogether exploitive, while picking on points of love, sex, life and death, the film hints at the nicer points of the psychedelic wonders to the point of cliché. Roger Corman (b. 1926) uses visuals and interesting, and intriguing, quick, sharp, colourful edit's to highlight the experience of Groves first time trip, and with a soundtrack of rock (think of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd and you're nearly there) and ragtime jazz to help float down stream, it's all, again, very pretty to absorb. The interesting point here is that the viewer here is both traveller and observer, internally and externally, to Groves trip and from the outside looking in it can be a little discouraging to see a fully grown man commenting on the flowing energy of an… orange.The introduction to this film makes a clear warning that not all may be well in the playground of colours and light and to heed this film as a cautionary tale of the use of its subject, LSD. This is pointed out when Groves escapes his controlled environment and runs to the real-time location of the L. A. streets and bars. Finding himself in the home of a very young child, then accosting a woman's washing in the local Laundromat to the reality check of the waitress's comment "You're stoned out of your mind…what's the matter with you guy's? Isn't the real world good enough for you?" Proving that the decade of free love and the doctrine's of Timothy Leary (1920 - 1996) was done, and not too, with free will and personal choice. Not everyone cared for inner transcendence. The dangers of use here is concluded at the final freeze-frame shot of Groves face and his new "…do it tomorrow…" outlook of life and the cracking of the screen to represent the point of no return and the possible damage caused by his experience with his distorted change of mind set.The Trip really is an exemplary work of the nineteen sixties youth counterculture philosophy of turn on, tune in and drop out, which, in the end, in hindsight, just may have been an exploitation movie after all. Just as Messer's Hopper, Fonda and Nicholson new how to exploit the new age thinking to their advantage they new how to adapt to this new age philosophy oh so well. Coming down from this trip to dwell on their next exploits and with experience under their belts, they may need to spread their wings, perhaps maybe an easy ride across country may be forthcoming? A different sort of trip, perhaps?

Someone might have asked if this trip was really necessary, but the makers of the movie seem to have thought so. It would be fun to know what Jack Nicholson thinks now about writing the script for this. It would be even more fun to watch this movie now if Jack Nicholson had acted in it. From what I have read about the man's life, his own experiences with the named chemical had been some what ill fated prior to this. Voice of experience? Perhaps, with a hint of fun also.And a fun movie it is, outdated gracefully. For once, a Roger Corman picture does look cheap unlike his other small budgeted ventures, where inventiveness usually covered the small amounts of money used in production. Still, enough interesting visuals are delivered. It was particularly nice to see a little more footage of the psychedelic mansion, that I had earlier seen featured in some promotional clips of The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Just like the times, that house apparently doesn't exist anymore either.Through the soundtrack of the movie a small but peculiar link to 'Easy Rider' popped up. The music in the scenes where Fonda is tripping about being chased by the mysterious riders etc. is also used shortly in 'Easy Rider' right after the graveyard acid trip scene, where Fonda and Hopper leave New Orleans. To my memory it's the only moment in 'Easy Rider' of ordinary background type of music being used. Now, this has probably been just a coincidence or an expense wise decision from the makers. But still I couldn't help thinking, could this in a way be the same guy who will later get killed on another trip with his dealer friend? Ah, go figure. If The Trip was remade today, the chemical subject matter would no doubt be something more dangerous, the old lovely kaleidoscopic effects would be made with computer graphics. And in the end maybe a heavier penalty would be passed on the main character. Here the treatment is surprisingly mellow and even objectively contemplating. No heavy fear and loathing in San Francisco, not yet anyway. Viewed today, the cracking of the image on the final frame demanded by the censors only adds some more objectivity on the character. He's already hinted to cracking a bit from a crisis before he took the drug and the debris from it still remain. And there is nothing really obscene in the film. Not if the psychedelic love-making does not strike you as such. Oh, did I wake up your interest? Try this at home, kids. The movie, I mean.