I love this movie so much

Too much of everything

From my favorite movies..

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

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!

This cool, little movie (directed by Richard Rush of Stunt Man fame) stars Susan Strasberg (good actress; daughter of Lee); she hung out with all these cool nobodies (then) as a deaf chick on Haight_Ashbury streets looking for her older brother (Bruce Dern as the Seeker). This is a YEAR befor Easy Rider (a great movie) and the plot just rolls in a exploitive-psychelic Roger Corman way that's totally the perfect drive-in movie that is not a realistic hippie, 60's, whatever statement) for 1968. Dean Stockwell plays the cool, cynical head-band dude, Nicholson is Stoney, the level-headed pot-head guitar player, Max Julien as mr. intense, Henry Jaglom as the "artist" and The Strawberry Alarm Clock" first hit single (with a real plot) on location, and then Bruce Dern later in the film, while Strasberg carries the story (deaf); It's totally cool. I assume everybody hip as scene this Universal film by now, no matter what you're into.Check this flick (It blows away The Wild Angels and other cool exploitation films by the youth movement, even then);along with Hell's Angels on Wheels (Jack Nicholson and Sabrina Scharf - from Easy Rider) as one of the few films made on the Haight - realism would come later; like a year later because of Hopper, Fonda and, well ...you know.

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

This movie rocks for 2 reasons: The Seeds and Strawberry Alarm Clock This is pretty much the only time we ever get to see these two 60's bands in action. The plot is good too although the end is pretty far out. I definitly recommend this to anyone who likes to stimulate their mind and watch a good movie. Jack Nicolson is even in it, I mean how cool is that? And this takes place in Haight Ashbury back in the day! Most privately owned video stores still rent this. I have gotten really inspired by this movie because I'm in a psychedelic band.