Psych-Out
Jenny, a deaf runaway who has just arrived in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district to find her long-lost brother, a mysterious bearded sculptor known around town as The Seeker. She falls in with a psychedelic band, Mumblin' Jim, whose members include Stoney, Ben, and Elwood. They hide her from the fuzz in their crash pad, a Victorian house crowded with love beads and necking couples. Mumblin' Jim's truth-seeking friend Dave considers the band's pursuit of success "playing games," but he agrees to help Jennie anyway.
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Allison Anders on PYSCH-OUT
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TMDB Reviews
3 years ago
The good, the bad and the psychedelic of the Counterculture in the 60s
A deaf teen (Susan Strasberg) runs away to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district to find her artist brother, known as The Seeker (Bruce Dern). She befriends the members of a psychedelic band through whom she’s introduced to the hippie subculture. Jack Nicholson plays the leader of the band. Dean Stockwell, Adam Rourke and Max Julien are also on hand.
“Psych-Out” (1968) has a bit more story compared to Roger Corman’s “The Trip” from the previous year, which featured Peter Fonda running around doing crazy things on LSD (although it’s a pretty good simulation of an acid trip with fantastic visuals using the technology of the time). Despite the warning at the beginning of “The Trip,” it’s basically pro-LSD whereas “Psych-out,” produced by Dick Clark, has an anti-drug message in that it dares to show the awful truth, like bad trips, squalor and so on.
Since it was shot during the actual era and area, it’s a pretty authentic look at the Counterculture movement, which you can compare with the real-life people of the documentary “Woodstock” (1970). Some of the attitudes of the movement were good and stand the test of time while the libertinism was a foolish path to ennui and self-destruction (mentally, spiritually or physically).
A lot of the psychedelic music is pretty good, mostly performed by the Storybook, a San Fernando Valley garage band, but also The Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Seeds and Boenzee Cryque. Surprisingly, there’s a blatant rip-off of Hendrix’ “Purple Haze” and a little “Foxy Lady,” two songs released just before the flick was made. I’m not sure how they got away with that; I guess the ’60s weren’t as litigious as in the decades since.
Winsome brunette Strasberg (Jenny) is a highlight, but blonde Linda Gaye Scott (Lynn) arguably steals the show in the feminine department.
One weak point in the script is the ambiguity concerning The Seeker. Even Bruce Dern said...
