12. The Holy Mountain (1973) dir.

Alejandro Jodorowsky

No psychedelic film list would be complete without a Jodorowsky film. The Holy Mountain, a
surreal masterpiece abundant with religious symbology and references to Christianity,
Tarot, and Alchemy, takes the viewer on a mind-bending spiritual journey. Like Buuels Un
Chien Andalou, the film opens with a symbolic and ritualistic action.

A cloacked figure takes two women dressed like Marilyn Monroe and sheds them of their
societal regalia, removing their make-up, stripping them naked, and shaving their heads.
Similar to Buuels slicing of the eye, Jodorowsky is making a symbolic statement to the
audience, to shed themselves of their societal standards and cultrually biased values. He
then presents to the viewer a film that follows one man, known as the Thief (Horacio
Salinas), and his mystical odyssey.

A Christ-like figure, the Thief, is found laying in pile of mud and garbage by a little person
without hands or feet. The two go into town, where the people are performing a kind of
religious ceremony, carrying crucified dogs while simutaneously executing groups of
people, to the entertainment of tourists.

After the people of the town make a wax cast of his body for their mass-produced
sculptures resembling Christ, the Thief journeys up a mysterious red tower and meets an
Alchemist (Alejandro Jodorowsky), who leads the Thief on a path of enlightenment.

Jodorowsky has a way of creating original religious iconography. His film uses entracing
music, symbolic characters, and surreal visuals in order to dissociate the viewer from
common religious beliefs and typical cultural values. Jodorowsky immerses the viewer in
his own world, an amalgam of mystical philosophies.
18. Altered States (1980) dir. Ken Russell

Ken Russells foray into the science fiction genre explores the mystical experience of one
mans hallucinations and the concept of these hallucinations becoming phyisically manifest.
The films psychedelic sequences are vivid visual representations of the protagonists
psychological devolution into increasingly primative forms of being.

A psychologist, Edward Jessup (William Hurt), fascinated with altered states of

consciousness, undertakes a scientific experiment wherein he takes hallucinatory drugs
while in a sensory deprivation tank. The combination of an untested Native American drug
and sensory deprivation cause him to mentally and physically degenerate from man to
proto-human to primordial being.

The sequences depicting Jessups hallucinations utilize bright colors and fast editing in
order to show the viewer his altered sensory perceptions. We see religious and primal
symbology, suggesting Jessups spiritual associations with his memories and unconcious
thoughts. Toward the end of the film, his hallucinations become a wild daze of microscopic
cellular movement.

Altered States is an excellent melding of science fiction and psychedelia in film. The surreal
imagery adds insight into the consciousness of the main character while under the
influence of his mind-altering experiences. There is a certain level of suspense during
Jessups transformations, which make it hard for the viewer to determine what is real and
whats imagined.
24. Enter the Void (2009) dir. Gaspar No

Gaspar Nos frightening, hallucinatory masterpiece is a sensory overload of bright lights

and neon colors, a swirling soundscape, and unparalled visual effects. Nos hardcore mind
trip transports the viewer into a phantasmagoric world of life, death, and nightmare.

Loosely based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the film follows Oscar (Nathaniel Brown),
an American, Toyko-based drug dealer and his sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta). Oscar and
Linda were orphaned at a young age, when their parents died in a car crash (that they were
also in). The two promise to always stick together, and Oscar swears to protect Linda, no
matter what.

One night, Oscar meets up with his friend Alex (Cyril Roy) on his way to a bar to sell some
product to a young guy. The meeting turns out to be a set up, and Oscar is shot and killed
by the police. For the rest of the film, Oscars spirit floats through the streets of Toyko
reexperiencing old memories, watching over Linda and Alex, and delving into alternate
versions of reality.
Told completely from Oscars point of view (the camera mimicks Oscars vision and
hearing), the film captures every aspect of Oscars sensory perceptions, including a five
minute DMT trip at the beginning of the film. The maelstrom of dazzling lights, neon colors,
and distorted imagry that the viewer encounters both before and after Oscars death is
nothing short of a tour de force in psychedelic filmmaking.

15. Videodrome

image: http://www.tasteofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/videodrome-
movie.jpg

Homicide, Sleaze, torture, S&M, nihilism Videodrome.

Welcome to the world of cult Canadian director David Cronenberg. James Woods stars as
Max Renn, the president of a TV channel, searching for that quantum leap to the most in
demand of broadcasting.

The breakthough arrives when Renn discovers Videodrome, an Asian television show airing
brutal torture and snuff TV. With his girlfriend Nicki (Blondies Deborah Harry), immediately
aroused and obsessed with the show, they delve further and find that the show is in fact
broadcast out of Pittsburgh, USA. Eager to audition for the show, Nicki sets off to
Pittsburgh, however when she fails to return, Max starts to become apprehensive. The
more Max explores, the more he submerges into a world of mind regulation, sex, violence
and disturbing hallucinations.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the visceral experience of Cronenbergs 1983 mind-trip
masterpiece, Videodrome.

10. Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)

The question: What if you were stuck living the same day over and over again?

While there has been a fair amount of fiction where a character has been able to time travel in a way
that they were able to redo things they wanted to do differently, no film had captured the sheer
existential crisis someone might have if they were stuck reliving the same day with no discernible
cause.

The film relies more on Nietzsches The Gay Science than common fantasy or science fiction with
their need for such trivialities as exposition. People have imprinted many interpretations on the film
over the years, from Catholicism to Buddhism, what remains are those lingering questions of what
you would do in a world without any lasting consequence.
17. The Matrix (Andy and Lana Wachowski, 1999)

The question: What if all of the life you knew was just a virtual reality made to lull you into a false
complacency?

The year The Matrix came out there were two other virtual reality films (Existenz & The Thirteenth
Floor), but The Matrix was the only one with any longevity. It could be said that this is because of the
films increased style and action. Maybe, but it could also be said that The Matrix is the one that
makes the viewers feel as if they are the ones making the big choice the main character makes: live
the comfortable life you know or open your eyes to the true reality.

16. Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001)

A film shot in an essayesque style, Waking Life has a singular narrative. The protagonist
name here is a man in search for his awakening to the material world, while living in one
that seems stranger and stranger as the story progresses. He meets several individuals,
each with their personal views on existential and political matters, and each discussing
such matters in a never-ending series of intuitive dialogues.

The virtue of Waking Life starts to unfold itself when the spectator notices that (protagonist)
actually begins to fancy the idea of living his own dreams, while also crafting them and
making them bend to his will. His enthusiasm, however, does not last long, and he soon
sees himself desperate to comprehend the life-dream frontier, as he is exposed to
numerous surreal experiences, nihilistic characters, and bothersome dj-vus.

Make no mistake when scrutinising the dialogue of the film; everything makes perfect
sense. Some lines are harder to connect to the rest of the films mythos than others. Some
are more didactic and cathartic, while others incite self-reflection. Once one finds the path
through the internal allusions of its daring discussions, one can better understand why the
film refers so reiteratively to the pathetic existence in which we are inserted and how
dreams are personal safe havens unexplored by our still shallow minds.

Dreams that could be touched upon through a deeper understanding of what makes such a
life so pathetic. Its rotoscope style this is not the only one of Linklaters surreal narratives
told in such a way only adds to the careful designing of a fictional universe where bodies
bend, minds find themselves in eternal dreaming, and old memories unite with new ones.

3. Primer
The movie: A sci-fi thriller about 4 entrepreneurs who accidentally invent a machine that
can quadruple the space-time continuum of anything that enters it.

Whats weird: The complicated and baffling plotline leaves viewers struggling to figure out
exactly what everything in the movie means.

Weirdest moment: Aaron, one of the main characters, tries to explain that time inside the
machine is slightly different than time outside of it.

25. The Science of Sleep (2006) Dir. Michel Gondry

image: http://www.tasteofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/science-of-sleep.jpg
Gael Garcia plays Stphane, a man who literally daydreams, loosing himself in his
imagination, which makes it almost impossible for him to interact in the real world.
Stphane goes back to his home town in France after the death of his father. His mother
finds a job for him in a calendar printing company, where they dont fully embrace his ideas,
meanwhile Stphane meets Stephanie played by Charlotte Gainsbourg.

At first, Sthane is interested in Zoe Stephanies friend, but after spending time with
Stephanie, he starts to fall for her. After that moment the film lapses into two different
realities, often making it difficult to understand where a dream starts and where reality
ends, the film is full of surreal elements that question every subconscious effect on the
character that a dream might project. One scene in particular was inspired by a recurring
childhood nightmare Michel Gondry had, his hand grew bigger and couldnt do anything
about it, that is one of many reasons you should watch Gondrys personal project.
Cualquier cosa por Andrei
Tarkovsky