Timothy Leary said it best: “Tune on. Turn in. Drop out.” In the 1960s, experimentation with illicit substances became commonplace, especially within underground movements. Hippies rejected the suburban dream espoused by folks in the 1950s. Instead, this next generation embraced open minds, freedom, and altered states.
It turns out, though, all that drug use can really wear a person down over the years, and many famous musicians and artists died too soon from overdoses. The dark, weird side of drug experimentation has since become a popular theme in science fiction movies. The films on this list employ confounding visual imagery and dream-like sequences to show what happens when characters mess around with perception-bending tools and goods.
Altered States (1980)
Cult British director Ken Russell was at the helm of this hallucinatory and terrifying thriller about a scientist who is obsessed with realizing humankind’s purpose. He believes he can achieve this by experimenting with different drugs.
The scientist, Eddie, played by William Hurt, begins his experiments in isolation tanks while under the influence of LSD, mescaline, and ketamine. He escalates his research, believing himself capable of expansion with the right combination of drugs. Instead, he loses his family, his mind, and his evolutionary status.
Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010)
Panos Cosmato’s first feature film is a homage to 1980s horror that is ethereal, demented, and impossible to take your eyes away from. Beyond The Black Rainbow unfolds in a therapeutic facility where a doctor and his assistant are undertaking a new program where patients are subjected to treatments and medicines that supposedly infuse their lives with greater levels of happiness.
The head of the facility, Arboria, and his assistant, Michael, are both mad scientists who use extrasensory perception and massive quantities of prescription medications. When Michael was much younger, Arboria submitted him to a psychotropic experience that was supposed to help him achieve transcendence. Instead, the incident, depicted with surrealistic horror, caused Michael to go completely insane, which has creepy consequences in the present reality of the film.
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, Richard Linklater’s brilliant adaption involves the use of an interpolated rotoscope, an animation technique wherein artists trace over original footage frame-by-frame. The results are uncannily dreamlike.
A Scanner Darkly takes place in a militarized, dystopic America where a drug epidemic rages. A drug known as Substance D, which causes severe hallucinations and paranoia, wreaks havoc on the population while the American government surveils its citizens and criminalizes drug addiction. With engrossing performances from Robert Downey Jr., Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder, A Scanner Darkly was deemed a critical success upon release.
Naked Lunch (1991)
Auteur David Cronenberg brought elements of William S. Burrough’s nonlinear novel of the same name to the big screen with this feature. While Burrough’s novel details the trials and tribulations of a heroin addict, Cronenberg’s film dives into a science fiction world of humanoid bugs, preposterous drugs, and paranoid landscapes.
In the movie, Peter Weller stars as William Lee, an exterminator who, along with his wife Joan, starts getting high off his own supply of insecticide. They sink into a hallucinatory underworld in order to keep the high going. From black meat to mugwump jism, William ingests whatever he can get his hands on in order to maintain. He meets a cast of drug dealers, talking typewriters, and monstrous beetles along the way.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
This sweeping scape odyssey by Stanley Kubrick originated with Arthur C. Clarke’s story “The Sentinel.” While it doesn’t involve the use of illicit drugs on the part of its cast, the film’s action is propelled by the giant black alien monolith that distorts time, space, and human experience.
Most of this 142 minute masterpiece follows Dr. David Bowman, an astronaut headed to Jupiter with two colleagues and a man-made computer known as HAL 9000. When HAL goes rogue and attempts to slaughter the crew, Bowman is forced to fend for himself, launching the ship into the great beyond. Bowman’s journey defies linear time, and it’s represented through a convulsive, fast-paced visual collage that culminates with coming full circle back to the dawn of humanity.
eXistenZ (1999)
David Cronenberg brought the dark side of virtual reality to life with this thriller starring Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh. eXistenZ is the name of a biological gaming system that taps into its user’s central nervous system, giving them a full sensory experience when they tune into the worlds brought to life through the game.
In the futuristic world of the movie, game designers like Leigh’s character Allegra are considered superstars, and when she creates eXistenZ, her fame soars. However, a group of anti-gamers soon target Allegra, and she’s forced to flee into the fantastical depths of her own creation in order to keep her head.
The Holy Mountain (1973)
The most important thing to know about The Holy Mountain is attempting to follow its plot is a frivolous venture. This cult classic from Alejandro Jorodowsky is a moving work of nonsensical art that mirrors the nature of a psychedelic drug experience.
While the film is loosely based around a spiritual pilgrimage, it’s really an homage to the 1960s counterculture, which was equal parts sacred and profane in the eyes of the movie’s director. The Holy Mountain includes phantasmagorical displays, expansive shots of symmetrical scenes, and some of the most spellbinding costumes of all time.
Enter The Void (2009)
Controversial French filmmaker Gaspar Noe created an ocular wonderland with Enter the Void, which explores what happens after death. The film’s main character, a drug dealer named Oscar, is shot when a sale goes south, and his spirit slowly ascends into the next plane of existence.
This journey is what the film depicts, an astral, delirious adventure through memory, the present, and the future. Enter the Void takes place in Toyko, and the packed city’s vibrant neon lighting, vast underworlds, and chaotic nature are on full display here.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
A science-fiction documentary, Koyaanisqatsi is stripped of narrative or characters. Instead, the movie relies on manipulated, slow-motion shots of the planet that, in their totality, make a shocking point about the ways in which humanity has destroyed its home.
Even though Koyaanisqatsi doesn’t highlight drug use or mind-altering states, its pacing and style have a transformational effect on its viewers’ perception, causing them to reassess the true nature of the orb they occupy. It doesn’t get more psychedelic than that.
The Science Of Sleep (2006)
A film about the mind’s own innate ability to induce muddied boundaries between real and fantastic, The Science of Sleep is an eccentric indie film by Michel Gondry. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg, the film delves into the rich dreamlife of an introvert played by Bernal.
Stephane’s rich inner life is visualized through peculiar and abstract sequences that combine live-action and animation. While he sustains himself through this creative fairyland, Stephane struggles to make friends in the real world. The more he retreats into his reveries, the more detached he becomes from everyone around him.
