Rating: Summary: Mediocre movies, but good extra features Review: This double-feature DVD features a couple so-so movies from the late sixties that focus on the hippie movement and especially the drug scene. Even big name actors such as Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern and Dennis Hopper cannot make these movies anything more than truly average.The Trip is the weaker of the two movies. The story is that a guy takes LSD and sees weird things. That's it. Roger Corman directs and he makes it at least visually interesting (occasionally borrowing from his Poe movie sets), but this is generally a mess. Psych-Out at least has a story, focusing on Susan Strasberg as a deaf girl who is aided by Jack Nicholson and his buddies in finding her brother. Nicholson is good enough, but once again, the focus is too heavy on psychedelia, which was probably okay for the audience at the time, but now it just seems dated. At least this movie gives the hippie scene a realistic grunginess that the Trip lacks. The special features, including a couple "making-of" documentaries are often better than the movies themselves. As stated before, these are extremely dated movies and are, at most, mildly entertaining (although they might be better if you're stoned). Most of the characters are cliched and even those that aren't are not all that interesting. For a far better movie about that era made in that era, try Alice's Restaurant. For this pair, the best that can be said is that they are occasionally visually nice...otherwise this is three-star material all the way, and only that good because of the extras.
Rating: Summary: Half-baked brownies? Review: Was there nothing that modern technology could do to make the soundtrack to "The Trip" listenable? It sounds muffled and dialogue is sometimes hard to follow - I don't recall having this problem when I saw the film theatrically. Maybe they were trying to re-create the drive-in speaker experience. And why on earth edit "Psych-Out," truthfully the better of the two films? Extras are okay, and thanks for the letterboxing, but this should have been a four-star reissue, at least.
Rating: Summary: A TRAVESTY! Review: We've been waiting for this on DVD for how long? And someone butchers it? PSYCH-OUT is a fun movie...if anything extra/cut footage should have been ADDED! Along with BONUS features.Shameful.
Rating: Summary: BUMMER! Get complete PSYCH OUT. Don't see THE TRIP ever! Review: What a disappointment. I remember seeing PSCYH OUT years ago and finding it a very interesting movie, filled with good acting (Jack Nicholson, etc) and great music (Strawberry Alarm Clock at their best). This "shortened" version is a crime, and what did they could out scenes so unnecessarily for: THE TRIP (One of the worst movies on the 60s!). I had seen THE TRIP, this poor excuse of a movie with Peter Fonda acting like an idiot, years ago but somehow forgot how truly awful an experience watching it can be. Not since HEAD (Monkees movie made in 1968) has there a movie that lacks any plot development; the whole thing is just an excuse to throw in weird psychedelic images and loud, rowdy music form that era. At least with PSYCH OUT you get the idea that there can be fun times involved and not people going in and out of sanity, showing a dreamlike world (as DR STRANGE does in the comic series).! Dennis Hopper was better than Peter Fonda or Bruce Dern, but no acting can save this stinker. What a waste of time!
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