Lysergic acid diethylamide. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Good old LSD-25. Tasteless and odorless with an unforgettable sensory punch. Colors are brighter, smells are stronger, “White Rabbit” is E-P-I-C, floor and ceiling textures silently crawl in spiral patterns. The fibers in your carpet are swayin’ like grass stalks in a Terrence Malick film, and there’s no wind. Surely you know the feeling, as did many, many creative types in the 60s and 70s. Cinematic experiments conceived under Lucy’s influence varied wildly in quality but were most always completely fucking bizarre. Serious Freakouts like Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider received widespread attention, putting the genre on the cusp of legitimate importance. Then the zonked out idyll came to an ugly end sometime between Altamont and Hopper’s legendarily atrocious Rider followup The Last Movie. Freakouts remained firmly entrenched in the underground thanks to radical visions like El Topo. Jodorowsky divided his audience into the Squares who hated its violence and illogical plotline and the Cool Kids who dug the metaphysics and (anti)hero’s function as All Purpose Allegorical Religious Figure. It’s still up in the air as to what the hell The Holy Mountain is really about, but that’s another article for another date.
Freakouts often sacrifice conventional narratives for extra time spent on visuals. Often lazily paced and heavily tangential, with bright colors and loud, vibrant music (especially sitar twangs). This encapsulates the oeuvres of David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Terry Gilliam, and, yes, most of Kubrick’s later work prior to Full Metal Jacket. Whether these directors are veteran trippers or not is beside the point, just that their styles are suited for viewing through your “third eye”. So long as hallucinogens continue to be available, there will always be (limited) demand for Freakouts.
