The Weird World of LSD

The 60s equivalent of Reefer Madness and all those other 30s drug exploitation flicks. Apparently, dropping acid leads to stripteases, cat fights, promiscuous sex, playing with kittens, and being convinced your dinner is much larger than it actually is. This is all illustrated in a series of silent sketches accompanied by a droll narrator who seems positively doped out of his mind.

Although I’ve never indulged in the title-drug itself, if I had, I’m sure all of my adventures whilst under the influence would occur in black and white, accompanied by a free jazz score and punctuated by actors faking slow motion. Realism, my friends, it’s all in the realism.

Less a feature film and more an hour long series of unrelated dramatizations illustrating the effects of LSD on its users, The Weird World Oo LSD has to be one of the most left-of-center films I’ve ever seen. What in the world were the filmmakers trying to achieve? As a documentary, it boggles the mind. As an educational film, it’s hilarious. Was the intent to warn against the evils of LSD or simply exploit it? The derangement displayed here veers this film far away from anything resembling normal or linear. Dire ineptitude morphs into total artsy-ness, and the world is better off for it.

I’m going to try and offer up a description of what you can look forward to during the duration of this movie. There’s no plot or continuity, so bear with me. After a shot of the cosmos, a pre-credit sequence unfolds. An young man on LSD is flapping his arms on a couch. A deadpan narrator informs us that this guy believes he’s flying on the wings of a large bird. Superimposed over the man’s face is a cheap cartoon drawing of a chicken. From here on out you can expect several variations on people’s reactions to LSD, usually based on their innermost anxieties and fears. Sometimes a couple of strange drawings and transitions appear between vignettes. Highlights here include a woman frolicking with kittens; another woman fantasizing in a mannequin factory; a large middle-aged man gorging himself on a gigantic spread of food (really just a ham sandwich, but you know how that sneaky LSD works); a restaurant table strip tease with scissors; a woman performing steamy, tiger-themed interpretive dance on a jungle set; and some drag racing stock footage. There’s also  chocolate syrup gore, rubber monster mask spooks, and a guy who eats dirt. Soon enough, “The End” shows up onscreen, but only for a second, and we’re left with an abrupt cut to black.

Despite a couple of slow spots (trust me, you can only take so much of a couple rolling in the grass), I’d have to say that The Weird World of LSD is one of the most curious and ludicrous films I’ve seen from the Something Weird library. It’s hilarious, impressive in its naivety, and not of this earth. I mean, it’s a BLACK AND WHITE film about the dangers of psychedelic drugs! Now here’s a film that we can all relate to.

This film purports to be a graphic study of the effects of the drug LSD. A young man feels that he is being pursued by demons; a formerly reticent young woman becomes wildly passionate; another fantasizes in a room filled with dummies; two women, close friends, violently confront each other; a drag race becomes a nightmare of noise and speed; an obese man ravenously consumes a great quantity of food; another man has a fantasy about beautiful women; and two lovers become trapped in a tragic web of illicit love and violence.