The Trip Movie Review (1967)

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to drop acid, The Trip is the movie you’ve been wanting to see. With almost no story or character development, it’s a singular trippy experience.

Some older movies are amazing. 12 Angry Men, Inherit The Wind, and Sunset Boulevard are films that everyone should watch because they truly hold up. They are great films. But it can be challenging to be fair to other movies when they’re 60 years old and you can see that they fit the decade they were created in – just not today.

The Trip is about Paul, a man with a troubled marriage who feels stagnant at work. He approaches his friend, John, who suggests that Paul trip on acid to see if he has any revelations.

This movie has to be up there with the most 60s movies ever made. The entire film is Paul’s acid trip. There are some excellent visuals of dots, colors, and kaleidoscope shapes bouncing off of bodies and in the air. Paul imagines having sex with a woman and the whole sequence is full of rhythmic beats of visuals on their moving naked skin.

Paul experiences himself in a forest with various creatures and hooded people, wandering in caves, covered in blood with his wife, and in a creepy fun house of sorts. The movie does a good job of cutting between where Paul thinks he is and where you can see that he is in reality.

In reality, he is primarily at John’s house. John is sober and intends on watching over him the entire time. John is very serious and it reminded me of a therapist babysitting his charge. It was kind of odd and had me wondering how often (primarily in the 60s) someone would choose to stay sober and watch over their friend when they could have done LSD together and shared the experience (one friend helping another friend). But I digress.

While the visuals and setup were interesting, I kept waiting for the movie to go somewhere. For something to happen or for me to start caring about anything I was watching. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I would have really enjoyed 10 minutes of the visuals, but even at a short 81 minutes, it was way too long. I started getting bored.

The Trip stars Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Dennis Hopper, which was its own trip. I’ve seen many movies with these gentlemen, but never together and so incredibly young. That was a treat in and of itself. I enjoy knowing the range of someone’s career, so that was probably what I liked the most about this film.

With a bunch of groovy music, a strange sequence where Paul wanders into a house in the middle of the night and hangs out with a child (who isn’t the least bothered), and some naked swimming in a pool, The Trip is interesting in theory, but doesn’t have enough content to hold up to the entire runtime. If you are curious what it might be like to drop acid, watch 10 minutes in the middle of this movie. Otherwise, I’d pass.

Runtime: 81 minutes

Motion Picture Rating: PG-13

Languages Spoken In The Film: English

Should You Watch It? No

Did I Cry? Nope

My Rating: 2.25/5 Stars

Available: Free on PlutoTv, to rent on Prime Video, or may be available for free on other streaming platforms