15 Insane Movie Head-Trips You Won’t Regret Taking02 MAY 2014 FEATURES, FILM LISTS BY GAVIN MILLER

Cinema could be grouped into two very general categories – art cinema and mainstream cinema. Of course, there are many films that don’t really fit into either one of those groupings, as well as movies that could be considered both mainstream and art house. However, art films do generally tend to be weirder and more daring, further exploring psychological and ontological themes, and often times offering a more mentally stimulating and emotionally compelling experience. Hard-core art films aren’t for everyone, but there is a whole family of weird, unorthodox, visually unique and surreal films that could be called cinematic head trips.

For a film to replicate a drug-like feeling, trance or mood is difficult to pull-off and a rare thing, and when a movie can truly take the audience into deepest parts of the mind or let them explore worlds and psychological states never before filmed, it can be a glorious, miraculous thing. Weird movies are considered a specialty for many cinephiles, this writer included, and represent a breed of cinema that contains some of the most fun films to watch, think about, dissect and talk about.

 

15. The Fountain

Darren Aronofsky’s metaphysical epic The Fountain spans a millennium, is rich in symbolism and features gorgeous art direction and production design. Three separate, interwoven stories concerning a characters Tomas, Tommy and Tom (all portrayed by Hugh Jackman) make up the film – one taking place in the sixteenth century, one present-day, and set in 2500.

This nonlinear epic grapples largely with the juxtaposed themes of premature death and eternal life, and as a whole the film is overwhelming and moving. Countless interpretations of this film are out there, but whether you enjoy analyzing and dissecting it, or simply sitting back and letting it immerse you as a visual and emotional experience, The Fountain will grab on to you and not let go.

 

14. Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is a masterpiece of bizarre ideas integrated with familiar landscapes and universal themes. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a disturbed teenager who sees visions of a giant bunny rabbit named Frank who predicts the end of the world; all this as well as time travel and other highly scientific concepts play into this complex, dark tale.

There’s no shortage of dark iconography, disturbing events and just generally abnormal happenings that populate Donnie Darko, and the surprising part is not how bizarre it is, but how moving.

 

13. House

House is a freaky film that is energetic, maddening and off-the-wall crazy. With its weird group of characters that speak unnaturally, the odd editing and visual style and the unforgettable, hilariously twisted last act, this is surely a trip of a movie, and one that will leave you questioning what you just watched.

House follows no rules, and loves going on unexpected routes and taking the viewer to some really messed-up and joyfully bizarre places. When a piano can eat a person, you know you’ve entered a cinematic world that you won’t want to leave.

 

12. Spirited Away

Spirited Away is something of a Japanese Alice in Wonderland, and it ranks among the very finest and most visually astonishing films of Hayao Miyazaki. This is a majestic masterpiece filled with fantastical vistas beyond imagination and bizarre creatures both lovable and terrifying.

A supernatural, trippy journey for a young girl named Chihiro, the main character, also happens to be an equally amazing and memorizing experience for the viewer. The most impressive thing about Spirited Away is how interesting the characters actually are, and how richly textured and detailed the story and landscape are.

 

11. Eraserhead

Eraserhead is one of the most fearless debut films of all time, and it’s also one of the most promising of things to come. And David Lynch certainly delivered on that promise; his whole filmography is full of cinematic head-trips venturing into highly surreal and hypnotic territory, and it all starts here.

Eraserhead’s grainy, industrial black and white look is a perfect backdrop for this nightmare of a film, and even though it’s absurd and jaw-droppingly repulsive, it’s always effective and scary. The tale of a new father tending to his ever-wailing mutant child lends itself to many metaphorical interpretations, and Lynch’s distinct, thoroughly original voice permeates his first masterpiece.

 

10. Enter the Void

Gaspar Noë’s Enter the Void is all about crazy drugs, and it’s an especially unique piece of filmmaking as it’s shot entirely in first-person. After a drug dealer living in Tokyo is shot and killed, his soul drifts around the city watching all kinds of weird things, including the repercussions of his death.

The neon haze and hallucinatory look and sequences really give Enter the Void a distinct feel and one-of-a-kind vibe, and it’s truly unforgettable. Noë was directly inspired by Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and his film ranks among the most ambitious and interesting in cinema history.

 

9. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

The ontological Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is easily one of the weirdest films of the twenty-first century, but unlike many of the other titles on this list, it is has a slower, calmer and more natural pacing, opposed to the frenetic, crazy feel of many other films that could be grouped along with Uncle Boonmee.

This tale of spirituality and reincarnation is visually majestic and breathtakingly beautiful, but there’s no shortage of highly unconventional plotting, and all kinds of things that you’ve never seen in a movie before – including a highly memorable scene of catfish-on-woman love.

8. Altered States

Altered States has the ingredients for a cliché science fiction “experiment gone wrong” story, but this is a film that will take you places far beyond genre expectations, and deep

into the mind’s most insane depths. When a scientist discovers a rare hallucinatory drug, he tests it to its limits, and in the process discovers some crazy information about the brain and human evolution.

The unforgettable hallucination sequences are enough to put this film over the edge, but the general tone and out-of-control visuals make it a must-see for any cinephile craving the bizarre.

 

7. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A quite literal trip Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is; this adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel is all about drugs and their crazy effects on the mind. Johnny Depp plays a journalist temporarily in Las Vegas with his lawyer, but the film is far more about their hilarious and disturbing abuse of hallucinogenic drugs.

As expected from Terry Gilliam, nothing is too far here, and there are absolutely no rules. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is devoid of traditionally storytelling and character development, but if you can get into it for its utterly one-of-a-kind style and technique, it’s a blast.

 

6. Naked Lunch

Speaking of film adaptations of drug-induced novels, David Cronenberg’s take on William S. Burroughs is every bit as weird in structure and grotesque in design as movies get. Peter Weller plays a bug exterminator addicted to his own pesticides, and if you thought Fear and Loathing was abnormal,

Naked Lunch takes it to almost an entirely new level. Anything goes here, and Cronenberg delivers in spectacular, pure Cronenbergion fashion. Bug-hallucinations and “mug-wumps” populate the landscape of Naked Lunch, and in the world of this film, type-writer insects with massive orifices (that bring to mind sexual organs) are right at home.

 

5. The Holy Mountain

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s provocative and enigmatic The Holy Mountain is surely one of the most memorable head trips in cinema, and its strange power and compelling imagery has helped it endure as a cult classic.

To call this film’s story “unconventional” is a complete understatement; the film is a series of fascinating and bizarre images and beautiful locations, and the film as a whole is a memorizing piece of intensely hypnotic, surreal filmmaking.

 

4. Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine is a pure, unadulterated 60’s LSD trip, and also a great animated film with creative art work set to the classic songs of the Beatles. It may be rated G, but it is certainly proof that bizarre cinema doesn’t have to be in the context of violence or sex to be as weird as it gets.

An intellectual “Nowhere Man” is one of the film’s most endearing and memorable characters, and the villainous Blue Meanies are hilarious. The characters work, the animation always offers something crazy and nonsensical to behold, and overall, Yellow Submarine is an unforgettable, truly trippy journey.

 

3. Inland Empire

David Lynch’s last film as of now is truly his most incomprehensible and utterly bewildering. In no way whatsoever is Inland Empire a conventional film, but it absolutely tests the limits of the medium with its experimental handheld camera work that intentionally blurs the line between acting and reality, storytelling that completely throws away any character or plot development of the traditional sense, and a story that is basically composed of individual scenes, all of which are sated with

Lynch’s trademark surrealism. Inland Empire is classic Lynch in its surrealism and exploration of the director’s favorite themes, but it’s also something quite new and different for him, as it marks as Lynch’s first use of digital filmmaking (and hopefully not last – make another film David!).

 

2. Holy Motors

Holy Motors is a delightfully weird French film that encompasses many genres with its abstract surrealism – it’s something of a comedy, satire, meditation and study all at once. Of what, is left up to the viewer’s interpretation.

The plot of Holy Motors is quite impossible to describe, but basically, Monsieur Oscar peruses the night streets as he attends “appointments”. In these appointments, he undergoes shape shifting through makeup and prosthetics, and attends to whatever mission he’s been tasked with. These vignettes range from hilarious, to perverse, to hilariously perverse, and the film is definitely never dull. You’ll never quite understand what you’re watching as you do so, but it’s a ceaseless joy, and as unconventional and just plain bizarre it is, you definitely won’t regret taking this particularly imaginative and one-of-a-kind head trip.

 

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey

It was advertised as the Ultimate Trip back when it was released in 1968, and it remains the king of cinematic trips to this day. No film has ever captured the epicness and grandeur of space and man like 2001: A Space Odyssey did, and the film is also unparelled in its statements about the evolution of man and science, as well as the awe-inspiring visual effects and sustained sequences of cinematic poetry.

Told in three parts, Kubrick’s masterpiece is one of the most important films ever made, and it’s filled with trippy visuals, deep symbolism that requires many viewing to fully grasp, and most importantly, 2001 marks one of the first times mainstream movie-goers were exposed to something truly, boldly new.

Author Bio: Gavin Miller is a cinephile who keeps up his blog cinefreakdude.tumblr.com as well as a YouTube channel – both dedicated to film criticism and discussion. He is an ardent Blu-ray collector as well as the director of two short films – “A Chupacabra Afternoon” and “Coffea arabica”. Gavin models his lifestyle after The Dude from The Big Lebowski.