From the mid-1950’s to the late 1960’s Roger Corman directed roughly 50 movies, most of which would be described as horror. Towards the end of Corman’s directing career he started to make a shift towards counter culture films, starting with The Trip in 1967.

The film was written by Jack Nicholson and stars Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Dennis Hopper and features a cameo from one of my personal favorites, Dick Miller. The plot is actually very, very thin. Fonda stars as Paul Groves, a director of TV commercials. He’s in the middle of a divorce from his wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) and in general he’s going through a bit of a rough patch in his life. In an attempt to turn things around he decides to go on an LSD trip. Max (Hopper) sets the adventure up by hooking Paul up with John (Dern) who will provide the acid and watch Paul to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Everything starts of pretty well at first. Paul takes the acid and within a few minutes he drifts off to a world of bright colors. From there he kind of goes in an out from this trippy fantasy world and then back to sitting in the room with John. As the trip extends, Paul begins to become fascinated with everything. At one point Paul and John look outside and see some TV station antennas atop a mountain in the distance and Paul is completely amazed.

Suddenly Paul’s trip begins to turn. He thinks he’s about to die. John does his best to slap him out of it. Paul seems to snap out of it and calm down. John tells him to relax and if he’s about to die in the trip, just to let go and let it happen. Everything will be ok. Things seem to be getting back on track but right as Paul is about to settle back in he thinks he sees John dead. In a panic, Paul rushes out of the house and begins to run around LA paranoid that someone is after him.

Paul’s journey through LA leads him all over the place. He ends up inside someone’s house watching TV and talking to a little girl. From there Paul has a very unusual interaction inside a laundromat. He then finds himself at a psychedelic 60’s club.

I don’t think you watch The Trip hoping for an engaging story with interesting plot twists. I don’t think that’s the point of the film at all. I think the idea here is to represent for the viewer what an LSD acid trip is like. I’ve never done acid, so personally I can’t tell you how accurate it is. However, Corman took some acid before making the film and in interviews he’s said he was trying to recapture what he experienced. Plus those involved (Hooper, Fonda, Nicholson, especially) I think had their fair share of experience with all kinds of drugs.

I think The Trip does a very good job giving the audience an experience they’re not likely to forget. It’s basically Peter Fonda freaking out and running around LA paranoid for 80 minutes. It’s kind of hard not to enjoy that.

Corman, cinematographer Archie R. Dalzell and editor Ronald Sinclair deserve a lot of praise. Aside from the standout performance from Fonda, the films visuals steal the show. The film succeeds because of the quick, frantic cuts and for those cuts to really work you need beautiful cinematography which is very much present. The Trip is full of energy and just flies on by.

The Trip is currently available on region B Blu-ray from the UK’s Signal One Entertainment. Overall the transfer looks very good. There are a few moments where there is a sort of texture that looks a little weird. It’s almost like a fuzz, but not really. It’s somewhat distracting at times, but I wouldn’t say it’s enough to take away from the overall quality. The special features are on the loaded side. There’s a commentary with Corman, the documentary “Tune In, Trip Out” with interviews with cast and crew, original prologue and alternative ending both with Corman commentary, film effects montage and an interview with Allen Daviau. That’s a pretty packed Blu-ray, right up there with what you see on the Arrow stuff so that’s very impressive.

The Trip is not a great movie, but I would call it a great experience. I feel like it’s a snapshot into the lives of some of the biggest stars to ever hit Hollywood. I honestly don’t think it’s too crazy to think that Hopper, Nicholson and Fonda had a lot of nights that were very similar to what Paul goes through during The Trip. If you want to experience what they did without actually taking acid, I would definitely check this out.

The Trip is now out on region B Blu-ray from Signal One Entertainment.