Drug films don't particularly interest me, from what I've seen. At least those that try to simulate the experience of being on drugs don't, because I don't see drugs themselves as sacred and I don't think they show us anything that isn't already there. The psyche is ever present, psychedelics merely show it from a different place, inside the outside. This place exists with or without the drugs, the drugs simply are a key that fits a certain lock for a door to open to a point of view specific to that marriage between a certain chemical and part of the brain. This can produce incredible experiences that appear to show the inner-workings of everything through a loss of individual self that seems to automatically conform to everything as if it had always been that way, or at least that's how I interpret it. Many people see this as "god" or the "tao" or whatever, and it's been described in religion and mythology throughout history. Whether this is true or not is subjective, no one really knows. Plenty of films also describe this whether inspired by drugs or not (not the only way to get to this place, though probably the fastest), possibly often unintentionally (really it describes itself in mysterious ways). Others who have spent more time down the rabbit hole have more to say on this. So I cannot attribute "psychedelic" to any attitude or style, although the exploitation hippie films of the 60s look fun. I guess films that go for a surreal/psychedelic image can work, like the hilarious and fun Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. M, The Shining, The Matrix films, the Star Wars saga, Badlands, Metropolis, various David Lynch films, all of these I can relate to the trip experience.
Altered States is a sort of mystic sci-fi horror film, about an insufferable scientist obsessed with finding the ultimate truth, or "God." This overbearing guy rants and raves like a lunatic and waxes poetic about higher states of consciousness and how it relates to mental illness. He starts by using sensory deprivation tanks, which give him bizarre religious visions in which jesus masks are repeatedly thrown on this old man's face as he sleeps and cast off and burnt. Is this to symbolize the mask of time breaking up a singular timeless experience? I don't know, but there's some pretty nightmarish and powerful imagery in this scene. He belongs to a circle of scientist friends that must be from the 60s because they all have beards, wear scruffy clothes and smoke pot. A friend tells him about a tribe that uses mushrooms to induce visions, so he travels with his friend to meet the tribe. The tribe agrees to let him partake, and so he does, drinking a concoction of I don't know what and his own blood which they spill suddenly and without his consent. He drinks the potion and has weird visions of Adam and Eve and a cross in a field of flowers, and hellish visions of fire and lava and such. It's all very confusing. Despite his experience he leaves underwhelmed and in a huff, and as one of the tribesmen holds a goat horn in his hand one can only assume that something is afoot. Back home he continues to rant and rave in agitation and it's clear that something within him must be exorcised. Meanwhile his scientist friends and his wife become concerned about his behaviour and about the possible effect the concotion had on his brain chemistry, as apparently he's exhibiting genetic regression or something, as he has goat visions in the sensory deprivation tank. I really don't have a clue, someone with some knowledge of science may shed some light. Eventually he turns into some kind of man-ape, a man animal as it were, and he goes on a rampage, making the poor security guards scared that a monkey has escaped. He then goes to eat a goat at the zoo and the police show up. He returns home to his concerned wife and the next day I think there's a report of something like that in the news, leading him to the conclusion that his inner psyche must have released something into the outside world to commit these acts. I don't know, I watched it on youtube and the sound was poor. He insists against the warnings of his friends on going back into the tank, and seems to be reborn in the big bang or something, as he screams out in an explosion of colours. He finds himself back at his house and as some mad beast thing he reaches back for his wife, as if yearning to return to his human lie. And he does so, he comes to and joins once again with his woman in great relief, and no longer needs exorcised, calmer and no longer frenzied by the search for god.
I liked the film, and can relate to the main character, particularly in his final relief in the end after his heavy experience.
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