Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Hallucination Strip Blu-ray Movie Review

A trip in need of a map.

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf May 6, 2014

“Hallucination Strip” (a.k.a. “Roma Drogata” and “The Hallucinating Trip”) is an apt title for a movie that tends to wander around in a daze, never quite accomplishing anything as it serves up a feast of flesh and social commentary. The 1975 effort from director Lucio Marcaccini (unsurprisingly, his only feature) seeks to understand what the kids of Italy are up to as drugs and dissent flood the streets, but its appetite for concern is short-lived, with more concentration placed on sex and surreal adventures into psychedelics, limiting the world-changing impact the picture seems intent on achieving in its early going. “Hallucination Strip” is interesting in fits, but its ambition is more fascinating than its execution, with Marcaccini not exactly guiding the endeavor, he’s just surviving it, hoping random jabs at profundity will cover the film’s lack of absorption when it comes to the details of discontent and the weight of mistakes.

The youth of Italy is in a state of emergency, with teenagers beginning to call out older generations as economic disparity widens, leaving the kids without a future to call their own. Involved in the charge is Massimo (Bud Cort), a young man with drug connections who’s currently involved with Cinzia (Annarita Grapputo). In a quest to cause a ruckus and fund their misadventures, Massimo and Cinzia decide to rob her parents, taking a valuable snuff box. The theft triggers interest from Commissioner De Stefani (Marcel Bozzuffi), who’s determined to find the culprit as he hunts for ways to disrupt Italy’s underworld of drug dealers, including big fish The Sicilian. Figuring out a plan to help dear friends escape the country, Massimo is approached by Rudy (Settimio Segnatelli), an emotionally fragile teen with an overprotective mother who wants his 18th birthday to be special, representing his flight into adult responsibility. However, the chemical recreation Massimo provides for the gathering proves to be too strong for some, compounding his troubles as De Stefani turns his attention to him.

Although it’s not a kitchen sink viewing experience, “Hallucination Strip” comes close, attempting to braid social unrest, police procedural, and juvenile delinquent subplots into a single, flavorful picture. It’s obvious from the get-go that Marcaccini doesn’t have control of the production, which establishes itself as a maddening faces and places effort, introducing a slew of characters without making these varied personalities stick beyond vague surface details, creating needless confusion. “Hallucination Strip” eventually settles down in terms of characterization, but it’s a bumpy flight, with concentration wavering between Massimo’s interests in the world around him and De Stefani’s investigation, which weaves through the snuff box incident and the introduction of The Sicilian. There’s also a serial killer story of sorts stumbling around the perimeter, with an unknown force picking off the drug distributors of the city, creating what should be a tense mood of paranoia, bit it mostly registers as additional befuddlement, finding elements of the shadowy antagonist too vague to contribute meaningfully to the story. And who could forget Rudy, the dour young man wrestling with incestuous urges concerning his obsessive mother, leaving him a scattered figure in need of chemical salvation, trusting his birthday trip (a “liberation rite”) will expand his mind in necessary directions.

There’s much to take in during “Hallucination Strip,” but there’s little narrative glue holding it together. It’s a grab-bag viewing experience that tries to tap into contemporary issues, maintaining Massimo as a sort of teen intellectual with a front of worldly knowledge, participating in marches and debates, representing the anti-establishment mindset as privileged youth gather to disrupt their consumerist society. And DeStefani is the old guard, a wizened cop who knows exactly what type of trouble awaits the youth of the city, working to clean up the drug trade to prevent disasters that turn viable teenagers into acid-shredded zombies. The opposing viewpoints are intriguing (weirdly, the effort eventually sides with the adults), but “Hallucination Strip” plays out in fits of incident, eventually stopping altogether to celebrate Rudy’s pill-popping ascension into the far reaches of his own mind, presented in a surreal freak-out sequence that contains performance art, Freudian imagery, and plant-based acts of evolution. Why? Because the movie needed an extra ten minutes, albeit a laudably designed ten minutes that should satisfy admirers of psychedelic cinema.

Hallucination Strip Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The VC-1 encoded image (1.85:1 aspect ratio) presentation is labeled as a "new HD transfer from the original 35mm negative," and it looks the part, but only somewhat, offering a satisfactory look of freshness with only minor disruptions, including speckling, noise, and judder, and the source material switches for one domestic scene, highlighting a brief drop in quality. Detail is reserved throughout the feature due to some noticeable filtering, with crisp textures occasionally on view to deepen pained faces and Italian locations, while costuming retains its fibrous foundations, and fleshy particulars are captured adequately. There's crush present with intense blacks and evening encounters, but most distances and depths are open for inspection. Colors are pushed comfortably, creating vibrant reds and blues with clothing styles, and street life is preserved through natural hues. Skintones look accurate, but a little bloodless.

Hallucination Strip Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 2.0 LPCM mix is a volatile collection of elements, finding soundtrack selections arriving with a startling crispness that picks out instrumentation and musical lift with ease. However, the pronunciation of the music doesn't blend smoothly with the rest of the track, which carries the typical dull edges of a foreign film from the 1970s. The balance is a tad off, lacking consistency, but it's not a deal-breaker in terms of the listening experience. Dialogue exchanges are perfectly intelligible, with dubbing coming through without distortion, and atmospherics are thickly defined but available. Outside of the songs, which sound deep and energized, the track is thin but routine, never bleeding into painfully shrill highs.

Hallucination Strip Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Booklet contains eight pages devoted to an exploration of director Lucio Marcaccini's brief career and an essay about psychedelia.

• Interview (19:21, SD) with editor Giulio Berruti is a candid conversation about the shaping of "Hallucination Strip" after director Marcaccini proved himself completely incapable of keeping the shoot together. Beruiti's honesty keeps the chat interesting, explaining how early he joined the production to help sort through a mess of footage and egos, with Cort especially lost, unable to shake his "Harold and Maude" success. The featurette helps to explain the picture's scattered appearance and editorial indulgences, and Berruti is willing to share some key BTS information, creating a portrait of a wayward film that never knew what it wanted to be.

• An Italian Theatrical Trailer (3:06, HD) and its English counterpart (3:06, HD) are also included.

Hallucination Strip Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Hallucination Strip" hints at certain developments that could apply needed pressure on Massimo, but nothing is seen to fruition. Instead, the movie wanders from scene to scene, working with a dazed performance from Cort (he seems as baffled with the material as the viewer), a persistent theme song in "We've Got a Lord," and a strange dusting of Catholic guidance, with the cops evoking the Commandments as a way to justify their cause. Marcaccini submits a few stimulating ideas and isolates a specific cultural irritation that's worth dissecting, but he's often lost trying to make sense out of the production. The unfortunate reality is that there's no real logic in play here, just a series of sensorial offerings masquerading as an ongoing narrative. "Hallucination Strip" works just fine as a European curiosity from the 1970s, but anyone expecting to be wrapped up in this generational struggle is going to walk away deeply disappointed.