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Watching This Film Makes You Hallucinate

Toni's Film Club

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The Flicker (1966) is one of the strangest experiments ever put on film. After reading reports that it made the audience hallucinate, obviously I had to see it for myself.

Directed by Tony Conrad - an artist with a math degree from Harvard University, the film has no story, no characters, no plot - but just 30 minutes of black and white frames flashing at very specific frequencies and a soundtrack built from homemade electronic instruments.

If you plan on seeing it for yourself, PLESE be careful and immediately stop if you feel even a little bit off.

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Chapters:
0:00 Strange Movie Experience
0:16 The Science Behind Tony Conrad’s Experiment
3:43 Watching "The Flicker"
12:50 Experimental Films

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Toni’s Film Club blends in-depth research with lighthearted humor to pull back the curtain on the film world, from its history to the current state of the industry. The channel features interviews with filmmakers, exclusive behind-the-scenes access, expert analysis, and a healthy dose of silly jokes.

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20 Comments

@Johnconno 1 month ago Pinned

That's classified MK Ultra material you've stumbled across.

@Rr0gu3_5uture 1 month ago

I've worked in manufacturing and warehousing for 30+ years and have repeatedly experienced a similar weird phenomenon to the one featured in the film. One large distribution warehouse I worked in about 12 years ago had a semi-derelict area used for temporary storage and customer returns. It had originally been an old lightbulb factory in the 1970s and basically hadn't been renovated since. So, aesthetically it was kinda, pretty freaky to begin with.

Pretty much all the lighting was on its last legs - old, faulty fluorescent tubes with big, huge rusty magnetic ballasts. The flickering seemed to produce such a weird frequency that people would report all sorts of strange experiences: unease/anxiety, altered visual perception, feeling watched, peripheral dark shapes and a strange, woozy dreamlike state.

It was genuinely very weird. You basically couldn't work in that area for more than 20 minutes before you'd start freaking out. And it wasn't just me, everyone else who worked there reported experiencing exactly the same thing.

@shainedupuis2649 1 month ago

As somebody who loves hallucinating but also has epilepsy, this one probably isn't for me. I'll stick to mushrooms lol

@noxxtromonoctis5295 1 month ago

All hail the Hypnotoad!

@SkiffoniusDankour 1 month ago

Excuse me, I have stacks of DVDs and VHS tapes to write creepy messages on and leave in random public places.

@punchb 1 month ago

I'm guessing the effect would have been stronger if he hadn't talked all the time, since the sound track was supposed to be part of it.

@averyellis 1 month ago

It’s like loading an acid trip the way you used to have to load a computer program from a cassette for 40 minutes back in the day

@educostanzo 1 month ago

Sir, Gaspar Noé is saying he wants his dvd back

@nobreakingthepickle3452 1 month ago

Somebody make a VR version of this, I want to hallucinate the whole world around me lol

@AnAbsurdistFemaphrodyke 1 month ago

I was exposed to this in the 70’s. In the 90’s I used 5 different videos that were on the same basis but with color and subliminal messaging for over a year on a daily basis. What does it mean that I would rather live in that trippy feeling than in real life? I love these kind of movies and hate when they are over. When I come back, the disorientation lasts longer. I have not played with these kinds of movies since. I actually studied these phenomenon when taking classes on Neurology and Diseases of the Brain. Nostalgia.

@crackedpot_christian 1 month ago

There's a cycle path close to me, tree lined and when cycling towards the sun, as it streaks through the trees, the flickering freaks me out. I feel sick and disoriented and have to stop to regain my senses. It happens anytime its bright sunshine.

@justdh 2 weeks ago

I remember being irresponsible with a strobe light once...

@poepflater 1 month ago

It is said that dreaming is to prevent neighbouring parts of the brain from taking over the parts used by the visual cortex when there is no input... like in blind people. I suspect hallucination has something to do with this protection mechanism.

@kitcarson5136 1 month ago

brion gysin created the dream machine in 1959 using light flickering at a specific rate to induce hallucination.

@MermaidMakes 2 days ago

Tony Conrad did a great album with the krautrock band Faust, who were actually given a blank check by Polydor Records because they had convinced the record company that they'd be the next Beatles...

@ph0rd 1 month ago

The film is a series of still frames meant to be displayed at a constant rate. Unless the video frame rate was synchronized perfecfly, the result will not be as effective as intended.

@glitchyfruit2004 1 month ago

I should watch this with my girlfriend and her 4 year old nephew. I’m sure a kid who just learned the alphabet is going to be able to understand this.

@SpongeLab 3 weeks ago

Tony also made some music which has similar effects. He was a member of the Theatre of Eternal Music with La Monte Young, John Cale, and Terry Riley; they made music using drones and relied heavily on repetition. His LP with the German rock group Faust is quite outstanding and worth checking out!

@roswell0747 1 month ago

As I recall, the Bell system did research on lamp flash rates to make sure the the flash or wink rates of indicating lights would not cause neurological effects. They chose 60 IPM and 120 IPM as safe values (IPM is impulses per minute).

Looking at newer office phone systems the flash rates are much higher on LED lights and I realize that designers probably don't take the old research into account.

One particularly memorable scene in a movie involving the initiation of an epileptic fit by flashing lights is in the Andromeda strain when Dr. Leavitt sees a rapidly flashing red light on her computer screen.

Thank you for your film. And, yes, you do look a bit lost and out of it when you finished watching it. Not sure I'm going to put that one on my bucket list.