By William Blick.
A zany yet suspenseful cinematic experience.”
I saw the phrase, “after the plague, came the renaissance,” scribbled on a subway station wall and thought it was perhaps somewhat applicable to the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. It seems that there has been a huge surge of creativity including the production of independent films about Covid and the post-Covid world. Several genre hybrids have emerged with the pandemic as a theme and a backdrop. There has particularly been a surge in magical realism, sci-fi, and horror indie films in this vein.
A Trip Elsewhere, directed by J.R. Sawyers and co-written by Sawyers and Jay Gutierrez, is a late entry into the trend, here invoking science fiction and magical realism. The plot appears straight-forward but soon unearths a bizarre narrative. A group of four vaguely affiliated people gather to drop acid out of boredom during the pandemic. By accident, the group takes a massive overdose of LSD, resulting in weird events in altered realities. The group experiences a cathartic, transcendental dream-like state with confusing temporal-spatial disorientations. A hallucinogenic fantasia-like state emerges from chaos, leaving the characters to question their very existence and individual life struggles. They work to resolve internal conflicts to reestablish reality.
Like other indie films of this kind, a struggle with budget limitations is obvious, like the white noise of other Covid-era films. However, Sawyers makes this one tick. The dialogue creates a snarky, sardonic tone with humor and absurdity. As the group descends into the transcendental world, things veer off in unexpected directions, and the film shows some creative innovation and suspenseful developments.
The film is not without flaws. The acting is somewhat rudimentary, yet serviceable enough to move the above-average narrative arcs. The limitations of the production budget are ever present and yet the film still entertains. However, the dream-within-a-dream trope is overbearing at times and difficult to follow, such as when Sorina (Andrea Geones) wakes up again and again looking for her daughter, Sarah (Artemis Grace Jalali). While supposedly suspenseful and surreal, it comes off as clunky. The characters are basically stand-ins to a host of abstract concepts, while the parallel story arcs of real-world interaction and the LSD/“Land of the Lost” does not exactly work wonders for the film.

That said, hats off to Sawyers for realizing a zany yet suspenseful cinematic experience. Despite the humor and overall bizarre happenings, Sawyers addresses themes such as death, loneliness, loss, regret, depression, and the challenges that unite all humans. While not necessarily groundbreaking, A Trip Elsewhere keeps viewers on their toes and does ultimately become poignant and thought-provoking despite its limitations.
William Blick is a film and literary/crime fiction critic; a librarian; and an academic scholar. His work has been featured in Senses of Cinema, Film Threat, Cineaction, and CinemaRetro, and he is a frequent contributor to Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of Noircon. His crime fiction has been featured in Close to the Bone, Pulp Metal Magazine, Out of the Gutter, and others. He is an Assistant Professor/Librarian for the City University of New York.