Alright, I haven’t done a top ten list in a while and I think this is the one that gets me back into list making. I had a great conversation with some fellow movie critics and bloggers the other night, which led to us talking about Looper and the eye dropper drugs. I will admit, along with science fiction movies, I love the concept of drugs evolving along with time. Future Drugs are my jam and I love seeing what filmmakers will come up with in terms of creating fictional drugs that are just a plot device or a piece setting for movie and character. Looper for instance had Levitt using an eye dropper to give him a high. I am sure that wasn’t Visine, but it did lead to some trippy effects and side effects to the user.
So why not compile my list of favorite movie drugs, sci-fi and non sci-fi. Like most lists, I am not necessarily ranking one over the other, it’s just that I picked 10 movie drugs that I enjoy and remember from movies. So hold your outrage of some drugs not getting a higher ranking over another drug. Take some pills and relax.
1. Substance D – A Scanner Darkly
A designer drug within the movie that acts as a hallucinogenic drug that splits the the two hemispheres of the users brain and pits them against one another. The drugs effects can be seen in the opening sequence of the film where the user begins to see vivid hallucinations and the rotoscoping of the movie gives off a constant feeling of a psychological trip. Two parts of your brain battling for control. One hell of a future drug.
2. Moloko Plus – A Clockwork Orange
Nothing was truly ever said about what exactly Milk Plus or its counterparts at the Korova Milk Bar did to the user. It was a milk cocktail that apparently mixed in different drugs that were postured at readying the user for a night of the old Ultra-Violence. It could be said that the milk was mixed amphetamines in order to produce alertness and increased activity in the user so they are constantly at a knifes edge away from violence and outbursts. It makes sense since they go out and commit violent acts against people after drinking it.
3. Quietus – Children of Men
Drugs are often used as a mechanism to escape reality, something that takes you away from your current state of mind only to transport you to a euphoric plane of existence. So Quietus is a bit different in terms of a future drug, this isn’t so much a recreational drug, but rather a drug that allows the user to completely escape reality. It’s a government issues suicide kit. Fairly fucking dark entry into this list, but the notion of this existing and being pushed by all the governments in a world where no children are being born is not something to trifle with. It’s the ultimate escapism for a drug user.
4. Nuke – Robocop 2
This was fucking ridiculous as a drug. It was packaged in this little capsule with an injection needle that you pushed into the side of your neck and shot this bright orange Sunny D looking liquid into your body. It was a wicked drug that caused instant addiction and was a commentary on the crack epidemic that was sweeping America.
5. Melange Spice – Dune
The Spice is what controls the universe. A spice that is mined on a planet called Arrakis which is able to fold space and time for navigators in order to make interstellar travel possible. How you may ask is this possible that a drug can make space travel easier? Well the spice grants the user heightened awareness, vitality, longer lifespans and even unlocking presience in some users. A drug like that could open the doors for massive expansion in other galaxies and thus control the fate of travel.
6. Slow-Mo – Dredd 3D
Now this is probably the most graphic, awesome drug out there. Slow-Mo is a drug designed to give the illusion that the brain is operating at 1% normal speed, effectively slowing down the processing center of the brain and giving the drug user this heady high as they watch time slow. In Dredd 3D, this is more or less used to give us some of the most graphic gunshots and violent shootouts around.
7. NZT-48 – Limitless
So there is a pill that essentially transforms you into Bradley Cooper? I want this future pill. NZT-48 is a smart pill in Limitless, granting the ability of a razor sharp, super focused mind that has the ability to recall and and rewire the brain for maximum effectiveness. It also apparently works as an aphrodisiac as Cooper just starts bedding women left and right Two for one special!
8. Prozium – Equilibrium
The most boring drug ever comes from Equilibrium. The drug that is meant to suppress emotion and feelings, it’s a docile drug that keeps the people of Libria from forming attachment and emotions, which is said to be the root of all wars in the movie. Make sure your intervals are regular.
9. G-23 paxilon hydrochlorate – Serenity
G-23 also known as PAX, was a drug developed by the government in Serenity on the Planet Miranda which was used on the populace to limit and reduce aggression. The idea was that the suppression of anger and rage, would make the population easy to control. The drug worked too well, causing the citizens to basically have no feelings or motivation in life, thus lying down in the streets and dying. The side effect, which if you can believe that people lying down and dying isn’t a side effect enough, 1% of the population ended having a much more negative effect. The famous Reavers of the series were created because of the drug, enhance their aggression and turned them into murderous, cannibalistic savages that apparently had the ability to travel through space with no issues.
10. Zydrate – Repo! The Genetic Opera
A little glass vial that once taken produces are wonderful, euphoric feeling that numbs the user to a lot of things, specifically to medical procedures. The drug in the movie is meant to be used during medical procedures, typically with organ transplants and implants. You shoot it at the part of the body that you want numb, making the procedure tolerable, but over abuse of it leads to a feel good time.
