UK censors pass Jack's Trip after 35 years

A cult Jack Nicholson movie which has been effectively banned in the UK for 35 years has finally been given a certificate by censors.

The Trip – a film Nicholson wrote and which starred Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda – was rejected twice for its vivid depiction of LSD use which prompted fears that viewers might imitate.

But now the British Board Of Film Classification has agreed the film can have an 18 certificate.

It said that granting the rating was something of a “minor landmark” after such a length of time.

The BBFC said: “The board concluded that its portrayal of the hallucinogenic experience was unlikely to convince a modern viewer of and took account also of the film’s depiction of the downside as well as the pleasure of drug use.”

The 75-minute film has now been passed without any cuts.

The film was made two years before Fonda and Hopper teamed up to appear in the road movie classic Easy Rider.

In the Trip, Fonda plays a TV commercial director who tires of smoking marijuana and decides to move on to hallucinogenic drugs.

The film is widely known as the finest depiction of an acid trip.

The cult movie was originally turned down for a cinema release in 1967 and then again for a video release at the end of 1988.

There have been special one-off screenings for which a certificate is not always needed and it has been available to buy overseas for many years.

Movie firm MGM holds the rights to the film but it is not known when it will be given an official video or DVD release in the UK.