"..an above average programmer about San Francisco hippies. Thin story line...is sufficient as the medium for a series of incidents, including drug-induced hallucinations, all directed in excellent fashion by Richard Rush. Production is strong on realistic location values, as well as special effects..Most principals register strong impact, Strasberg via reaction, Nicholson via action, and Stockwell through a combination of both. Dern's flamboyant performance is partly justified by script.Rush's direction is quite exceptional. Considering what coin he had to play with, it is worthy of 20 times the apparent budget."
- Variety

"..the film, directed by Richard Rush, has considerable elan...There are a lot of beads and spangles and prisms and fabric and pads. The onturnage and the outfreaking leave room for a lot of surreal and science-fiction effects - although Miss Strasberg's STP delusions are not ver imaginative. What is most interesting, though, it that the demands of plot seem to make it necessary to superimpose the structure of a Western onto hippie life."
- Renata Adler, The New York Times

"Any serious intentions have long since vanished; gloriously goofy dialogue ("C'mon! Warren's freakin' out at the gallery!") and psychedelic Laszlo Kovacs camerawork make this - depending on your age and sensibility - either amusing nostalgia or a campy embarrassment."
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide

"This film is a must-see. It's populated with so many names that would go on to far better projects that curiosity alone should attract viewers. In addition, it's not that bad a film...Direction by Rush...gets inside the world of San Francisco's hippie culture, giving a fairly accurate portrait of the place and times. His use of overlap and creations of hallucinations are good without seeming the least bit forced. He shows all sides of the hippie world, the good and the bad. Be-ins, dope, and the foraging of food from garbage cans are all included with directness and a good realistic feel...The single biggest detriment to the film is the "acid rock" played by such underground luminaries as the Seeds and the Strawberry Alarm Clock."
- TV Guide

"...It's a lot of fun. This is the best of all the biker and drug films that AIP produced during the era...Also, it's interesting seeing what Hollywood's conception of Haight-Ashbury was when it was the mecca for the counterculture."
- Danny Peary, Guide For the Film Fanatic

"The best Haight-Ashbury drug film...With lots of bad rock music by phony bands plus one terrible real band - the Strawberry Alarm Clock."
- Michael Weldon, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film

"Good, fun Haight-Ashbury drug movie...The film delves only superficially into the hippie problem and tends to be more exploitational than insightful."
- Alan Betnock, The I Was a Teenage Juvenile Delinquent Rock 'N' Roll Horror Beach Party Movie Book

"A Typical AIP quickie put together in an instant bid to cash in on the 'Summer of Love', its action eventually amounting to a slam-bang compendium of every hippy cliché from the bad trip to the redneck rumble. The plot, which has a deaf girl (Strasberg) scouring San Francisco's Haight Ashbury for her missing brother (a crazed Dern), is hard to take. But if you can accept the clichés and archaisms, as well as some third-rate acid rock from The Seeds and Strawberry Alarm Clock, there are compensations: some beautifully baroque performances (Dern and Stockwell in particular), Laszlo Kovacs' effective visualisation of Strasberg's bad STP trip, the spectacle (as irresistible as it is preposterous) of Jack Nicholson sporting lead guitar at the Fillmore." - David Pirie, TimeOut Film Guide

"...a surprisingly realistic slice of countercultural life, Haight-Ashbury style. Like the better American International films of the period, it was made quickly with little time for screenwriting, yet it shows authenticity and sincerity in its treatment of the hippie lifestyle."
- Jay Schwartz, Hollywood Rock

"That's 'psych' as in psychedelic, man, and 'out' as in far. One of the last independent exploitation films made before the hippies took over Hollywood and got all serious...Worth watching for a pony-tailed Nicholson's attempt to fake a Purple Haze style riff alone, this is a surprisingly well realised low budget freak out."
- Channel 4

"With an adventurous (if occasionally clichéd) script, strong performances, and excellent camerawork by the legendary Lazlo Kovacs, this film moves beyond what could have been a semi-sleazy expose of the free-loving flower children. Instead, it's an engaging hybrid of AIP's horror/biker flicks...and the experimental, character-driven 1970s cinema to come. Best of all, it is neither anti- nor pro-drugs. In depicting both the spiritually liberating and destructive aspects of LSD, it's still years ahead of its time; the psychedelic effects are at once scary and hilarious in a way that will captivate the kitsch crowd, the best of both worlds."
- Erich Kuersten, PopMatters

"Rush has made some good films (The Stunt Man, The Savage Seven) and some stinkers (Color of Night) in his very sporadic career. The screenplay by E. Hunter Willett and Betty Ulius is chock full of stupid, unrealistic dialogue, often poorly organized and doesn't make sense. Yet Rush and a good cast that includes Nicholson, Dern, Susan Strasberg, and Dean Stockwell manage to make a decent movie out of practically nothing."
- Bill Treadway, DVD Verdict

"...Dick Clark and Richard Rush's Psych-Out is a laughable and embarrassing attempt to cash in on the hippie craze....The hippie jargon is so thick and overdone, with everyone decked out in full flower-power regalia, that pros like Bruce Dern and Dean Stockwell look silly. The fun is seeing the fave actors of David Lynch and other latter-day directors make utter fools of themselves...Two reels longer than The Trip, as soon as the novelty of seeing the stars play flower children wears out, Psych-Out can't end soon enough."
- Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant

"Of all the films that have tried to sum up the atmosphere of San Francisco in the late sixties, the one that really made an effort to plant the viewer there at the time was Psych-Out, a Dick Clark production after he expressed the wish to make a snapshot film of the era....But there's an agenda, and that's to show all this drug experimentation is not necessarily a good thing; whether that was the decision of the filmmakers or a sop to the censors I don't know, but there is an oh-so-predictable tragic ending....If this sounds depressing, it's actually kind of exciting, and gags like the one which compares the peace and love generation to Christ and his disciples at least show a sense of kidding irony. Psych-Out may be a relic of the sixties, but it's also highly enjoyable."
Graeme Clark, The Spinning Edge

Compiled by Jeff Stafford