Mondo Mod

MONDO MOD is aptly described by its trailer as "the film that took a trip and never came back!!!" It attempts to document the hip "mod" scene of the mid-60s and focuses solely on southern California. As a result, the film offers a very distorted look at the "youth culture" of that era. The most popular "mod" activities are, according to MONDO MOD: surfing, rioting, martial arts, Go-Karting, dancing, smoking pot and taking LSD, and riding motorcycles. The Vietnam War is never mentioned. A thirty-something acidhead and the young, very "mod"-stylish owner of a fashion boutique are interviewed. In my favorite scene the acidhead, wearing a mod-ified (no pun intended) executioner's mask to hide his identity, talks about his dozen LSD trips while he is purportedly tripping, and his interlocutor repeatedly turns to the camera to dispense a frightening anti-drug message that utterly contradicts the acidhead's statements. There are a few extended sequences with hot chicks dancing and systematically (not to say "semiprofessionally") disrobing. On the Something Weird Video DVD of MONDO MOD you can see two 7 minute reels of "alternate footage" from the film (with nudity excised from the theatrical release) and the ridiculously over-the-top trailer, plus a whole slew of other hippie-exploitation material.