Whatever you are expecting -- nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing can prepare you for the viewing experience of Alejandro Jodorowsky's **THE HOLY MOUNTAIN**. If Warhol, Salvador Dali, David Lynch and Roald Dahl made a film together, you might get something like Jodorowsky's surrealist **THE HOLY MOUNTAIN**. Either the work of a genius, madman, or both -- Jodorowsky's film is a taboo-breaking, avant-garde fever dream that meanders from one shocking tableau to another. Narratively, the film seems designed to provoke or enlighten its viewers with endless religious imagery, death and fertility tropes that even today, 53 years after its release, still elicits strong reactions for or against it. The film earns its blasphemous epithet -- and seemingly wears it like a badge of honor, with its 'thief' (Horacio Salinas) not-so-subtly depicted as Jesus Christ, who ascends a Tolkien-esque tower to meet the mysterious Alchemist (Jodorowsky). Once there, the Thief and the Alchemist join forces with seven other worldly, wealthy elites who plot together to ascend the fabled Holy Mountain and overthrow nine immortal gods in their own bid to achieve immortality. Any semblance to the Heaven’s Gate death cult of the 1990s is, of course, purely coincidence.  With graphic depictions of lechery, avarice, barbarism, animal sacrifices\* and -- yes -- even transmogrifying human excrement into literal gold -- Jodorowsky's **THE HOLY MOUNTAIN** is such a hallucinatory viewing experience, you might wonder if you accidentally licked a Sonoran Desert Toad (reportedly Jodorowsky administered psychedelics to his cast members during filming). With breathtaking visuals, and memorable artistic set pieces -- love it or hate it, Jodorowsky's film is both a sacrilegious metaphor for the degradations of the modern world, and a warning to live one's life with authenticity and meaning. \*Unfortunately, some animals are reported to have been actually harmed during the making of this film.