Hollywood and drugs go hand in hand, both within movie storylines and in real-life celebrity lifestyles. Here are 15 examples of fictional pharmaceutical drugs featured in movies and the real drugs that might achieve the same effects — in case you’re ever, you know, possessed by the devil or come down with a case of pyrokinesis.
Movie: Brain Candy
Drug: GLeeMONEX
Purpose: Antidepressant
Side Effect: A coma-like state of euphoria
Safer Alternative: Nortriptyline
Movie: The Constant Gardner
Drug: Dypraxa
Purpose: To fight tuberculosis
Side Effect: Death
Safer Alternative: Isoniazid
Movie: The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Drug: Gambutrol
Purpose: To control epileptic seizures
Side Effect: Makes you immune to exorcisms
Safer Alternative: Keppra
Movie: Alien Nation
Drug: Digitalis
Purpose: Sedative
Side Effect: Enslavement by an alien race
Safer Alternative: Xanax
Movie: Repo! The Genetic Opera
Drug: Zydrate
Purpose: Painkiller, extracted from corpses
Side Effects: Highly addictive, leaves the taste of corpse in your mouth
Safer Alternative: Naproxen
Movies: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Freddy vs. Jason
Drug: Hypnocil
Purpose: To suppress dreams
Side Effect: An enraged Freddy Krueger
Safer Alternative: Prazosin
Movie: Jacob’s Ladder
Drug: Ladder
Purpose: To increase aggression in soldiers
Side Effects: Hallucinations, indiscriminately killing fellow soldiers
Safer Alternative: Caffeine
Movie: Equilibrium
Drug: Prozium
Purpose: To suppress emotion
Side Effect: Turns you into a humorless prick who doesn’t watch movies or listen to music; on the bright side, you look cool holding a gun
Safer Alternative: Prozac, anger management classes
Movie: Misery
Drug: Novril
Purpose: Painkiller
Side Effect: Sedative effect makes it hard to escape from deranged fans holding you captive
Safer Alternative: Extra-strength Ibuprofen (non-drowsy)
Movie: Max Payne
Drug: Valkyr
Purpose: To increase strength and fighting ability
Side Effects: Insanity, acting like Mark Wahlberg
Safer Alternative: Creatine, Jet Li movies
Movie: Firestarter
Drug: Dilysergic Triune Acid
Purpose: To create psychic abilities
Side Effect: Subjects who don’t volunteer could get mad at you for dosing them against their will and then set you on fire with their minds
Safer Alternative: Don’t try to create psychic abilities
Movie: Scanners
Drug: Ephemerol
Purpose: To suppress telepathic powers
Side Effect: May give your children telepathic powers (Oh, cruel irony!)
Safer Alternative: A tin foil hat
Movie: The Running Man
Drug: Ortho Pure Procreation Pills
Purpose: To become pregnant
Side Effect: A baby
Safer Alternative: Don’t make us explain
Movie: Dune
Drug: Melange
Purpose: Lengthen life, cause ESP, facilitate space travel
Side Effects: Blue eyes, physical mutations, tedious movies
Safer Alternative: Read the book
Movie: Children of Men
Drug: Quietus
Purpose: Peaceful suicide
Side Effects: Death
Safer Alternative: Life