Bad Trips | Grok Video Smoke Test

Why this test exists

The prompts were chosen to pressure prompt adherence, temporal coherence, embedded audio, visual variety, content-policy handling, and retry behavior. They are an evaluation artifact, not a polished art project. The disturbing subject matter is part of the test shape and is presented without glamorizing it.

Every prompt is reproduced verbatim beside its clip. The labels and limitations keep the generation boundary clear.

Verified results

10 prompts and 10 completed videos
100 seconds total
848×480 H.264 video at 24 fps with AAC audio
Electronic audio requested on every clip
One clip was initially rejected by content policy and completed on retry with the prompt unchanged
xAI OAuth route
$8.00 equivalent measured usage

Limits of the evidence

There was no human preference study. This page makes no claim of artistic authorship and no claim that the result proves general model quality. Sound can be incidental, and the clips are short.

Contact sheet overview of the ten Bad Trips smoke-test videos — Fast overview only. Each clip below is the evidence record.

Full record / 10 clips

Prompts and outputs

Dead Mall

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A genuinely disturbing bad-trip vision inside an infinite 1990s shopping mall at 3 AM. Escalators bend upward into impossible loops, store shutters inhale and exhale, and pale mannequins turn their heads exactly one frame too late. Sick fluorescent green, sodium orange, dirty VHS bloom, slow predatory camera glide, tactile realism, no gore, no real people, no text, no logos. Sound: fluorescent electrical hum mutates into granular industrial electro, sub-bass pressure, irregular metal percussion, no speech.

Drowned Datacenter

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A submerged cathedral-sized data center at the bottom of a black ocean. Server racks pulse like organs without becoming graphic, fiber cables swim like translucent eels, bubbles fall downward, and a tiny maintenance light approaches from a corridor that cannot fit inside the building. Cyan bioluminescence, crushing darkness, drifting macro particles, slow underwater dolly, surreal photorealism, no gore, no people, no text, no logos. Sound: cavernous dub techno, sonar pings, wet modular bass, distant corrupted choir pads, no speech.

Puppet Weather

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A cursed late-1970s children's television weather report broadcast from a parallel universe. Handmade felt clouds grin too long, a cardboard sun blinks sideways, the smiling moon unfolds into a spiraling tunnel, and the studio horizon leaks chromatic static. Authentic analog videotape tracking damage, oversaturated primary colors, stop-motion unease, no gore, no real people, no readable text, no logos. Sound: detuned toy synthesizer, broken music-box melody, squelching acid pulse, warped tape laughter transformed into percussion, no intelligible speech.

Dental Labyrinth

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A brutalist dental waiting room that keeps rebuilding itself while the camera watches. Vinyl chairs crawl a few centimeters whenever the lights flicker, doors open onto smaller copies of the same room, stainless instruments orbit silently behind frosted glass, and the ceiling lowers without arriving. Cold clinical white, nicotine yellow, impossible perspective, severe slow zoom, no gore, no patients, no text, no logos. Sound: compressor breathing, electro-acoustic clicks, low sine-wave dread, arrhythmic kick drums, no speech.

Black Sun Payphones

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A limitless desert beneath a perfectly black sun, filled with giant obsolete payphones ringing in unison. Sand streams upward into the receivers, telephone cords root into the dunes, shadows point toward the camera, and the horizon folds like paper. Harsh midday clarity with ultraviolet color fringes, wide anamorphic lens, violent but non-graphic surrealism, no people, no text, no logos. Sound: distorted gabber kick at an unstable tempo, telephone bells stretched into metallic drones, granular wind, sub-bass shockwaves, no speech.

Porcelain Ballroom

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A decaying rococo ballroom populated by porcelain automata dancing a waltz with movements that are almost human but geometrically wrong. Every mirror shows a different dance, faces remain smooth blank masks, chandeliers grow downward through the floor, and duplicates accumulate with each camera orbit. Moonlit blue, candle amber, powdery dust, elegant body horror without injury or gore, no real people, no text, no logos. Sound: spectral IDM built from cracked porcelain taps, reversed string fragments, asymmetrical bass rhythm, no speech.

Cubicle Machine

Prompt reproduced verbatim

An endless office of gray cubicles moving on conveyor belts through a huge non-graphic biomechanical sorting machine. Printers spit blank paper that crawls away like insects, desk lamps track the camera, coffee ripples upward, and every computer wakes to the same pulsing black square. Drab corporate realism ruptured by impossible machinery, handheld documentary camera, no gore, no people, no readable text, no logos. Sound: hostile musique concrete from printers and staplers, dry electro beat, modem shrieks used as rhythm, deep mechanical throb, no speech.

Hungry Reflection

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A rain-soaked city at midnight seen entirely through a puddle reflection. The reflected traffic and buildings begin moving independently of the real world, streetlights bend into teeth-like arches without gore, and the reflection rises vertically until it swallows the skyline and camera. Noir black, magenta signage without readable lettering, liquid lens distortions, deliberate cinematic pacing, no people, no text, no logos. Sound: dark ambient bass, slowed breakbeat fragments, rain becoming digital hiss, distant metallic impacts, no speech.

CRT Forest

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A dense midnight forest where hundreds of old CRT televisions grow from tree trunks. Every screen displays a different eye-shaped weather radar, mushrooms pulse in impossible synchronization, roots crawl over the lens, and the stars rearrange into a staring circuit diagram. Psychedelic ultraviolet fungus colors, phosphor scanlines, wet macro texture, escalating camera panic, no gore, no people, no readable text, no logos. Sound: modular synthesizer arpeggios detune into insect rhythms, subharmonic drone, television static percussion, no speech.

Memory Museum

Prompt reproduced verbatim

A sterile white contemporary museum during a severe psychedelic breakdown. Minimal sculptures liquefy into floating black geometry, corridors become Möbius strips, security cameras bloom like flowers, and the camera begins passing earlier versions of itself in every room. Stark white and absolute black with sudden red spectral splits, impossible continuous shot, accelerating spatial collapse, disturbing but non-graphic, no people, no text, no logos. Sound: precise breakcore dissolving into long granular tones, gallery HVAC bass, alarm-like synth intervals without an actual alarm or speech.