ALTERED STATES (DVD/ST&WS/5.1/TV SPOTS/TRAILERS)It’s easy to understand why the late, great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky removed his name from the credits of Altered States and substituted the pseudonym Sidney Aaron. After all, Chayefsky was a revered dramatist whose original source novel was intended as a serious exploration of altered consciousness, inspired by the immersion-tank experiments of Dr. John Lilly in the 1970s. In the hands of maverick director Ken Russell, however, Altered States became a full-on sensory assault, using symbolic imagery and mind- blowing special effects to depict one man’s physical and hallucinatory journey through the entire history of human evolution. It’s a brazenly silly film redeemed by its intellectual ambition–a dazzling extravaganza that’s in love with science and scientists, and eagerly willing to dive off the precipice of rationality to explore uncharted regions of mind, body, and spirit. William Hurt made his bold film debut as the psycho-physiologist who plays guinea pig to his own experiments; Blair Brown plays his equally brilliant wife, whose devotion is just strong enough to bring him back from the most altered state imaginable. From the eternal channels of sense memory to the restorative power of a loving embrace, this movie rocks you to the birth of the universe and back again. And while it’s clearly not the story that Chayefsky wanted on the screen, the directorial audacity of Ken Russell makes it one heck of a memorable trip. –Jeff Shannon
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March 5, 2010
#1
I’d happily soak up endless gallons of SWAK with my tongue, rather than watch this festering pile of crappola ever again!!!
March 5, 2010
#2
This is one of the most senseless pieces of junk I have ever watched! Someone was trying to hard to make a movie to get some attention from the media and felled! The movie looks really retro the effects look like grade school absurbity! There isn’t a plot just a fool that doesn’t know when to stop tampering with his health and the laws of nature. This movie is so ridiculious it gave me a headache and I had to lay down. Watch this at your own risk…its just something thrown together and not very well done or thought out in my opinion! And of coarse there is always the supportive wife that doesn’t know how to just run! This guy turns into a monkey and then he still doesn’t stop. So he turns into a big blob looking thing with one arm..trust me this is just awful! Then check this out! After he turns to this Jabba looking thing he touches his wife and she turns to some Lava image looking thing. Then she jerks around into a seisure until he snaps out of his state and he touches her and she is back to normal? Then the whole showing them for 5 mins turn to sand out in the desert was Preposterious! And the monkey wasn’t him nor was it a monkey, it was a totally different actor and it looked [contrived]! It looked like a man with hair all over his body and he was of Afro American decent and Willian Hurt is caucasian? Please people that is a bit much I could take or believe! I watch alot of phycological thrillers and this is just not very good…
This is just plain awful[]
If you want to see something that is better done than this and makes a bit more sense but similiar see “The Cell”
Arish
March 5, 2010
#3
Amanita muscaria generally grows in rainy areas under coniferous trees. It has historically been used by North Americans, European, Siberian peoples,(not those of central and south america who have other forms of psychedelic plants, ie ayahuasca, psilocybin mushroom, saliva divinorum, etc). Even if it were plausible that these were amanita mushrooms, do you think that this type of trip would have been likely….losing consciousness…to the point that you dont remember what happened during the trip? I dont think so…only someone utterly ignorant of the effects of psychedelics would posit such a thing.
So, that part is not realistic at all. Neither is the sensory deprivation tank (I have also used these types of tanks). The idea is complete sensory deprivation…Not speaking with someone while engaged in the experience!
March 5, 2010
#4
This movie was boring as all get out!!!! The Muppets Show have better special effects! William hurt should be forced to watch this film over and over again until he wets himself and promises never to do it again!!!!!!
March 5, 2010
#5
I saw this film on TV several years ago, and started watching it because William Hurt is one of my favorite actors. I got as far as the monkey man scene and turned it off, it was so ridiculous and just plain bad. I can probably count on one hand the number of movies I have not watched all the way through (I even suffer through the bad and boring ones). I couldn’t take another minute of this one, however.