Altered States | | Cast : | William Hurt | | Director : | Ken Russell | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | December 25, 1980 | | DVD Released Date : | June 01, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 17, 2005 | | Summary | poor storyline, poor acting, excellent special effects | Content
 | This movie is about a professor searching for "the meaning of life" through exploring the effects of psychedellic mushrooms. Basically, the truth is right in front of him all along - it's the love of a woman who stays by his side throughout the movie despite being ignored and taken for granted. In the meantime, the young professor goes to S. America, does lab tests with his buddy, has children, gets seperated, does more tests...
The only good thing about this otherwise predictable flick is the visual effects and imagery that was supposed to represent what the high looked like. I was quite impressed by that and nothing else. If you buy this movie, don't get your hopes up. With a little more effort and imagination, a film about this kind of subject matter could have been much, much better, though. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 13, 2005 | | Summary | Fascinating Movie on Many Levels, Also Entertaining and Fun! | Content
| This is one of my all time favorite movies. Made in 1980, it tells the story of Dr. Jessup, a professor on a quest for God and the Ultimate Truths. In good 1960's tradition, he uses an isolation tank and mushrooms as hallucinagens. He meets a hot young research scientist along the way, played by Blair Brown. Then things really get wild.
This movie features great acting - this was William Hurt's breakthrough role, and he puts his all into it. He is perfect as the obsessed, brilliant scientist. Blair Brown is beautiful and the perfect wife, and there are some great supporting performances to boot by Bob Balaban and others. Watch for the great costuming - this movie was set in the late 60's/early 70's and they have Hurt in some cool 1970's style duds - bellbottoms, tennis shoes, etc. that contrast with the stifled Preppie fashions of the year the movie came out, 1980.
This movie is directed by Ken Russell, one of my favorite directors. He is not afraid to make a weird movie. But he is incredible! In this movie, watch for his crowning touches: the hallucinatory sequences supported by a haunting soundtrack. He brings these altered states of consciousness to life, with imagery reminiscient of Jung's Collective Unconscious.
The movie is at times racy, and well paced. And many things go on in this movie that are unusual for Hollywood. (This movie would never be made today.) The protagonist is intelligent; he is a spiritual searcher; and in case we get caught up in the drama of the drugs and excitement, there is a warning. He is missing the beauty of life that is right in front of his face. I will let you watch the movie to see what I mean.
There are some great scenes to watch for (besides any that feature Hurt's excellent acting). The first is the hallucinatory sequence with the Indians. If you watch closely, you will see this hallucination is an allegory for the Fall of man in the Garden of Good and Evil, and the subsequent mortality for mankind (I told you this movie had some deep aspects!). Another great scene is the hallucination sequence early in the film involving his father's death. How may of us have not been turned off to religious experience by some horrible event that has occured in our lives?
I think this is one of the better films to have come out of Hollywood since 1980, but it has been forgotten. It is William Hurt's finest performance. If you have an interest in the spiritual, I hope you will watch it. You won't be disappointed. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 28, 2005 | | Summary | HURT'S SO BAD | Content
| A movie from 1980 directed by the "rogue" director, Ken Russell---he did "Women in Love" and "Gothic," for example. Rogue director or not, ALTERED STATES is just plain ridiculous and drab. When Hurt regresses to his simian self, the effect is highly laughable. While this has been critically acclaimed for its bold view of the evolutionary process, seeing it now 20 years later only solidifies its basic ineptitude. William Hurt tries to be the impassioned inquisitive scientist, but when he says that eating a goat's blood has been the highest point in his life, I almost choked on my M&M's. Poor Blair Brown managed to look lovely even after all her traumatic experiences, and both Bob Balaban and Charles Haid's constant whining and overriding dialogue became truly annoying. While the special effects were commendable in this pre-CGI movie, they only served to add to the psychedelia, and the movie's goal of seeing us start from some kind of cosmic whatever? just didn't interest me at all. Overblown and overrated. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 03, 2005 | | Summary | Either Love or Hate | Content
| I don't want to bash this film, but honestly, if i knew what it was before renting it i wouldn't have gotten it. It was a waist of time and money. I almost turned it off 3/4 of the way through.
In viewing it, i thought to myself that was made buy a group of people that used a little too much LSD in the 70's. If you're a "true", "hardcore" Sci-Fi fan, you may appreciate this work, but for me there is no logic or even a remote sense of linked reality. It's a film you probably either love or hate. |
| Rating | | | Date | January 27, 2005 | | Summary | An exhilarating cinematic experience! | Content
| If there is such a thing as genetic memory, than all the phases of human evolution must lie somewhere in our genetic code. What if there was a way we could tap into that stream of information through consciousness? What would we see? What would we learn? Professor Eddie Jessup (William Hurt in his debut role) is intrigued by the data being produced by the use of isolation tanks to induce altered states of consciousness, and decides to undergo the experience himself. What he discovers at first is the ability to relive with total clarity experiences of his childhood. As he continues these experiments, his visions become more acute and filled with religious illusions. Years go by and Jessup has become sedated with the trappings of academia, leaving him unfulfilled and longing for the good old days of experimentation and wonder. He visits a tribe of Mexican Indians that use a hallucinatory drug to evokes a common experience in all users and has the trip of his life! What might he learn inside an isolation tank while being under the influence of this drug? Would he be able to peel away the layers of evolutionary time back to early man and beyond? Perhaps even back to the first thought? His scientific curiosity will not let him resist this challenge. With Ken Russell's visuals and the incredible musical effects of John Corigliano, this film can be absolutely exhilarating. |
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