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Rating: 3 stars

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Seen on: 02/21/2010

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Altered States (1980)

Directed by Ken Russell

Science Fiction

Most recently watched by noahphex

Overview

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.

Rated R | Length 102 minutes

Actors

William Hurt | Jack Murdock | Blair Brown | Bob Balaban | John Larroquette | George Gaynes | Drew Barrymore | Charles Haid | Evan Richards | Francis X. McCarthy | Hap Lawrence | Dori Brenner | Thaao Penghlis | Peter Brandon | Charles White-Eagle | Deborah Baltzell | Paul Larsson | Miguel Godreau | Megan Jeffers | John Walter Davis

Viewing Notes

As part of the SciFi Squad’s home movie clubs inaugural film I watched Altered States. I thought I had seen this film before. In fact I even already had it rated on Netflix but it turns out as it went along I recognized none of it.

And really, there’s a lot of memorable stuff in Altered States, including all those crazy montages that John Hurt has when hes on drugs, the monkey gone wild scene, the scene where he’s devolving and his ex-wife jumps in the water to save him and that final scene in the hallway which Ah-ha stole for that Take On Me video where hes devolving again.

The problem I had with Altered States was that I just don’t think it holds up. I can usually try and watch a film by trying to keep it in perspective of the era it was made but I can’t help but think even back then this movie seems overblown, kind of muddled and that the FX are just not that great. I’ve recently seen plenty of 80s and 70s movies with much better effects and I think the reliance of CG in this only hindered the film.

I understand that the movie is saying that with the right drugs and sensory deprivation with can tap into some primitive states, which not only manifests itself in the mind of the individual but manifests itself physically. Sure, okay. That works for a science fiction film. And heck, if I was ever one of the high school or college students really into taking drugs, especially psychoactives this movie would be the utter shit for me. But I wasn’t and so that whole trip doesn’t really tap into anything for me.

Beyond that, however, I think John Hurt is an amazing actor and he’s by far the strongest part of the film. It’s nice to see Bob Balaban who I instantly recognized from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and who also directed Parents, which I like. The music and the sound FX in the film is pretty great and from what I read they actually got nominated for that.

All in all while I think it’s a competent movie, with an outright solid performance from Hurt, Altered States doesn’t do a lot for me. I moved my original (unseen…oops!) rating from 4 stars (really liked) to 3 (just liked).

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