Altered States (1980)
87 %
Reviews Counted: 31 Fresh: 27 Rotten:4 Average Rating: 6.9/10
Consensus:
Extraordinarily daring for a Hollywood film, Altered States attacks the viewer with its inventive, aggressive mix of muddled sound effects and visual pyrotechnics.
Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Synopsis: A psycho-physiologist doing experiments with human consciousness eventually decides to test his findings on himself. He becomes obsessed with performing these auto-sensory deprivation experiments until he actually changes form physically, ending up as a gorilla at a local zoo. He... [More]
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Starring: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Charles Haid, Bob Balaban, Drew Barrymore
Director: Ken Russell
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Reviews
Direction by Ken Russell has energy to spare, with appropriate match-up of his baroque visual style to special effects intensive material.
Comment
06/06/07
Top Critic
There isn't a lucid moment in it (and much of the dialogue is rendered unintelligible by Russell's subversive direction), but it has dash, style, and good looks, as well as the funniest curtain line since Some Like It Hot.
06/06/07
Top Critic
[Director] Russell's noisily grandiose swipe at psychedelia embellishes what is no more than the cosily familiar story of the obsessive Scientist Who Goes Too Far and Unwittingly Unleashes, etc.
06/24/06
Top Critic
Dependably -- even exhilaratingly -- bizarre. Its strangeness, which borders cheerfully on the ridiculous, is its most enjoyable feature.
08/30/04
Top Critic
Altered States explores the human drive to leave the body behind, to be born again, and to experience in the mind things that were once thought divine.
01/29/04
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