[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.
Comment
06/24/06
Altered States (1980)
87
%
Tomatometer
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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
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
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... [More]
Starring: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Charles Haid, Bob Balaban
Director: Ken Russell
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Reviews for Altered States
An uneasy blend of the extreme visuals of director Ken Russell and the bloated dramaturgy of writer Paddy Chayefsky.
03/10/03
No simple description could ever manage to convey the sheer visual assault of the film. It's a movie that has to be seen, experienced.
01/01/00
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
I was overwhelmed, I was caught up in its headlong energy.
10/23/04
Top CriticThere 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 CriticDependably -- even exhilaratingly -- bizarre. Its strangeness, which borders cheerfully on the ridiculous, is its most enjoyable feature.
08/30/04
Top CriticSee it for the hallucinogenic scenes: real-time acid flashbacks!
01/01/00
Altered States is much more a film of image and idea than narrative or character, but they're pretty compelling images and ideas, and Hurt is great.
11/07/02
Direction by Ken Russell has energy to spare, with appropriate match-up of his baroque visual style to special effects intensive material.
06/06/07
Top Critic[Director Russell] fails to bring any clarity to the silly affair.
06/06/07
Very intense, very inner self, very self absorbed.
10/25/04
Brilliantly made hallucinatory horrors from Ken Russell.
10/22/02
William Hurt at his weirdest
01/25/06
trippy
03/18/05
Mind-blowing imagery, solid Hurt performance; a first-class freak-out
01/23/04
Trippy, odd and more than a mite inaccessible, but you sure as heck won't be bored.
07/25/02
No review available.
10/31/02
No review available.
05/26/04
No review available.
08/22/03
Latest News for Altered States
April 25, 2005:
"Blair Witch" Director to be "Altered" by Rogue Pictures
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