Altered States

[hedwig]

i don't know if there's a thread, merge me if necessary.



first-time floating next wednesday. so i finally watched this film, to research the subject(!)

ALTERED STATES is a 1980 film directed by Ken Russell from a screenplay/novel by Paddy Chayefsky, about a scientist who experiments with a sensory deprivation tank and Amanita muscaria mushrooms, which causes him to regress to a primal state of consciousness. there's more to it than that. it's pointless to summarize any more of it.

it's absolutely BONKERS. it feels like an Outer Limits episode on steroids. an unabashedly science-FICTION depiction of the flotation tank and mushrooms. a few scenes are borderline Reefer Madness-ish. but its heart is in the right place, and the frequent psychedelic interludes are pure visual candy. nutty performances from everyone involved-- william hurt in particular seems way too sweaty in every scene. the movie takes quite a few awesome twists and turns in the second half. parts of it truly disturbed me, other parts made me laugh out loud. i'd watch it again tomorrow.

i can't believe chayefsky wrote this! he did withdraw his name from the project. i want to read the novel.

trivia: i read that this movie inspired a sketch on Fridays called "Altered Statesman" where ronald reagan regresses into richard nixon after mistakenly ingesting peyote buttons in a jar placed next to jar of jelly beans.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Is it 1980?

[socketlevel]

great choice, i love this movie too, and paddy is the man.  Network makes my top 5 all time.  too bad he disowned the movie, cuz i still like it.

yes 1980.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

yes 1980.

Nah, I said that because this was listed in Now Showing.  It was supposed to be funny, but the delivery sounded funny in my head.  Thinking about it now, it could've been read as snide, which I hope wasn't the case for Hedwig.

This movie is amazing in my book.  One of the most traumatic movies for me as a kid that didn't turn out to be a one shock pony later on.  I'm still on the fence about Jacob's Ladder, but Altered States definitely holds up.

[SiliasRuby]

Such a brilliant little film. Was probably one of the inspirations to shows like the 'x-files' and more recently, 'fringe'

[Pedro]

Are you guys serious?  I saw this about two years ago and all I can remember is consistently laughing at how terrible the dialogue and acting were.  Seemed like a b-movie to me, which is not to say I didn't get a kick out of it, but I'd hardly call it a "brilliant little film".

[socketlevel]

sometimes the premise outweighs missteps in delivery, ie. dawn of the dead.

[SiliasRuby]

I don't know about you but after looking at that poster again I think he looks like JFK dead on a table.