Fresh
It opens at fever pitch and then starts soaring -- into genetic fantasy, into a precognitive dream of delirium and delight.
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
Altered States
In the basement of a university medical school, Dr. Jessup floats naked in total darkness. The most terrifying experiment in the history of science is out of control... and the subject is himself.
1980 · 1h 43m · R
Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
Directed by
Ken Russell
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Altered States
Overview
A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of human consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from Native American shamans, he explores these altered states of cognizance and finds that memory, time, and reality itself are states of mind.
Director and cast
- Ken Russell Director
- William Hurt as Professor Eddie Jessup
- Blair Brown as Emily Jessup
- Bob Balaban as Arthur Rosenberg
- Charles Haid as Mason Parrish
- Thaao Penghlis as Echeverria
- Miguel Godreau as Primal Man
- Dori Brenner as Sylvia Rosenberg
- Peter Brandon as Hobart
- Charles White-Eagle as The Brujo
- Drew Barrymore as Margaret Jessup
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
85%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Direction by Ken Russell has energy to spare, with appropriate match-up of his baroque visual style to special effects intensive material.
Variety Staff, Variety
Fresh
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.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Fresh
[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.
Jennifer Selway, Time Out
Fresh
I was overwhelmed, I was caught up in its headlong energy.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
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