Altered States **** (1980, William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban) – Classic Movie Review 5450

Director Ken Russell’s engrossing 1980 sci-fi horror thriller Altered States stars William Hurt as Eddie Jessup. a troubled Harvard scientist who is obsessed with finding the truth about man’s existence and understanding his place in the universe.

He decides to experiment on himself as a guinea pig in the basement of a university medical school and regresses into a primitive evolutionary state with the help of psychotropic hallucinatory drugs and a flotation tank isolation chamber. What he wasn’t expecting was physical transformation…

Based on the novel by Paddy Chayefsky, this is a bizarre modern horror fantasy update on Jekyll and Hyde, The Wolfman and The Time Machine, enlivened with a spectacular cinema début from Hurt and remarkable, then state of the art special effects by Bran Ferren and special make-up by Dick Smith.

Russell is a surprise choice as director, but he settles down admirably to an exciting genre piece that has something intelligent on its mind to say as well as a visceral impact to make. Chayefsky adapted his own novel, but he was dissatisfied with the result, and the on-screen screenplay credit is to his real name Sidney Aaron. The story also has passing references to Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan.

It is also Drew Barrymore’s cinema début, aged five, as Margaret Jessup. Also in the cast are Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid, Miguel Godreau, George Gaynes, Dori Brenner, Peter Brandon, Jack Murdock, Francis X McCarthy, Evan Richards and Megan Jeffers.

John Corigliano’s score was Oscar nominated.

Russell said he was 27th choice for director, hired only after 26 other directors had said no.

William Hurt (March 20, 1950 – March 13, 2022) made his film debut in Altered States, followed by the 1981 neo-noir  Body Heat. He had three consecutive nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor, for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), Children of a Lesser God (1986), and Broadcast News (1987), winning for the first of these.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5450

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com