Halloween Movie 2019: Altered States (1980) or, Reversed Darwinism

11/01/2019

Halloween Movie 2019: Altered States (1980) or, Reversed Darwinism

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The at the time unknown star (William Hurt) is upside down on this mysterious, text-heavy poster for Ken Russell's Altered States

Edward Jessup is an experimental psychology professor, who gambles with his own mental constitution to investigate the human consciousness using an isolation tank and Mexican mushrooms!

Altered States is written by Paddy Chayefsky (Mati (1958, TV movie)), based on his own same-titled 1978 novel, and directed by English master filmmaker Ken Russell (Valentino (1977).
Feature-debuting William Hurt (Mr. Wonderful (1993)) is unique in maybe his career's best performance: In Altered States he expresses madness in galloping speed, while he spouts coherent, complex dialog, which seems to conflict troublingly with his madness.
Bob Balaban (Thin Ice (2011)) and Charles Haid (The Rescue (1988)) are good as his experimental mates, and Blair Brown (Fringe (2008-12)) is strong and sexy in the good part as Hurt's increasingly broken romantic companion.
Chayevsky and Russell keep the film stringent and and anything but flaky plot-wise, although we get into something really strange and bizarre here!
An American Werewolf in London (1981) has a predecessor in the special effects department in Altered States, which also recalls the body horror excess of David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986), a film that Altered States transcends intellectually.
The psychedelic sensual bombardment created by Russell and Co. is more out there and hypnotic - as well as upsetting - than any such sequence I have seen anywhere else before; and I haven't seen anything to rival it until Gaspar Noé's nightmarish Enter the Void (2009).
Altered States is a completely wild, intense and attention-demanding picture; it stands as the ultimate horror movie for atheist science freaks: SPOILER Human degeneration back into the simian stage, in this perspective, is the logical, horrific descent to hell.

Related posts:

Ken Russell: Top 10: Best drug-themed movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Past Halloween Movies: Halloween Movie 2018: Misery (1990) - Bates ignites an iconic villain in Reiner's rock-solid King adaptation
Halloween Movie 2017: Candyman (1992) - Racial tensions inform Rose and Barker's Chicago-set horror favorite

Watch a 1-minute clip from one of the film's psychedelic scenes here

Cost: 14.9 mil. $
Box office: 19.8 mil. $ (North America alone)
= Some uncertainty; most likely a big flop or flop (returned 1.32 times its cost domestically)
[Altered States was released 25 December (USA) and runs 103 minutes. Chayefsky had formed the idea after a gathering of "disgruntled" friends in 1975. Columbia Pictures producer Daniel Melnick suggested that he turn the treatment into a novel first. Arthur Penn was director through pre-production but resigned after a disagreement with Chayefsky. Russell was allegedly director #27 asked to take up the film, following numerous big filmmakers who had passed. The budget ballooned from 9 to 12 to the final 14.9 mil. $ during production - with 4 mil. $ alone going to special effects. Shooting took place in Mexico, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Kentucky and California, including Los Angeles, from March 1979 - ?. Chayefsky budded into production too much, causing a conflict with Russell, which led to Chayefsky demanding his usual pen name be removed from the film; instead his birth first name and middle name are used (Sidney Aaron). The film opened to a 174k $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 19.8 mil. $, - impressive for such an unusual and wild movie. The foreign grosses are regrettably not made public online, but if the film made 25 mil. $ total, it would still rank as a big flop. It was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Score (John Corigliano (Revolution (1985))), lost to Michael Gore for Fame, and Best Sound, lost to Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Russell returned with The Planets (1983, TV documentary), The South Bank Show (1984, documentary TV-series) and theatrically with Crimes of Passion (1984). Hurt returned in Eyewitness (1981); Balaban in Prince of the City (1981); Haid in Pray TV (1981) and Brown in Continental Divide (1981). Altered States is certified fresh at 84 % with a 6.81/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Altered States?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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11/01/2019

Halloween Movie 2019: Altered States (1980) or, Reversed Darwinism

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