ALTERED STATES
United States | 1980 | BD | 103 minutes | Color | English
Director: Ken Russell
Cast: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid, Thaao Penghlis, Miguel Godreau, Dori Brenner, Peter Brandon, Charles White Eagle, Drew Barrymore, Megan Jeffers, Jack Murdock, Frank McCarthy, Deborah Baltzell, John Larroquette, George Gaynes
The ultimate cinematic head trip of the 1980s, British renegade Ken Russell’s first Hollywood production—adapted by the legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky from his own novel—is part hallucinogenic freak-out, part gonzo creature feature, part transcendent love story, all played at a fever pitch. When researcher Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) begins using himself as a test subject for his mind-expanding psychological experiments, it sends him on an increasingly dangerous, substance-fueled odyssey from humankind’s primordial past to the outer limits of consciousness. It’s all visualized by Russell in a psychedelic supernova of out-there imagery that encompasses everything from the pagan to the cosmic sublime, culminating in a brain-wave-blasting battle between the mind and the heart.
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