March 2007 - Horrorphile

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Horrorphile - March 2007

Altered States

March 30th 2007 05:00

One for the neo-hippies, Ken Russell’s metaphysical, transcendental romantic horror flick Altered States (1980) caused a stir of excitement when it was first released for its colourful visual effects and experimental use of hallucinogenic drugs. It’s a love story at the end of the day, albeit an amorous mutation.

Eddie Jessup (William Hurt in his Golden Globe winning debut) is a medical scholar experimenting with sensory deprivation with the aid of his meek friend Arthur Rosenberg (Bob Balaban). It’s 1967. Everyone is turning on, tuning in and dropping out. Eddie meets Emily (Blair Brown), another medical student at a party. The first time she sees him he’s silhouetted in a doorway surrounded by white light, The Doors Light my Fire pumping away in the background. Later while having passionate sex with Emily Eddie sees God. Afterwards Emily states that she felt she was "being harpooned by a raging monk".

Seven years later and Eddie and Emily are married and living in NYC. She's still crazy about him, and he's still crazy. Eddie is very keen to revisit the isolation tank to further his theories on altered states of consciousness. He persuades his old friend Arthur into using a tank at the Harvard university where they are part of the faculty. But not before he travels to Mexico to indulge in a little of the native Indians mushroom soup, and bring a canister of the potent hallucinogen back with him.

And so the experimenting resumes, but now Eddie is obsessed and experiencing more than just psychological separation from reality, his physical self is regressing. His mind and body is falling back through the ages, xenomorphing into a primitive, simian form. The experimenting is getting out of control. As Arthur admits to Emily, "Some of these tank trips can get kinda creepy".

Eddie experiences a mind-expanding moment

Maverick auteur filmmaker Ken Russell has always been interested in theological ideas, the sacred vs. the profane, the subversive and the existential. Working from a screenplay by multi-award winning screenwriter and novelist Paddy Chayefsky (who subsequently disowned it), Russell concocts a rather ludicrous story of love conquering all. It seems like just another excuse for him to throw all manner of religious, sexual, and mortal symbolic imagery at the screen, tenuously tied together with ideas about the power of the subconscious over the physical state.

The visual effects and they way they are edited together look mostly dated, but there are some neat bladder effects courtesy of prosthetic maestro Dick Smith (The Exorcist), and the Primal Man (Miguel Godreau) scenes are well handled. In fact that whole sequence when Eddie regresses and has morphed into this primal being, then running amuck is suitably suspenseful.

However the support performances of Blair Brown and Charles Haid as a disgruntled professor are terrible (Brown’s best moment is when she becomes the Sphinx). I felt for William Hurt having to suffer for his art acting alongside these two half-baked flakes. You can see it in his eyes. Actually Hurt always looks that way. He just hurts. Look out for a very young Drew Barrymore and a young John Larroquette.

Here's Blair Brown turning into the Sphinx (a unique moment in cinema history):

The finale of Altered States pushes the boundaries of love. Poltergeist (1981) and Brainstorm (1983) followed similar paths. There’s a lesson to be learnt about subjecting your mind and body to such extremes; use in moderation! And make sure you have a lover/soul mate close at hand so you can reach out and grab that lifeline!

Emily (Blair Brown) wades into Eddie's primordial whirlpool

Altered States was definitely a strong vehicle for Hurt who followed it with Body Heat and the The Big Chill. It’s the archetypal Hurt performance and he milks it even when he’s under kilos of pulsating protoplasm. As does director Russell who writhes around in the orgiastic pyrotechnics and audio visual whirlpools. Russell even raids footage from Dante’s Inferno (1935) portraying Hell layering the imagery through some of the drug-induced sensory trips Eddie subjects himself to.

Some of the ideas on the conflict of science and spirituality, of de-evolution and subconscious states of primordial being are intriguing, but nothing is touched on with real depth. Russell is keener to return to the cinematic wallowing of his spectral freakshow. The movie was hugely successful winning two Academy Awards (score and sound).

If you’re keen for a deep trashy cosmic escapade with streaks of horror suspense and grotesque quasi-religious imagery, small doses of surrealism, and some sweaty and hirsute nudity thrown in for good scientific measure then Altered States is the drop you’ve been looking for. Enjoy it as a xeno-retro trip.

I couldn't resist - but a warning, it's a spoiler - here is the movie's hallway-bound "love conquers all" climax (with the imagery a-ha ripped off for their Take on Me clip!):

* images are courtesy of outnow.ch