{"id":389,"date":"2014-07-01T11:58:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T11:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=389"},"modified":"2026-09-24T14:05:58","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:05:58","slug":"altered-states-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=389","title":{"rendered":"Altered States-1980"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Altered States-1980<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Director Ken Russell<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Starring William Hurt<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott&#8217;s Review #82<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/246472.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1063\" src=\"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/246472-210x300.jpg\" alt=\"246472\" width=\"210\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/246472-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/246472.jpg 284w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Reviewed July 1, 2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Grade: B-<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Altered States (1980) is a trippy, strange horror\/sci-fi hybrid film (William Hurt&#8217;s debut) that is visually impressive.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the story is too far-fetched and implausible to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n<p>It feels like an earlier version of The Fly, but inferior.<\/p>\n<p>Hurt plays an abnormal psychology professor obsessed with experimental schizophrenic hallucinatory drugs, which he takes, causing him to ultimately experience episodes of being half man, half ape.<\/p>\n<p>Through the use of a sensory deprivation tank, a strange Indian tribe comes into play.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a very silly premise, but it&#8217;s somehow believable to a point, especially in the first act.<\/p>\n<p>The ending of the movie was ridiculous and uninteresting to me, and it seemed extremely disjointed as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>There were lots of behind-the-scenes troubles with this film, which could explain the unbalanced feeling.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, the sporadic, weird colors and patterns during the scientist&#8217;s episodes were effective.<\/p>\n<p>Drew Barrymore&#8217;s first film (she plays a toddler).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oscar Nominations<\/strong>: Best Original Score, Best Sound<\/p>\n<p><strong>Golden Globe Nominations:\u00a0<\/strong>New Star of the Year-Actor-William Hurt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Altered States-1980 Director Ken Russell Starring William Hurt Scott&#8217;s Review #82 Reviewed July 1, 2014 Grade: B- Altered States (1980) is a trippy, strange horror\/sci-fi hybrid film (William Hurt&#8217;s debut) that is visually impressive. Still, the story is too far-fetched and implausible to be taken seriously. It feels like an earlier version of The Fly, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=389\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Altered States-1980<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,13,103],"tags":[10444,8949,10445,1182,5573,9666,844,10446,1183],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1980-films","category-horror-films","category-scifi","tag-blair-brown","tag-bob-balaban","tag-charles-haid","tag-drew-barrymore","tag-george-gaynes","tag-john-larroquette","tag-ken-russell","tag-thaao-penghlis","tag-william-hurt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24617,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/24617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}