Altered States Details

Scientist William Hurt tinkers with tribal drug rituals and sensory deprivation tanks until they cause him to regress to a primitive killer-simian state of altered consciousness in this horror fantasy. The deer-eating Neanderthal man mid-section may seem too eccentric considering the deliberately over-the-top whole, but, in general, director Ken Russell power-drives his mad doctor update with trademark visual excess. Even if celebrated screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who also wrote the novel on which this is based, removed his name from the film in disgust, Russell's razzle-dazzle hallucinogenic style certainly hits bullseye.

Amusing elaboration of Jekyll and Hyde (qv), not to mention the Karloff mad doctor second features of the forties. All very po-faced now, and certainly impeccably done.