A man is suspended in a tank full of water in what looks like some sort of crude NASA experiment. The camera focuses in on our subject as over sized credits slide slowly across the screen finally centering on a black background. The title, Altered States is written in a modified version of the beautifully minimal Avant Garde typeface and it sets the tone of the whole film. Forget what you know about normal because shits about to get really weird.
Edward Jessup (William Hurt) is a scientist experimenting with human consciousness. He skips the rodents and uses himself as the subject, taking hallucinogens and floating in a sleep deprivation tank determined to illicit memories, past dreams, and anything else that might be dormant in one’s mind. During his trips he falls further and further into an unrecognizable state: first loosing his ability to speak, later transforming into a naked and particularly rabid version of a Geico caveman, and finally becomes the horrifying love child of Jim Carrey’s The Mask and Slimer (a personal favorite). As he digs deeper into his subconscious, he begins to alarm his colleagues, his wife and himself. But what is real and what is a hallucination?
After watching this film, I tried to imagine the experience of seeing it in a theater in 1980. How blown away I would’ve been by the sound effects*, the use of saturated and explosive colors and the green screen collages that make you wonder if you’re the one self medicating. It all culminates into a standoff between Edward’s real self and his altered state, a scene that inspired the climax of A Ha’s classic Take On Me Video. Altered States is also the film debut of Drew Barrymore, and features one of my favorite “That guy” actors Bob Balaban.
*Altered States was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound but lost to The Empire Strikes Back.
