The Incomparable Altered States

Here's another Ken Russell oddity.  In fact, it may go down in the history books as Ken Russell's most famously weird film, but I don't think it's quite that.  It's certainly trippy, literally, and filled with strange science fiction notions.  But it's based on a novel by Paddy Chayefsky, and this material takes great pains to convince you that the sci-fi you see in this film is entirely possible, if not the author's genuine beliefs.  Sure, it's an excuse for the director of the far-out imagery of Tommy to depict drug-induced hallucinations and other craziness, bur at the end of the day, it doesn't feel as unpredictably crazy and unhinged as Lisztomania or The Fall of the Louse of Usher.  Russell's actually quite grounded here.  But still, if you want some heady, serious yet mind-bending science fiction, this one still holds up better than most of what we get today.

Update 5/9/17 - 11/30/25: This update has been long-awaited!  A Criterion release of Altered States has been rumored since a Criterion branded image leaked onto the net in 2018.  I even mentioned it to them in an email exchange, but of course they just replied with a coy, "As far as ALTERED STATES, I haven't heard of a planned release but that would be awesome!"  Well, it's here now and it is awesome.  The fact that they waited until 2025 means we get a proper 4k restoration on UHD, which is definitely worth it.

William Hurt, in his film debut, lends a lot of credibility to his role as a university researcher determined to pierce the mysteries of the human consciousness.  In classic Hollywood fashion, he experiments on himself, with sensory deprivation tanks and hallucinogenic drugs, attempting to unlock the hidden chambers of the brain and access a collective memory or an "original self."  It's all well and good, until he finds it's not something one can just pop in and out of, and he starts to become a danger to his family and coworkers (Drew Barrymore, the great Bob Balaban, Molly Dodd's Blair Brown and John Larroquette) as his body begins to follow his mind and he physically devolves. 

Did I mention that Hurt lends a lot of credibility to this film?  Because boy does he.  There's a lot of weight on his shoulders.  I enjoy this film because it's smart, and it's a treat when Russell finally gets to cut loose with his visual depictions of drug-induced visions.  But it never really crosses the line for me into becoming a great film, because it fails to pay off it's heady set-up.  You feel like you're being led to some kind of ingenious, thrilling spectacle, but instead just wind up in typical, B-movie mad-scientist-on-the-loose territory, a la Bela Lugosi's The Ape Man or Kevin Bacon's Hollow Man.  It's got terrific production values, some strong moments and the actors keeps your eyes on the screen the entire time.  But the conclusion's pretty pedestrian.

Still, for being such a highly regarded and famous science fiction film, it sure has an underwhelming history on home video.  Warner Bros originally released it on DVD in 2000 as a flipper disc in a crapper snapper case.  And then they released it as a barebones blu in 2012.  You know, when Warner Bros doesn't want to prioritize something, they can keep a film's home video life pretty bland.  But thankfully, Criterion has rescued it in 2025, giving it a fancy new special edition 4k BD/ UHD combopack.

1) 2000 WB DVD widescreen side; 2) 2000 WB DVD fullscreen side;
3) 2012 WB BD; 4) 2025 Criterion BD; 5) 2025 Criterion UHD.

Well, the DVD looks pretty good for being so old.  It's anamorphic widescreen, not interlaced.  Both widescreen versions are 1.78:1, because of course they chose "no black bars" over a more accurate 1.85:1.  And the fullscreen version is naturally 1.33:1, opening up some of the top and bottom while chopping off some of the left and right.  Obviously that version's for curiosity seekers only.  At least the BD cleaned up some of the damage from the DVD's footage (look at the scratches and dirt on the mushroom cloud), but they seem to have scrubbed away fine detail in the process.  At first I thought the DVD might actually be more detailed than the blu, but no.  Taking a closer look (check out the grate on the top left of the inner chamber in the second set of shots), the blu pulls out a little more, and it's certainly safe from the compression smudges and edge enhancement of an old standard def transfer. 

But now we get an all new 4k restoration taken from the original camera negative, and starting with the most obvious, yeah, we finally get a correct 1.85:1, which is essentially the same framing as the 2012 with the extra matting.  Film grain actually looks soft, like they applied a little DNR to the image, but it's still obviously a better capture than what came before.  And the colors are the most improved, even on the BD, but especially on the Dolby Vision HDR UHD.  And this is a movie where the spectacle of color really counts, including the separation.  Like, that mushroom cloud is a much more robust red on the 2025 release, but then when you look at the ground, it's less red and more natural.  So could this look even better?  Probably, but it's a big, very welcome, step forward.

So the DVD gave us a 5.1 audio track, plus a French dub, with English and French subtitles.  The 2012 blu replaces the French dub with a Spanish one and gives us the 5.1 English in DTS-HD, plus English, French and Spanish subs.  So not bad, but Criterion is the first to finally give us the original 2.0 surround audio.  There are no foreign options, but we get that 2.0 plus the same 5.1 remix (both in DTS-HD) from the old blu, and optional English HoH subs.  So it's another easy decision.

And that goes for special features, too, because, everything up to now's been pretty barebones.  The DVD has a trailer and 2 TV spots, plus some bonus trailers.  What's fun, at least, is that even the trailers are wide on the widescreen side and fullscreen on the reverse.  The blu-ray doesn't even keep the TV spots, having just the trailer.  It's a shame Criterion waited so long to tackle this, since we missed out chance to bring in Ken Russell while he was still alive.  For a long time there, Russell was recording commentaries for everything from Lair Of the White Worm to Salome's Last Dance, but Warner Bros couldn't get him for Altered frikken' States?  That's just neglect.

But Criterion tries their best to make up for lost time.  There's an expert commentary by Samm Deighan, which is pretty good.  She starts to run out of steam in the last act, and she falls into the "reading everybody's imdb page" trap; but for the most part, she's got a lot of great info to share and adds a lot of value.  Even better, we get two vintage interviews.  The first is with Russell himself.  It's an entire TV program, but it is focused on him promoting Altered States and he answers some questions fans will have.  Then there's a great interview with William Hurt from 2019 - the only complaint I have about this one is I wish it went on longer, because he's got some stories!  And finally, there's a brand new interview with Bran Ferren who did all the crazy optical effects - essentially everything except the direct make-up effects Dick Smith had created.  They also have the trailer, plus a fold out insert with an essay by critic Jessica Kiang.

So I'm so glad we have something better than Warner's blu of Altered States.  Sure, it did in lieu of anything else.  But now we've finally got an exciting reason to upgrade from the DVD.  Because this movie is too big, in every respect, to languish in barebones budget discs.