Rating: 
Summary: Something you should know about Altered States
Review: by most reviews on here, i bought this DVD thinking it was some movie about the psychedelic trip of an experimental scientist and all the good fun he had with going back in time. FALSE. im going to be a little bit of a spoiler here, so if you dont wanna know exactly what the movies about, dont read the rest of this.
altered states is about a scientist/psychologist who is wandering about the reality of schizophrenia. that maybe its a connection that is not of insanity, but pure gift of the mind (my theory from day one). so he ends up in this dark water tank with some f-cked up voodoo LSD or sumthin from mexico. he goes back in time and evolves into an ape-man. he escapes from the tank and kills a man and eats a goat to be found sleeping naked (returned to his human form) in the zoo. his wife agrees to let him try it again. this time, it makes his face bubble up and deforms his entire body. the light and gas from the tank (how the hell it got their? some supernatural sh-t i guess) knocks out his wife and 2 scientists. the wife awakes, finds her husband, the experimenting scientist, in a swirling portal and he is screaming with an extremely disfigured face/body. she saves him from the portal of nothingness and they go back to the house only for him to turn into the deformed master of nothingness again and make her one of them (some fire girl---accident by the way), then he saves her from her nothingness. he tells her he loves her and thats the end.
yes, the movie has some trippy drug sequences but thats not what its about, really. its very impossible. i thought i was in for some good ol psychidelic fun and a guy with altered states of conciessness. i gues thats what i get for buying a movie before i see it.
Rating: 
Summary: Mad scientists in love
Review: Does it matter that some of the science is inaccurate in this picture? I say no. This is not a documentary: it is a piece of speculative fiction, and so it's not required to be completely accurate. It may tweak a few facts to deliver the speculative story it wants to deliver. The thing that matters is that, in the final analysis, it delivers its story very well.In essence, this is nothing more than an old fashioned Hollywood monster film, but set in academia. The film captures very well a sense of scientific and academic excitement. Here are scholars not toiling through the drudgery of academia but on the cusp of completely unknown scientific ground - of actual science - and their excitement and fear transfer quite well to the viewer. That there's a ghost of actual scientific history about the story adds a dash of credibility. What I like best in the film is captured by Jessup saying that schizophrenics may be physically different from others - as if they are trying to physically externalize their schizophrenic image of themselves. Jessup had rejected religion, probably in favor of evolution (under the theory that it's an either-or proposition). He is also many times described as "at least a little crazy" himself. When he begins to experience imagery, it corresponds to the theory of evolution and of "genetic memory." Thus, at his physical transformation, we are left pondering: is he downloading genetic memory, or is he just externalizing the semi-schizophrenic image of himself? The movie puts the "speculation" in speculative fiction. Add to this a sweet love story, and you get a lot of fun - moreso than in just an ordinary horror movie way. This is a horror movie that gets you to enjoy thinking. There are precious few movies that do this, and I feel sorry for people who have to reject the movie **in its entirety** simply because a few details regarding flotation chambers and plants are inaccurate. I think they miss the point.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Visuals, Competent Performances
Review: Firstly, I rated this film five stars because strong audiovisual elements are what I believe make a movie memorable. It concerns Doctor Eddie Jessup, who is, in his own words, fascinated by "interior experiences". With his hippie colleague Arthur, he begins experimenting with sensory deprivation. He believes that his hallucinations are connected with "race memory", the idea that "memories" of conditions that produced morphological adaptations in our species are recorded in our genes. He becomes convinced that his deprivation experiments are the key to accessing them, and in frustration he uses Mexican mushrooms to intensify the experience. His excitement turns to obsession when his wife and friends discourage his ambitions, and it becomes a struggle for vindication as well as a search for knowledge. The purity of his quest is diluted by this element, thus exposing the character flaw that gets the protagonist into his plight in the first place. He continues the experiments even when a bizarre genetic regression suggests that they can produce physical changes in the structure of his body, and his cohorts refuse to continue assisting him. His recklessness results in a full-blown regression incident, in which he devolves into a "quasi-simian creature", ie. an apeman. His Frankensteinian obsession alienates his wife, but she returns to help when it becomes clear that even his monkey episode will not deter him from proceeding. The cumulative effects of Jessup's exposure to the experience (isolation in conjunction with other hallucinatory agents) releases enormous quantities of quantum-mechanical energy, and produces a grotesue, though temporary mutation. As he lays recovering from the ordeal, he begins to revert without provocation. He has initiated a self-sustaining cycle, and appears doomed to mutate himself right out of existence. He finds his answer to the question of the origin of awareness, but it threatens to consume him, and only the love of his patient, ever-faithful wife can redeem him. You won't find more stunning visuals, and its authenticity is dramatically enhanced by its scientific foundation. Only the controversial concept of "race memory" is an issue we must be willing to consider in order to appreciate this movie. Thematically, it seems to remind us that we are defined as much by our choices as by our beliefs, and that will-- more specifically, the will to love one another -- is the only path to true enlightenment; that is to say: to exercise our consciousness is more important than to understand it. This is not a light-hearted movie; there's little in the way of comic relief. So if you're not inclined toward serious, philosophically provocative films, you probably won't enjoy this. But if you don't consider thinking a burden, then give it a shot.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie, Fair Transfer
Review: Great movie but the transfer to DVD is not very good. If you love this movie it's worth the money otherwise get it on VHS. Not much in the way of extra's but worth the 14 bucks.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I couldn't really get into this movie that much, but the subject matter was interesting. It's about a scientist (who is painted in an unconvincingly weird fashion) who is interested in consciousness and tries several means of regressing himself to earlier states of being (using Jung's "genetic memory" ideas here). The methods used include a combination of some South American psychedelic drugs (probably based on ayahuasca, a reasonably effective drug) and an isolation chamber. I don't think the movie accomplishes much, but it does manage to make one think, which is more than I can say for most.
Rating: 
Summary: Either Love or Hate
Review: I don't want to bash this film, but honestly, if i knew what it was before renting it i wouldn't have gotten it. It was a waist of time and money. I almost turned it off 3/4 of the way through.
In viewing it, i thought to myself that was made buy a group of people that used a little too much LSD in the 70's. If you're a "true", "hardcore" Sci-Fi fan, you may appreciate this work, but for me there is no logic or even a remote sense of linked reality. It's a film you probably either love or hate.
Rating: 
Summary: Good movie, great sound transfer
Review: I enjoyed this movie then and now even though Paddy C. did not. The 5.1 sound transfer was great. Could have provided some additional bonus features. I made the mistake at buying this at BEST Buy for $14.95. I could have had a V8...I mean I could have purchase it from Amazon.com for less than $10. Even with shipping and handling it would have been cheaper.
Rating:
Summary: Bizarre and captivating
Review: I love sci fi and fantasy movies and this one is very thoughtful and entertaining. For the age of the film, the visuals are really spectacular.
Rating:
Summary: Amanita experiences are the key.
Review: I must write in order to dispel the confusion and poor research done by one of the reviewers who says that this film is poorly researched. I don't think the guy 'Thomas Seay' even watched the film. This is not about Psilocybe mushrooms but about Amanita muscaria experiences. This is clearly stated in the film if you actually watch it. The experiences are astonishinly well depicted in the film and one familiar with these mushrooms, in the first hand sense, will back this up. There are multiple plot lines and stories within the film and these can get quite deep. The way researchers are viewed by their colleagues, the social excitement of the discovery, the importance of cultural and religious programming coming up in the visions. All of the films explorations are well done, well acted, credible within the context of real life and the film is entertaining to boot. Great visuals which are correct in the context of visuals associated with these mushrooms. An excellent work of art and science.
Rating:
Summary: Passionate and haunting
Review: I never understood why Altered States fell into obscurity. Passionate and, at times, awe-inspiring, Altered States revolves around Dr. Eddie Jessup and his fanatical obsession with unlocking, well, the secret of life. This is the journey of a man, who is both a dangerous egomaniac and a well meaning soul, searching for an unfathomable answer. His mixture of obsession and intellect is so great it's difficult to decide whether or not to cheer him or want him committed to psychiatric care. William Hurt, who play's Dr. Jessup, is simply brilliant in his debut. Though awkwardly paced, Altered States provokes a sense of horror and fascination that is nothing short of haunting. After a trip to Mexico, during which Jessup hallucinates from taking drugs with a native tribe, he brings back this substance to attempt documenting the crazy visions that began in the desert, with the aid of an isolation tank. From there, the film spirals into Dr. Jessup's near fatal attempt at contacting his primordial self. Although dated by today's digital technology, the drug-induced episodes, with their nightmarish images, remain compelling. Altered States, to its credit, was not intended to question an existence of God so much as to visually communicate a tortured mind coming to terms with a certain amount of necessary ignorance about his life's purpose. There are no pedantic metaphors to be found here, only a man and his struggle agianst a truly deep fear. After twenty years, Altered States still packs a punch.
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