MY CALL: This underrated mix of body horror and psychological horror has a lot to offer more intellectual fans–even if it ends on a weak, loony note. MORE MOVIES LIKE Altered States: Possession (1981) and The Manitou (1978).
First I’d like to make a friendly disclaimer that I had not seen this movie before and, as such, my review is completely unbiased by any sense of nostalgia or past impression. That said, however obvious the film’s age may be, the plot did not feel numbed of its intensity as so many older movies can be. Director Ken Russell (The Devils, The Lair of the White Worm) and his cast do a fine job of mature, credible storytelling…at first. Later, it may go off the deep end a bit.
Pondering the inherent value of hallucinations, visions of Christ and other religious experiences, psychophysiologist Dr. Eddie Jessup (William Hurt; The Village, The Countess) experiments with sensory deprivation chambers and Mexican Toltec hallucinogenic mushroom rituals in search of deep inherent answers rooted in the 6 billion-year old atoms that compose our very bodies and which may, indeed, confer “genetic memories” under the right circumstances–that is, with psychedelic drugs.
The dialogue is highly intellectualized and well-versed. If ever there was an 80s horror movie for academics, this is it. Eddie engages in deep reverie regarding the inflexive oneness of Buddhism, resurrection and the self. Obsessed with proving his hypotheses linking our personal biological matter to the ancient past and, primordially speaking, “the beginning,” he sheds himself of all distractions…even his wife and children.
After a decade of experimentation Eddie turns to extremes which appear to afflict him physically. Doctors suggest seizures and trans ischemic attacks, but Eddie “knows” that his body is undergoing temporary transformations to more primordial states.
The sex scenes are not terribly graphic by today’s standards, but there’s something intense about them; not so much physically, but atmospherically. And whereas Eddie maintains a rigid mixture of academic focus and social disconnection, he is balanced by his colleagues’ (including Bob Balaban; Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Lady in the Water) concern for his health and skepticism of his wild claims.
What present-day audiences may find hokey are the very abundant hallucination special effects. I’m sure at the time (back in 1980) they were trance-like and discomfiting. But now they look silly–although they get the job done of relaying Eddie’s mania and some of the religious imagery is a bit disturbing. But still quite pleasing are the pulsating physical effects as Eddie “transforms” into something more primitive which, for at least a moment, smacks of a less elaborate werewolf transformation.
Just as his genius eclipses his sanity, the film takes a turn for the worst into Looney Tunes land as the scenes of him running around as an ape-man felt quite awkwardly displaced and ran too long. The closing finale was weird…I’m not sure I feel satisfied with the outcome.
