Altered States
Warner Bros. | Release Date: December 25, 1980 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
With a mad doctor like Ken Russell at the helm, one happily follows this movie to hell and back. [29 Dec 1980, p.65]
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Altered States is a superbly silly movie, a magnificent entertainment, and a clever and brilliant machine for making us feel awe, fear, and humor. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Corliss
Orchestrating the efforts of a superb production team — and of the reluctant Mr. Chayefsky — Russell has devised a film experience that will astound some viewers, outrage others and bore nobody. Laugh with it, scream at it, think about it. Read full review
80
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
Direction by Ken Russell has energy to spare, with appropriate match-up of his baroque visual style to special effects intensive material. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineGlenn Heath Jr.
The most interesting dimension of Altered States has to be the way Russell sexualizes Eddie’s relationship with godly figures, most notably symbols of Jesus, crucifixion, and his father. Read full review
60
EmpireIan Nathan
Not one to let slow-building tension and mystery get in the way of wild flourishes of extremism and shock, Ken Russell hit upon a story that more or less handled his structural excesses and tendency toward blasphemy. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
The film is in fine shape as long as it revels in its own craziness, making no claims on the viewer's reason. But when it asks you to believe that what you're watching may really be happening, and to wonder what it means, it is asking far too much. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
There isn't a lucid moment in it (and much of the dialogue is rendered unintelligible by Russell's subversive direction), but it has dash, style, and good looks, as well as the funniest curtain line since Some Like It Hot. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay Scott
Altered States can be accused of many things, but never of harboring a new idea. Because the script's lessons have been drowned in fruity religious imagery, Altered States is at most an accomplished horror film, the kind of stomach-churning movie to which people like David Cronenberg aspire. [23 Jan 1981]
40
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Essentially a big-budget, modern-day version of a 1960s acid-trip film, ALTERED STATES was helmed by flamboyant, talented, but frequently self-indulgent director Ken Russell, who takes a confusing Paddy Chayefsky story and wraps it in a pretty package, but fails to bring any clarity to the silly affair. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonStaff (Not Credited)
Based on a novel and a disowned script by the late Paddy Chayefsky, Russell's noisily grandiose swipe at psychedelia embellishes what is no more than the cosily familiar story of the obsessive Scientist Who Goes Too Far and Unwittingly Unleashes, etc. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Uneasy blend of the extreme visuals of director Ken Russell and the bloated dramaturgy of writer Paddy Chayefsky (who disowned this adaptation of his novel). Read full review
40
The New YorkerPauline Kael
An aggressively silly head-horror movie, the result of the misalliance of two wildly different hyperbolic talents-the director Ken Russell and the writer Paddy Chayefsky.
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