For the penultimate episode of season 9, your hosts alter their consciousness and explore ALTERED STATES, a 1980 sci-fi horror film written by Paddy Chayefsky, directed by Ken Russell, and today known as much for its far-out story as for its creators' infamous feud. William Hurt stars as Eddie Jessup, an academic whose experiments with sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic drugs lead him to "regress" to an earlier evolutionary state. (Literally!) Fully committed and totally bonkers, Altered States is something you have to experience for yourself, especially the wild, sexually charged religious visions; the preposterously verbose dialogue; not to mention that whole thing with the acrobatic caveman. Plus: did this movie make anyone else think of Ghostbusters?   Episode links:

• Altered States on IMDb
• Altered States on Wikipedia
• Altered States on TV Tropes
• Roger Ebert 1980 review
• NY Times 1981 story on Russell vs. Chayefsky
• 366 Weird Movies overview
• Dangerous Minds Altered States scrapbook
• Acidemic 2009 essay
• Den of Geek 2013 review
• Nerdist 2014 review
• Frieze essay on John Lilly
• John C. Lilly on Wikipedia
• SBS (Australia) 2017 essay

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