Ken Russell’s Altered States (1980) is a special movie across the genres of sci-fi and horror with elements of a thriller as well as drama. For its time, it was an out-of-the-box venture into the inner world of one’s own consciousness. How it played out on the screen was the challenging job left to Russell’s creative vision, and he didn’t disappoint on it.

Officially the second movie of William Hurt’s acting career, Altered States features Hurt as the subject-obsessed academic Edward Jessup who wants to get to the primordial state of consciousness. For this passion, he makes himself his own lab rat (metaphorically speaking); after all, seeing is believing, especially in subjective experiences like one’s state of consciousness. Jessup participates in an Indian (Native Ame...

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