Raymond Sternadel
Talk about a trippy movie. Don't see a lot of movies like this. It's enjoyable, thought provoking, and most definitely an excellent film for it's time. The makeup and effects were well done. Tasteful nudity is also appreciated.
SnoopyStyle
Dr. Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) is doing experiments in an isolation tank with Arthur Rosenberg (Bob Balaban). Emily (Blair Brown) is a young anthropology PHD candidate from Columbia who is taken with Jessup. He has conflicted feelings about his father and religion. Over seven years later, they are married with kids in San Francisco. Arthur and wife Sylvia join them to find that they're on the brink of divorce. Emily wants to stay together but Eddie is restless in his settled unimpressive academic life. He visits a Mexican native tribe and has an out-of-body experience. He returns to resume his sensory deprivation experiments with a new tank. The hallucinations are visually dynamite. This is held together by William Hurt. He has the leading man looks but also has a hidden sense of reserved madness. There is a nice steady devolution and memorable scenes of his metamorphosis.
AaronCapenBanner
William Hurt plays Harvard professor Eddie Jessup, who becomes obsessed with his anthropological studies that lead him into hallucinogenic drugs, with which he hopes to expand his mind. When this proves limiting, he then uses his school's isolation chamber to remove all external sensory input, and instead use these drugs to explore his mind, which has the inadvertent effect of regressing him physically into a primitive human state.Though ambitious, and contains a fine performance by William hurt, film is damaged by having a mostly unappealing lead character, and an increasingly far-fetched story, that ultimately tries to emulate "2001:A Space Odyssey", but falls far short of that masterpiece.Well-intentioned, but a misfire.
RachyLovesRattys
I saw this movie at about age 16 and thought it was a masterpiece. Now, it's still a very good movie- but I do get irritated by some of the gratuitous Star Trek-like special effects. Still, some scenes in the movie stuck with me long after I saw them, mostly the blasphemous religious imagery. (Proof this movie disturbed me: Right after first watching- my power suddenly went out. We were the only house on the block with no power. I took that as a sign and ran to the nearest hotel for the night.) It really doesn't make too much sense now, considering there is no aspect of the film that involves something that could "attack" the viewer in real life. But the thoughts of crucified eight-eyed goats and bleeding bibles really anchored themselves into my brain. Overall very well done film- I would say a good starter cerebral film for a teenager looking to explore the genre.
AD
