Altered States was a good movie, right up to the shrooms .

We had different approaches to films back then.

He liked his movies simple and straightforward and easy to understand.

If hed had his way, every movie ever made would have starred Clint Eastwood or Chuck Norris.

Maybe I was just a little sadistic.

After winning three Oscars, Paddy Chayevsky was considered the sharpest, smartest screenwriter in Hollywood.

It was a serious and intelligent novel and even with those two marks against it became a bestseller.

When Columbia picked up the film rights however, everything went to hell.

While still in development the budget started to balloon, so they dumped the project off to Warners.

Warners finally and reluctantly, settled on Ken Russell.

Chayevsky, on the other hand, had written Marty.

Then the special effects crew quit.

One third bad maybe, but certainly not half.

), but none of them had taken the idea quite this far before.

As he spends more time hallucinating in the tank, all that religious talk goes out the window.

And dammit, whos to say hes wrong?

Anyone whos done mushrooms alone in a tiny, bare apartment couldve told him thats exactly what would happen.

Some viewers might consider it unduly and pointlessly flashy, but pointlessly flashy sums up Russell in a nutshell.

Jessup cant just show up at a party and walk through the door.

Likewise, you cant just have a normal sex scene.

No, it has to take place in the fiery bowels of hell.

And all this is long before we get to the hallucination sequences.

Its smart and wild and captivating and different.

Things were going really well.

Its just too bad thatMonster on the Campuswas a much better picture.

But come the final moments ofAltered States,its clear no one knew exactly what the hell to do.

Maybe add some computer graphics or something later to jazz it up?

A few months later, he died.

Ronnie really liked that one.