Altered States
A brilliant research scientist dives into sensory‑deprivation tanks and hallucinogenic rituals to map the limits of human consciousness, only to find his own perception unraveling as memory, time and reality become deadly, mutable forces.
“In the basement of a university medical school, Dr. Jessup floats naked in total darkness. The most terrifying experiment in the history of science is out of control... and the subject is himself.”
Synopsis
A research scientist investigates the boundaries and frontiers of human consciousness. Through the use of sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures provided by Native American shamans, he explores these altered states of awareness and discovers that memory, time, and reality itself are states of mind.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 20
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Eric JenkinsShot by Jordan CronenwethScored by John CoriglianoDesigned by Richard Macdonald
Box Office
1980 · Box office
⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.3× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$19.9M
Also known as
- Der Höllentripde
- Au-delà du réelfr
- Stati di allucinazioneit
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Cast & Crew
20 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
1Other crew
7Parents Guide
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