Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site hocsj.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!hocsj!ecl From: ecl@hocsj.UUCP Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: BODY DOUBLE (*spoiler*) Message-ID: <199@hocsj.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Oct-84 10:31:19 EST Article-I.D.: hocsj.199 Posted: Mon Oct 29 10:31:19 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Oct-84 01:14:50 EST Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 47 BODY DOUBLE A film review by Mark R. Leeper The ads for this film call Brian De Palma "the modern master of suspense." To some extent, they are correct. De Palma has made a series of interesting horror films, including THE PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, THE FURY, and especially CARRIE, without which public attention might never have come to Stephen King. He has also studied in depth the films and techniques of Alfred Hitchcock. He released OBSESSION at the same time that Hitchcock's final film, FAMILY PLOT, was in the theaters. I have also claimed that if the two films were shown side-by-side, without credits, most people would have picked OBSESSION as the new Hitchcock classic. Other Hitchcockian suspense films De Palma has made include SISTERS, DRESSED TO KILL, and BLOW OUT. His current effort along these lines is BODY DOUBLE. At this point, this review will become a minor spoiler review, much as I would like to avoid it. This is because the biggest surprise of this film is that every single surprise is telegraphed. In the second scene in which the villain appears I told myself, okay, this guy is going to be the villain. The film introduces the characters and the situation, then has a riveting suspense sequence in a shopping mall. (This is a very well- directed sequence, by the way.) Then just as the mystery is getting started, it shifts to a purse-snatching scene on a beach. We were still very early in the mystery (certainly still in the first half of the film), and I said to myself, "Oh no!" Then I took my notepad and wrote down the entire solution of the film: who was doing what to whom and exactly why, and exactly how the villain's plot worked. And it was no wild guess. De Palma can use Hitchcock's style and make polished mysteries, but he does not do Hitchcock's homework. Each Hitchcock film had a new and unexpected plot. None were derivative. The plot for BODY DOUBLE was clever when Hitchcock used it in a previous film. De Palma cannot borrow Hitchcock's plots and expect them to still be surprising. Hitchcock proved that he was more than a filmmaker--he was a reader. He read a lot of the mysteries being written in his time, took the better plots, and made films out of them. De Palma is more a student of film. He can pick up a lot from previous films, but it is pretty tough to pick up mystery plots that other film fans will not recognize. It is extremely frustrating to see the care with which De Palma constructs his films and to see all that care wasted. By not having a fresh, original source of plots, that effort is squandered on suspenseless suspense films. (Evelyn C. Leeper for) Mark R. Leeper ...ihnp4!lznv!mrl