Dressed to Kill

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Plot: To condemn Dressed to Kill as a Hitchcock rip-off is to miss the sheer enjoyment of Brian De Palma's delirious 1980 thriller. Hitchcockian homages run rampant through most of De Palma's earlier...( read more  ) films, and this one's chock-full of visual quotes, mostly cribbed from Vertigo and Psycho. But De Palma's indulgent depravity transcends simple mimicry to assume a vitality all its own. It's smothered in thickly atmospheric obsessions with sex, dread, paranoia, and voyeurism, not to mention a heavy dose of Psycho-like psychobabble about a wannabe transsexual who's compelled to slash up any attractive female who reminds him--the horror!--that he's still very much a man.

Angie Dickinson plays the sexually unsatisfied, fortysomething wife who's the killer's first target, relaying her sexual fantasies to her psychiatrist (Michael Caine) before actually living one of them out after the film's celebrated cat-and-mouse sequence in a Manhattan art museum. The focus then switches to a murder witness (De Palma's then-girlfriend Nancy Allen) and Dickinson's grieving whiz-kid son (Keith Gordon), who attempt to solve the murder while staying one step ahead (or so they think) of the crude detective (Dennis Franz) assigned to the case. Propelled by Pino Donaggio's lush and stimulating score, De Palma's visuals provide seductive counterpoint to his brashly candid dialogue, and the plot conceals its own implausibility with morbid thrills and intoxicating suspense. If you're not laughing at De Palma's shameless audacity, you're sure to be on the edge of your seat. --Jeff Shannon

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• 
  citawijaya

  Why hasn't nobody write in here?
  I think it's a real classic since I didn't know that Brian DePalma rips it off from Hitchcock's movie, I don't have any authority to say anything...

  posted 121 days ago

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  Angie Dickinson
• 
  Anneka Di Lorenzo
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  Brandon Maggart
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  David Margulies
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  Dennis Franz
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  Keith Gordon
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  Michael Caine
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  Nancy Allen
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  Samm-Art Williams
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  William Finley

• Rated: (R)
• Directed by: Angie Dickinson, Anneka Di Lorenzo, Brandon Maggart, Brian DePalma, David Margulies, Dennis Franz, Keith Gordon, Michael Caine, Nancy Allen, Samm-Art Williams, William Finley
• Genres: Mystery & Suspense, Drama, Horror
• Released: January 1, 1980
• DVD Released: August 28, 2001

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