Office Killer poster & wallpaper

Carol Kane, Molly Ringwald, Jeanne Tripplehorn

Photographer and director Cindy Sherman has obviously always been interested in film. Her well-known Untitled Film Stills, from movies that don't exist--pregnant scenes that seem as thou...( read more  read more... )gh they are in medias res but are really staged--feature diverse characters who, upon closer examination, prove to be Sherman herself, every time. Her 1998 film debut, Office Killer, takes her postmodern playfulness with such narrative frames out of the equation--and leaves us with something more flatly macabre and less subtle than Sherman's other work.

Here, Carol Kane plays Dorine, a mousy, lonely, and introverted copyeditor for a consumer publication. Think for a moment what kind of person a copyeditor must be: this is the person whose job, whose passion, it is to know exactly where the apostrophe goes and to know the difference between effect and affect. The pressure can get to you.

Tyrannized at home by a domineering mother and tyrannized at work by backstabbing coworkers, downsizing, and newfangled computers, Dorine finds that the copy she cleans up is her only pleasure in life. As pressure builds and builds--Kane's performance exhibits amazing mastery of body language--Dorine finally caves and steps into an insanity that, in a horrifying, animalian fashion, has its own pleasantness and reason. Despite Kane's strong acting here, she is supported by flattish performances from Molly Ringwald, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Barbara Sukowa.

It is unclear if Sherman means to serve or redefine the concept of narrative through this emotional detachment she brings to the screen. Certainly, this isn't a conventional film, and its cinematography and innovative story are indeed attention-keeping, even entertaining, on a horror-flick level at least. If her goal is to serve narrative canonically, then she fails almost miserably. If her goal is to redefine narrative, then she may have achieved something here that most critics aren't clueing into. It's just unclear what this achievement is. --Erik J. Macki

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46% liked it

1,019 ratings

Critics

13% liked it

15 critics

R, 83 min.

Directed by: Cindy Sherman

Release Date: December 3, 1997

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DVD Release Date: June 4, 2002

Stats: 48 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (48)

  • cacutshaw
    January 31, 2008
    cacutshaw
    Office Killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est? Actually a better question would be why did you have to suck so hard and make me forever regret leaving an Abel Ferarra Q&A to make it on time to see you. Screw you Office Killer!
  • michellefortuin
    October 15, 2009
    michellefortuin
    Disguisting.. The idea of a lonely woman who becomes a psycho is not bad at all, but I don't think the movie succeed.
    Some scenes were just gross..
    Well, as you can see this is not my kind of movie.
    That one star is for Carol Kane, who played the psycho very well, and I also l...( read more)iked Jeanne Tripplehorn as Norah.

    But it's still scary as hell!
  • redmanhill2000
    June 29, 2007
    redmanhill2000
    My brother worked on this movie and no one has heard of it and I Love IT!!
  • michaeltoddbackus
    February 17, 2007
    michaeltoddbackus
    This is a wierd movie with some solid actresses in it. Part comedy part horror it will entertain you some, but aside from that don't expect much.
  • nuheart
    January 7, 2007
    nuheart
    I don't know anything about this movie, but I'm intrigued by the director's UNTITLED FILM STILLS.
  • thestephanator
    October 21, 2006
    thestephanator
    i'm very biased because i LOVE both cindy sherman and molly ringwald... this one is so bad, it becomes just so GOOD.

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Comments

  • michellefortuin
    October 15, 2009
    michellefortuin
    Disguisting.. The idea of a lonely woman who becomes a psycho is not bad at all, but I don't think the movie succeed.
    Some scenes were just gross..
    Well, as you can see this is not my kind of movie.
    That one star is for Carol Kane, who played the psycho very well, and I also liked Jeanne Tripplehorn as Norah.

    But it's still scary as hell!
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