BODY DOUBLE
Probably De Palma's worst movie
Some sick twisted part of me likes Brian De Palma's bad movies even more than his good ones, but even I can't get behind this one.
An out-of-work actor (Bill Maher lookalike Craig Wasson) - recently fired from a film which required him to look and dress just like Billy Idol in the "Dancing With Myself" (I'm not sure whether the film imitates the video or vice versa), walks in on his woman fucking some guy; guess he can't live there anymore. Not his day. But then he meets a guy in his acting class who offers him a place to stay while he's getting back on his feet: his friend's place, which he's housesitting. Actually, it's not really a house, it's more like a big flying saucer stuck on top of a big pole, like Troy McClure's place.
This "house" comes equipped with a telescope that's fixed to point right down at the window of some young lady who gyrates topless in front of her open window every night at the same time. Soon he's following her around, and after saving her from a purse snatcher, makes out with her on the beach and eventually sees her getting attacked by said purse-snatcher through his telescope one night. He rushes down to rescue her, but too late - she's getting impaled with a big electric drill (great scene here, with blood gushing out the hole in the floor beneath the body). To solve the mystery, he delves into a World O' Filth - porno!
The plot's ridiculous, and yet somehow predictable. Wasson goes way beyond the overplaying that Nicholas Cage did in 8mm, and De Palma just doesn't seem very much on his game, giving us silly little things that could have been phoned in (like the ol' camera-spins-around-the-two-lovers thing, which goes on for what seems to be several days) and generally just denying us that trademark De Palma wackiness. Scenes that are supposed to be hard-hitting come across as lame and poorly staged ("Look behind you!"). I mean, really - that drill murder was led up to with stupid things like drawn-out moments when the killer just inches toward his victim, drill bared before him, for no reason other than to prolong everything. Or when the killer collapses and passes out momentarily, for no apparent reason. Or that hilariously lame moment where the killer inches toward her with that drill and we see the cord plugging it into the wall becoming increasingly taut - this is supposed to be suspenseful? And it takes about an hour for things to get as far as I've described above, which is about forty-five minutes longer than it should be, by which time I was thoroughly distracted and trying to get my largely atrophied chops back up on the guitar.
On the upside, Melanie Griffith's performance as the porn queen that this guy meets in the film's second half is the only thing I've ever seen her do worth watching for more than fifteen seconds. Like I said, there's that great, sleazy murder once it actually happens. And while the ending is pretty much exactly as predicted (oh yeah, that Indian guy looked like a real Indian), it's hilarious, both intentionally ("Is there somebody here that I don't see?") and not (a dog crashes through a truck window from the inside, aided by all the power that his eighteen inches of running momentum can get up to smash it with).
But overall, it's just weak. Do you really want to see a Berlin nightclub-style video for Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax"? No, I didn't think you did.