Dressed to Kill (1980) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 1980
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Michael Caine, Nancy Allen, Angie Dickinson, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz, Susanna Clemm
Rating: R; Unrated (DVD)
Release Date: 25 July 1980; 6 September 2011 (DVD)
Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

The Movie Review

Dressed to Kill film still 1


DRESSED To KILL
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

Dressed to Kill is considered to be the first erotic thriller movie, a genre which combined erotica, thriller, drama wrapped in a suspenseful storyline. But surely after 31 years, Dressed to Kill has to compete with many many movies coming from the same genre before I could label it as Rent It or even Buy It. It's interesting to see if a movie manages to be as interesting as it was on the time of its release and I can assure you folks, Dressed to Kill is still one of the best in the genre.

The movie opens with a scene of a couple spending time grooming themselves in the bathroom. The husband is shaving while the wife (Angie Dickinson) is showering (cue to full frontal female nudity) and even though the looks on her face is full of love towards her spouse but she confess to her psychiatrist (Michael Caine) of her husband being awful and egoistic in bed. However, apparently her sex life should not be of her concern because a deranged transsexual is stalking her and going to do unimaginable thing to this regular everyday woman. What will happen to her? What has he done to anger the transgender?

Brilliant, a brilliant storyline told in such details with great camerawork and neat editing. The long take at the Art Museum displaying act of tease between a man and a woman is highly interesting. Also interesting, is the fact how the 1st Razzie Awards "awarded" this movie as a nominee of worst movie in 1980 alongside Friday the 13th (1980) and Xanadu (1980), and Michael Caine was also granted nomination as Worst Actor and Nancy Allen was also given a nomination as Worst Actress which ironically she's also nominated for Golden Globe Award from Dressed to Kill, almost like Sandra Bullock's experience from All About Steve (2009). Hmm... Opinions do vary, and I can't nod to that decision. What is bad about it? And especially what is worst about it? I mean sure this is not a perfect movie and the erotic thriller genre is indeed has similarities to the famous Italian Giallo of the 60s and 70s and even to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), but Dressed to Kill is a beautiful and engaging movie.

I mean, of course by the name of the genre itself, it's clear that nudity plays a big role in this film by Brian de Palma --the director famous for movies like Scarface (1983) and Mission: Impossible (1996)-- but that doesn't make the movie cheap or softcore like. At the worst, nudity only serves as shock-value or eye-candy material or padding to lengthen the running time of Dressed to Kill. In fact, some naked scenes especially stripping scene by Nancy Allen (as Liz Blake, the sole witness to the murder) is a pivotal point to unravel the mystery behind the killings. Probably the most controversial nudity is the Angie Dickinson scene of touching herself so explicitly, and this scene claimed to be done by body double, general viewers might or might not have a different opinion after having seen her performance in Big Bad Mama (1974).

I can't say that it's a perfect one because somehow the suspense and mystery will be guessed quite easily by avid movie buffs or film critics. But that's exactly the one of the beauties of Dressed to Kill... The killer character does things that are clear signs of psychopathic person but these signs are not visible to casual moviegoers. Don't worry, because the ending explains everything why he/she did that in the first place and what triggered him/her to commit such brutal crime.

Brutality is probably the one thing that I hated the most about Dressed to Kill. If it's meant for shock value, I guess I could understand that, but man, the killing scenes are so visual thus very disturbing. I saw the unrated version, so pretty much everything is present. If you like a thriller with erotica and suspense, surely Dressed to Kill should be on the list.

> Famous Erotic Thriller of the past decades: Body Heat (1981), Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992).

> Modern Erotic Thriller films: Killing Me Softly (2002) and Chloe (2009).

© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
Twitter: @movielogy
posted: Sunday, 11 December 2011 11:44 pm