Other Titles • Body Double • Der Tod kommt zweimal (1985)
Synopses for Body Double (1984)
1.
Struggling, intensely claustrophobic actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) spends his spare time spying on an always-undressing beautiful woman while house-sitting at his friend's swanky Los Angeles bachelor pad. Then he notices a big ugly guy with a power drill is also spying on her, and Scully begins trailing them in a bizarre game that eventually leads to murder. To solve the mystery, Scully infiltrates the porn industry and stars in an X-rated video for 1980s band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, eventually linking up with adult film star Holly Body (Melanie Griffith), the key to all the strange goings-on. Director Brian De Palma delves merrily into his bag of cinematic tricks for this mystery, which comes off as a sort of sex- and sleaze-filled hybrid of Hitchcock's VERTIGO and REAR WINDOW. Griffith, then known mainly as the daughter of Hitchcock leading lady Tippi Hedren, earned fans and critical buzz with her refreshingly funny, sexy performance as the porn star. A pre-NYPD BLUE Dennis Franz appears as a director. Evocative use of L.A. locations and De Palma's creative camerawork help mask the less believable plot elements, as does a nice score by Pino Dinoggio.
(41 votes)
2.
Even Brian De Palma's staunchest defenders had to swallow hard with this gaudily gory bauble of a thriller that is built around a gruesome (yet surprisingly wittily staged) stalking and murder involving a female victim and a killer with a giant power drill. This is De Palma at his most sensational, in a story about a B-movie actor (Craig Wasson) with career problems and a habit as a voyeur. He witnesses the aforementioned murder, then teams up with a porn actress (Melanie Griffith) to try and find the killer. De Palma has a blast going inside the porn film industry, and even films a pseudo rock video with one-hit wonders Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Wasson is an unlikely leading man, bland and pasty, but he is perfect in the role of a decidedly imperfect hero. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com
(40 votes)
3.
Brian De Palma invites you to witness a seduction... a mystery... a murder. It's Body Double - a spine-tingling look at voyeurism and sexuality from the modern master of suspense. Jake Scully (Wasson), an unemployed actor, is asked to house-sit at a luxurious hillside apartment. As a bonus, the home offers Jake a telescopic peek into the bedroom of Gloria Revelle (Shelton), who performs an arousing striptease. When Jake discovers another man is also spying on Gloria, he begins an obsessive surveillance of her. Soon a grisly murder leads him into the world of X-rated film where he meets sexy porn queen Holly Body (Griffith), who is a key to the crime. De Palma has created a gripping adult thriller of eroticism and horror!
(38 votes)
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