Body Double (1984)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Blistering performances.

Brian De Palma has mentioned his affinity towards Alfred Hitchcock and Body Double could be his most direct homage to the master of suspense. Body Double would easily be a Hitchcock movie set in the 80s- from femme fatales to whodunnits to the noir atmosphere this is a film without any pretense. An out of work actor comes to stay at a lofty place owned by a newly acquainted friend. He sees a woman on the other side of the road, in a room changing. He starts spying on her and one thing leads to another. Craig Wasson(who oddly resembles Bill Maher) plays the main lead and the house he stays in- which I learnt is called the Chemosphere(yes, an actual location) is out of this world.

A young actor's obsession with spying on a beautiful woman who lives nearby leads to a baffling series of events with drastic consequences. Body Double benefits from a strong perfomance from Craig Wasson but also an interesting plot and twists that i didn't see them coming. The soundtrack is also so 80's that it hurts plus Melanie Griffith does a good job as well. Now as far as flaws go? some twists weren't that good like the one before the big climax, the murder sequence seemed like it took forever to be filmed and some scenes (mostly with Griffith and the Pet Shop Boys sequence were a little bit? weird) but overall not a bad movie but not one of De Palma's best either. (7.5/10)

Please, stop describing it as "hitchcockian" at all! De Palma is a genius by his own merits. This movie proves again his authorial identity, as well as his prominent attitude to analyze psycho- social issues.Here Hollywood, "The Industry", is totally depicted during the hedonistic-Reagan's era. It was 1984. De Palma's camera takes are undoubtedly referred to the Hitchcock's school but there is MORE, I would personally assert.The criticism De Palma always displayed in every work he made is pretty faraway from the sugarcoated studios' standards agreements. Last BUT VERY NOT LEAST: this flick endures being a total landscape's eye about L.A. Visually from Lautner's Chemosphere House atop Mulholland Dr. to few Westwood and Beverly Hills spots, up till the S.ta Monica surroundings. This is a historical film in my opinion. This Los Angeles too. Ciao belli!

1984's "Body Double" isn't the best film of Brian De Palma still it's a tease of mystery and suspense all blended with sex and a creep tease to make it a watch even if it does seem like a parody of the Hitchcock films.You have Jake(Craig Wasson)a real Bill Maher look a like! who's a struggling actor who can only find work in Hollywood in B movie flicks, and the only way he can get thru life is to drink Jack Daniels! One day he's asked to house-sit at a beautiful hillside Hollywood apartment of a friend. And this would turn from some eye candy fun to a bloody view of murder! Jake has a telescopic peak into the bedroom of an actress named Gloria and night after night a striptease is given and thru the scope a third party is viewed by Jake and that's a crazy looking man who's a stalker! Soon this leads to a bloody murder and it opens up an underworld of X-rated film and porn for Jake as a woman by the name of Holly Body(Melanie Griffith)may hold the key to the truth of it all. Still this film despite it's suspense and erotic thriller themes takes an unexpected twist it's like it's a parody of a film within a film! Still this is a nice eye candy treat and a good watch clearly an 80's classic.