Review of Dressed to Kill (1980) by Jason D — 27 Apr 2009

Brian De Palma so desperately wanted to be like Alfred Hitchcock (it seems), and with Dressed to Kill, he gets close, damn close. Dressed to Kill focuses on bored housewife Angie Dickinson (very young, very hot, and very naked) who's a beacon of lust and sexuality.

She's bored with her current husband and sexually depraved, wanting to have an affair to desperately, to which she tries to with her therapist Michael Caine (excellent in this film). He refuses her advances so she tries getting picked up at the museum, which she does.

Upon leaving the hotel where she has the affair, she is brutally murdered (in fairly gory fashion) by a supposed woman (transsexual actually). With the cops being no help whatsoever (particularly Dennis Franz as the lead detective), it's up to a smart prostitute (Nancy Allen, in a very sexy role as well) and Dickinson's son, Keith Gordon (Christine) to try and track down the killer before they get killed.

This is a very suspenseful film for the most part. Sure, it's slightly dated, but for being made in 1980, it holds up fairly well. Dickinson and Allen provide great sexual bookends for the film as we see a lot of them (metaphorically AND literally) at the beginning and end of the film, respectively.

My first exposure to Nancy Allen was always Robocop, where they tried very hard to make her manly and unappealing, which is how I saw her. Boy, I saw a new side of her in this film...and I liked it! Overall, great performances from the entire cast and absolutely great direction from De Palma, who uses the hell out of the double vision/screen shots throughout the film where two or more things are going on at once.

Very effective for this movie, especially for the chilling finale. Great film.