Hello and welcome to the unofficial Brian De Palma website.
Here is the latest news:

De Palma a la Mod

E-mail
Geoffsongs@aol.com

De Palma Discussion
Forum

-------------

Recent Headlines
a la Mod:

Domino is
a "disarmingly
straight-forward"
work that "pushes
us to reexamine our
relationship to images
and their consumption,
not only ethically
but metaphysically"
-Collin Brinkman

De Palma on Domino
"It was not recut.
I was not involved
in the ADR, the
musical recording
sessions, the final
mix or the color
timing of the
final print."

Listen to
Donaggio's full score
for Domino online

De Palma/Lehman
rapport at work
in Snakes

De Palma/Lehman
next novel is Terry

De Palma developing
Catch And Kill,
"a horror movie
based on real things
that have happened
in the news"

Supercut video
of De Palma's films
edited by Carl Rodrigue

Washington Post
review of Keesey book

-------------

Exclusive Passion
Interviews:

Brian De Palma
Karoline Herfurth
Leila Rozario

------------

AV Club Review
of Dumas book

------------

« March 2025 »
S M T W T F S
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31

Interviews...

De Palma interviewed
in Paris 2002

De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


Enthusiasms...

De Palma Community

The Virtuoso
of the 7th Art

The De Palma Touch

The Swan Archives

Carrie...A Fan's Site

Phantompalooza

No Harm In Charm

Paul Schrader

Alfred Hitchcock
The Master Of Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock Films

Snake Eyes
a la Mod

Mission To Mars
a la Mod

Sergio Leone
and the Infield
Fly Rule

Movie Mags

Directorama

The Filmmaker Who
Came In From The Cold

Jim Emerson on
Greetings & Hi, Mom!

Scarface: Make Way
For The Bad Guy

The Big Dive
(Blow Out)

Carrie: The Movie

Deborah Shelton
Official Web Site

The Phantom Project

Welcome to the
Offices of Death Records

The Carlito's Way
Fan Page

The House Next Door

Kubrick on the
Guillotine

FilmLand Empire

Astigmia Cinema

LOLA

Cultural Weekly

A Lonely Place

The Film Doctor

italkyoubored

Icebox Movies

Medfly Quarantine

Not Just Movies

Hope Lies at
24 Frames Per Second

Motion Pictures Comics

Diary of a
Country Cinephile

So Why This Movie?

Obsessive Movie Nerd

Nothing Is Written

Ferdy on Films

Cashiers De Cinema

This Recording

Mike's Movie Guide

Every '70s Movie

Dangerous Minds

EatSleepLiveFilm

No Time For
Love, Dr. Jones!

The former
De Palma a la Mod
site

Entries by Topic
A note about topics: Some blog posts have more than one topic, in which case only one main topic can be chosen to represent that post. This means that some topics may have been discussed in posts labeled otherwise. For instance, a post that discusses both The Boston Stranglers and The Demolished Man may only be labeled one or the other. Please keep this in mind as you navigate this list.
All topics
Ambrose Chapel
Are Snakes Necessary?
BAMcinématek
Bart De Palma
Beaune Thriller Fest
Becoming Visionary
Betty Buckley
Bill Pankow
Black Dahlia
Blow Out
Blue Afternoon
Body Double
Bonfire Of The Vanities
Books
Boston Stranglers
Bruce Springsteen
Cannes
Capone Rising
Carlito's Way
Carrie
Casualties Of War
Catch And Kill
Cinema Studies
Clarksville 1861
Columbia University
Columbo - Shooting Script
Congo
Conversation, The
Cop-Out
Cruising
Daft Punk
Dancing In The Dark
David Koepp
De Niro
De Palma & Donaggio
De Palma (doc)
De Palma Blog-A-Thon
De Palma Discussion
Demolished Man
Dick Vorisek
Dionysus In '69
Domino
Dressed To Kill  «
Edward R. Pressman
Eric Schwab
Fatal Attraction
Femme Fatale
Film Series
Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
George Litto
Get To Know Your Rabbit
Ghost & The Darkness
Greetings
Happy Valley
Havana Film Fest
Heat
Hi, Mom!
Hitchcock
Home Movies
Icarus
Inspired by De Palma
Iraq, etc.
Jack Fisk
Jared Martin
Jerry Greenberg
Keith Gordon
Key Man, The
Laurent Bouzereau
Lights Out
Lithgow
Magic Hour
Magnificent Seven
Mission To Mars
Mission: Impossible
Mod
Montreal World Film Fest
Morricone
Mr. Hughes
Murder a la Mod
Nancy Allen
Nazi Gold
Newton 1861
Noah Baumbach
NYFF
Obsession
Oliver Stone
Palmetto
Paranormal Activity 2
Parker
Parties & Premieres
Passion
Paul Hirsch
Paul Schrader
Pauline Kael
Peet Gelderblom
Phantom Of The Paradise
Pimento
Pino Donaggio
Predator
Prince Of The City
Print The Legend
Raggedy Ann
Raising Cain
Red Shoes, The
Redacted
Responsive Eye
Retribution
Rie Rasmussen
Robert De Niro
Rotwang muß weg!
Sakamoto
Scarface
Scorsese
Sean Penn
Sensuous Woman, The
Sisters
Snake Eyes
Sound Mixer
Spielberg
Star Wars
Stepford Wives
Stephen H Burum
Sweet Vengeance
Tabloid
Tarantino
Taxi Driver
Terry
The Tale
To Bridge This Gap
Toronto Film Fest
Toyer
Travolta
Treasure Sierra Madre
Tru Blu
Truth And Other Lies
TV Appearances
Untitled Ashton Kutcher
Untitled Hollywood Horror
Untitled Industry-Abuse M
Untouchables
Venice Beach
Vilmos Zsigmond
Wedding Party
William Finley
Wise Guys
Woton's Wake
Blog Tools
Edit your Blog
Build a Blog
RSS Feed
View Profile
You are not logged in. Log in
Sunday, December 22, 2024
ARROW 4K 'DRESSED TO KILL' LIMITED EDITION IN MARCH 2025
REGION-FREE, WITH SOME NEW SPECIAL FEATURES AND BOOKLET WITH WRITTEN ESSAYS
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/arrowdtk.jpg

Arrow Video has announced a Limited Edition 4k Ultra HD of Brian De Palma's Dressed To Kill, for release on March 3, 2025. Here are the details:
  • 4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
  • 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
  • Original lossless 1.0 mono soundtrack
  • Optional lossless 5.1 soundtrack
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Brand new audio commentary by critics Drusilla Adeline and Joshua Conkel
  • Audio commentary by critic Maitland McDonagh
  • Beyond Good and Evil, a brand new visual essay by critics BJ and Harmony Colangelo
  • The Empathy of Dressed to Kill, a brand new visual essay by critic Jessica Crets
  • Strictly Business, a 2022 interview with actress Nancy Allen
  • Killer Frames, a 2022 interview with associate producer/production manager Fred C. Caruso
  • An Imitation of Life, a 2022 interview with actor Keith Gordon
  • Archival interviews with actors Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon, and producer George Litto
  • The Making of a Thriller, an archival documentary on the making of the film
  • Unrated, R-rated and TV-rated comparison featurette
  • Slashing Dressed to Kill, an archival featurette examining the changes made to avoid an X rating
  • Photo gallery
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
  • Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Sara Michelle Fetters, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Matthew Sorrento and Heather Wixson

  • Posted by Geoff at 3:24 PM CST
    Post Comment | View Comments (5) | Permalink | Share This Post
    Monday, August 19, 2024
    WATCHING PHIL DONAHUE IN SPLIT-SCREEN
    DRESSED TO KILL (1980)
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/phil1.jpg


    Posted by Geoff at 9:42 PM CDT
    Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
    Tuesday, May 14, 2024
    PAYPHONES IN DE PALMA (PART 9) - 'DRESSED TO KILL'
    NANCY ALLEN AS LIZ BLAKE - "Trouble? No, I'm not in any trouble, I just want to talk to the guy!"
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/payphonedtk155.jpg


    Posted by Geoff at 10:44 PM CDT
    Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
    Monday, May 13, 2024
    SAMM-ART WILLIAMS HAS DIED
    PROLIFIC PLAYWRIGHT, SCREENWRITER, ACTOR & PRODUCER HAD MEMORABLE ROLE IN DRESSED TO KILL
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/dressed16s.jpg

    Samm-Art Williams, who had a memorable role as the subway police officer in Brian De Palma's Dressed To Kill, passed away peacefully today, according to Deadline. He was 78.

    More from the Deadline obituary:

    Born Samuel Arthur Williams on January 20, 1946, in Philadelphia, Williams was a prolific playwright, screenwriter, actor, and producer.

    Performing as Samm Williams, he got his start on the New York stage in the early 1970s, appearing in notable plays such as Black Jesus and, with the New York’s Negro Ensemble Company, Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide and Liberty Calland. By the mid-’70s he began performing in other Off Broadway shows under the name Samm-Art Williams.

    By the end of the decade, Williams had made his mark as a stage writer, and is today best known for Home, a drama originally staged by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1979 that moved to Broadway the following year. Home will be revived on Broadway beginning this June is a major Roundabout Theatre Company production directed by Kenny Leon.

    The production begins previews May 17 at the Todd Haimes Theatre, opening on June 5.

    Home is described by Roundabout as “a muscular and melodic coming-of-age story that gives voice to the unbreakable spirit of all Americans who have been searching for a place to belong.” The drama tells the story of Cephus Miles, a black Southern farmer thrown in jail for opposing the Vietnam draft and later moving North only to experience further difficulties before finally returning home.

    The original Broadway production was nominated for the Best Play Tony Award and ran for 278 performances. Williams’ other stage credits include Welcome To Black River and Friends.

    Williams also kept busy throughout the 1980s and ’90s writing for such TV shows as The New Mike Hammer, Cagney and Lacey, Badges, John Henry, Frank’s Place, Miami Vice, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Martin, among others. He received a 1985 Emmy nomination (Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program) for Motown Returns to the Apollo (shared with fellow writers Buz Kohan and Peter Elbling).

    As a producer, Williams was Emmy-nominated for Frank’s Place, and scored major TV hits with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, Martin and The Good News.

    A recognizable actor, Williams made notable appearances in 1984’s Blood Simple and as the enslaved person Jim in a 1985 American Playhouse/PBS limited series production of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Other acting credits include guest appearances in 227, Miami Vice, Frank’s Place, The Women of Brewster Place, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, A Rage In Harlem and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper.

    On the big screen, he made his debut The Wanderers (1979), and the following year played a subway police officer in director Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill.

    Accolades include a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Playwriting, and other awards for writing. He was an Artist-in-Residence at North Carolina Central University, where he taught classes on equity theater and the art of playwriting.


    Posted by Geoff at 11:59 PM CDT
    Updated: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 12:05 AM CDT
    Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
    Saturday, May 11, 2024
    'DRESSED TO KILL' AT FILM FORUM IN NEW YORK NEXT WEEKEND
    MAY 17, 18, 20, AS PART OF 4-WEEK "OUT OF THE 80s" SERIES
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/filmforumdtk.jpg

    (Thanks to Hugh!)


    Posted by Geoff at 6:48 PM CDT
    Updated: Saturday, May 11, 2024 6:49 PM CDT
    Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
    Monday, January 22, 2024
    'A DE PALMA-CODED DOCTOR'S OFFICE'
    DAVID EHRLICH REVIEWS AARON SCHIMBERG'S 'A DIFFERENT MAN'
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/cainandmirror65.jpg

    IndieWire's David Ehrlich reviews A Different Man, following the film's premiere this past weekend at Sundance:
    A caustically funny cosmic joke of a film about an insecure actor who finds a miracle cure for his facial disfigurement, only to be upstaged by a stranger who oozes self-confidence despite (still) having the exact same condition the main character had once allowed to hold him back, Aaron Schimberg’s ruthless and Escher-like “A Different Man” might have felt cruel if not for how cleverly it complicates its punchline.

    Are we supposed to be laughing at someone — someone who’s been treated like a monster for his entire adult life — just because they couldn’t resist the opportunity to shed their skin? Anyone familiar with Schimberg’s “Chained for Life,” which similarly defenestrated the notion of disabilities as “God’s mistakes,” already knows the answer to that question. Besides, who among us would pass up the chance to look like Sebastian Stan?

    In that light, it’s more tempting to interpret “A Different Man” as a dark and damning satire of our social conditioning, which has convinced us to see asymmetry as ugliness, and internalize ugliness as inhuman. But while that might be a more accurate distillation of what Schimberg is doing here, leaving it there would fail to convey the full ambition of a deliriously surreal psycho-thriller that complicates its own identity at every turn. By refracting Brian De Palma’s self-reflexiveness and the Coen brothers’ mordant fatalism through the prism of his most personal obsessions, Schimberg creates a house of mirrors so brilliant and complex that it becomes impossible to match any of his characters to their own reflections, and absolutely useless to reduce the movie around them to the stuff of moral instruction.

    If “A Different Man” starts by preying upon the same kind of pity that backstopped the likes of “Wonder,” “Freaks,” “The Elephant Man,” and any number of other films about how atypical-looking people have feelings too, it almost immediately begins weaponizing that pity against the audience — as an impediment to empathy, rather than a pathway to it. You will feel bad for Edward by the time this movie arrives at its perfect final line, but not for the reasons you think.

    The movie’s first scene also makes us feel bad for Edward in similarly unexpected ways. Our concern isn’t focused on his neurofibromatosis (which has caused non-cancerous tumors to grow around the nerve tissue inside his face, swelling it in every direction at once), but rather that Edward’s condition has forced the wannabe actor to take a role in a Kaufman-esque PSA about the protocols of working with disfigured people. After all, the only real precedent for someone like him to succeed in the movies is probably “Under the Skin” breakout Adam Pearson (a dead ringer for Edward), though it’s unclear if that film exists in this film’s alternate-reality New York, a semi-heightened place which feels almost as blithely hellish as the nowhere city in “Beau Is Afraid.” The closest Edward can get to his dreams is performing an exaggerated version of himself in a project written by — and for the benefit of — the same people who make him scared to leave his dilapidated apartment. “Fear is a reaction,” someone insists. “Courage is a choice.”

    Another instructive quote is waiting for Edward when he gets back home, as his greasy super reminds him that “All unhappiness in life comes from not accepting what it is” (words of wisdom that he attributes to Lady Gaga). So while Edward is delighted to find that a free-spirited Norwegian beauty named Ingrid (“The Worst Person in the World” star Renate Reinsve) has moved into the apartment next door, his instant crush is tempered by the reality of the situation — a reality that persists even after she invites him inside and intimately squeezes out the blackheads on his nose.

    Maybe Ingrid, who has an endless rotation of strange men to choose from, simply doesn’t see Edward as a sexual being. Or maybe she develops feelings for him too, but denies them to herself because he’s not the kind of guy a woman like her “should” want. Or maybe the manic pixie dream girl energy that Edward projects onto her masks the fact that she’s a narcissistic sociopath who has no regard for other people’s feelings? It’s hard to see things clearly under so many layers of social coding, and Umberto Smerilli’s woozy, clarinet-driven score makes hard truths melt away like warm butter sliding off a knife.

    It won’t be long before Edward’s face disassembles in similar fashion. A single trip to a De Palma-coded doctor’s office sets him up with an experimental pill that could reverse his condition, and — just a few days later — Mike Marino’s remarkably life-like makeup begins to peel off in clumps of raw flesh, revealing that Sebastian Stan has been hiding beneath Edward’s tumors the whole time.

    Unsurprisingly, some things come pretty easy when you look like Captain America’s BFF. Bar bathroom blowjobs from people you’ve just met. A lucrative career in real estate. But “Guy” — as Edward creatively renames himself after faking his own death — can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right. Why did the guy who used to live across the hall from him hang himself even though he had a hot girlfriend? When an ice cream truck had to drive on the sidewalk in order to squeeze past the ambulance that came to fetch the body, why did the whole scene feel like such a wickedly cutting metaphor for Edward’s entire future? And when Guy discovers that Ingrid has written an off-Broadway play about Edward’s life and eventual suicide, why can’t he stop himself from auditioning?

    Some movies unfold in such a fun way that it can be easy for critics to indulge in the second-hand high of relaying their plots, but I promise that I haven’t spoiled anything beyond the basic setup to a film whose pleasures rely less on surprise than the satisfaction of watching something inevitable unravel into just the right shape.


    Posted by Geoff at 11:32 PM CST
    Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
    Tuesday, October 10, 2023
    'IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL TO WATCH - HIS FILMS ARE BEAUTIFUL'
    PODCAST "SEEING FACES IN MOVIES" ON DRESSED TO KILL
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/seeingfacesdtk.jpg

    "This month we're celebrating the Father of Cinema, Brian De Palma," tweets Seeing Faces in Movies Podcast's Felicia Maroni, "and to start things off I'm joined by Eugina Gelbelman to discuss the iconic Dressed To Kill (1980). We had a lot of fun, with a director who knows how to have a fun time." The episode description adds:
    They chat about De Palma’s ability to elevate a B-Grade thriller to A-Grade material through his master craftmanship. His use of split screen and split diopter, and dialogue free scenes to show and not tell the audience the characters movements.

    They gush about De Palma being one of their all time favourite directors (Felicia’s top favourite director? Maybe, probably!), and how deliberately frames each scene, and how no one is able to pace a story like him.


    Here's a nice exchange from the first part of the episode:
    Felicia: The tagline for Dressed To Kill is, “Every nightmare has a beginning – this one never ends.” That’s funny. It makes it sound like it’s an extreme slasher movie.

    Eugina: It does.

    Felicia: I mean, technically, there are slasher elements, but it’s more of a cerebral thriller.

    Eugina: As far as movies from that era go, it’s, like, slick. It’s very aesthetically pleasing, kind of. Not really like a grimy slasher film, it’s very polished and classy. Kind of a classy De Palma.

    Felicia: Right? And I love you for that, because some people kind of describe him as “sleazy,” and I’m like, I don’t think he’s sleazy. He makes stuff that I think is in the back of everyone’s fantasies, and he’s just putting it out there. But it’s so beautiful to watch. His films are beautiful. They’re not sleazy, they’re not gross.

    Eugina: No, it’s crafted very well.


    Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
    Post Comment | View Comments (2) | Permalink | Share This Post
    Saturday, September 2, 2023
    'DRESSED TO KILL' AS TEMPLATE FOR THE EROTIC THRILLER
    LINKS TO REVIEWS FOR NEW DOC WE KILL FOR LOVE - INCLUDES ANDREW STEVENS ON-CAMERA INTERVIEW
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/wkflposter.jpg

    "Thorough and insightful," writes Eye for Film's Jennie Kermode in her review of the new documentary, We Kill For Love, "[Anthony] Penta’s film benefits from fantastic editing (his own) and from a self-consciousness about the viewer’s gaze which aptly reflects the genre it’s exploring. It’s a love letter to films which, for all their darkness, celebrated sexual desire, and to what seemed for a while like the opening up of a much needed conversation, cut off too soon." Here's more from Kermode's review:
    To explore its history, as Anthony Penta does here, is fraught with difficulties. Many films from the era are lost altogether; others survive only on decaying VHS tapes or the occasional laserdisc. In the latter days of the era they were piled high and sold cheap, so nobody thought of hanging onto them. Genre stars interviewed for the documentary reveal that even they find it difficult to remember individual films in the blur of similar material. Nevertheless, Penta does a decent job of tracking the progress of the genre and highlighting key titles whilst simultaneously exploring its origins.

    Erotic thrillers were very much a product of the emergence of home video. Before that, one watched what was on television, or went to a cinema, but there was little real choice. Making films was expensive so quality was important, making it difficult to experiment, especially with themes which were unlikely to attract support from arts funding bodies. Mainstream cinema offered romance; underground cinema offered pornography; and there was very little in between. Video, however, meant that suddenly there was a market for films which people could watch at home with no strangers present, and which, whilst delivering titillation, had enough story to escape the stigma of porn. Couples could watch them together. They could pretend they were doing so for the sake of the plot. Sometimes it was even true.

    The roots of the genre, however, are deeper than that. Penta addresses the influence of film noir, with its dangerous, seductive femmes fatales and frequent murder plots. he also looks at the wider thriller genre, and particularly Hitchcock. (One cannot look at the architectural shots which open Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct without thinking of Hitchcock.) This leads to reflection on Rebecca and the Gothic, with women in lacy nightgowns fleeing wealthy men with troubled pasts. Perhaps these origins go some way to explaining why erotic thrillers are such a peculiarly white phenomenon, with people of colour appearing only late in the game, and practically no mixed-race couples. The danger they involve is carefully packaged for middle class white American viewers and steers clear of the country’s deeper sexual anxieties.

    The evolution of the genre would, inevitably, see new anxieties emerge. It provides an interesting mirror by way of which to reflect on US society during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. There’s a suggestion that it also addressed a developing crisis of masculinity, though the theories espoused here don’t go very deep, and there is some commentary on the development of feminism which is notable for its naivety, treating it as a unified school of thought. It is notable that the genre increasingly foregrounds women’s perspectives and portrays them as people who can be motivated by sexual desire, something which has become rarer in today’s cinema. This would be particularly plain in the Red Shoe Diaries series which emerged from the genre.

    Penta positions Fatal Attraction as an ur-text for the genre, and takes the opportunity to discuss the issues with its ending, which was mangled by test audiences whose misogyny is perhaps easier for some viewers to appreciate from a distance. He also singles out Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill as a template for many films which followed it, and there are sufficient clips here for any viewer to recognise the repeated efforts to ape his camera angles. Then there’s 9 ½ Weeks, which gave the genre a shot in the arm at a stage when it was struggling. One might reflect that Kim Basinger is one of few women to have risen to stardom within this genre and gone on to build a successful career in more ‘respectable’ films.


    Joe Shearer, Midwest Film Journal:
    The documentary rolls off the rails, though, when Penta veers into pretension. He creates a narrative with an actor playing “The Archivist,” a wholly unnecessary and distractingly bad device that disrupts the film’s momentum and seems especially bothersome given the film’s nearly three-hour running time. We see a man enter a room, discovering and watching old VHS tapes he’s studying, while a muted, haughty narration (provided by Penta) drones over him.

    “The Archivist” is supposedly a chronicler of erotic thrillers, but his presence is a purposeless extravagance whose subject matter is drenched in excess all its own. It’s an unwelcome flourish, and Penta’s accompanying narration is a self-aggrandizing excuse to attract attention to his pointless, flowery prose. Sure, it lovingly describes a genre whose main selling points are breasts and betrayal, but it’s maddeningly repetitive and smacks of self-importance. At one point, Penta repeats the phrase “Danger. Romance. Seduction” four times, each slower than the last. It’s meant to punctuate the notions but it’s a useless abstraction that elicits a larger sigh with each repetition.

    Then we get to the presentation of the analysis itself, compiled from experts who speak insightfully and with authority. And while interviewees are discussing films like Double Indemnity, Rear Window and Vertigo in comparison to genre classics like Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill, Adrian Lyne’s Fatal Attraction and Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, we see clips of films like In the Heat of Passion, Lake Consequence and Sins of Desire. No offense to those films, but their incorporation of themes from those earlier films is where comparisons to such classics end; they are not as apples-to-apples as their more well-known and -respected cousins.

    Penta also raises and drops some threads, including a timeline outlining the number of erotic thrillers made year to year. That timeline stops at 1994, which is presumably the peak, but is dropped and never returns.


    J.B. Spins:
    The genesis of it all was Brian de Palma’s Dressed to Kill, which established just about all of the genre’s tropes and motifs. Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat was its Citizen Kane and Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction were its Star Wars-sized hits. In between, there were a lot of cheaper films, promising, but not necessarily delivering naughty thrills, for customers of independent video stores and late-night cable TV.

    The phenomenon was well underway during the mid-to-late-1980s, but it maybe reached its peak in the early 1990s. Andrew Stevens is a major reason why. He leveraged his notoriety as an actor (from films like The Fury and Death Hunt) to get his screenplay produced. He also starred in Night Eyes, which is definitely one of the documentary’s touchstone films. To Stevens’ credit, he is a good interview subject, who can discuss his career with self-aware perspective and a sense of humor.

    Occasionally, there is some horror crossover in We Kill for Love, mainly thanks to Fred Olen Rey. Penta and his academics (whose political commentary on the 1980s is often dubious) also convincingly identify straight-to-video erotic thrillers as the disreputable offspring of film noir and hardboiled pulp on the male side and gothic romance on female side. (However, class envy played little role in the genre’s success. The characters’ luxurious lifestyles were just a further dimension of its voyeurism.)

    Indeed, voyeurism often factored very directly in the storylines, but they were not X-rated. They were “naughty” rather than “dirty” movies. Yet, many of the actresses who frequently appeared in these films have had to push back when they were unfairly labeled “porn stars,” like Amy Lindsay (whose credits also include guest shots on Star Trek: Voyager, Silk Stockings, and Pacific Blue), who explains what it was like to be smeared with the “p” word when she appeared as an average voter in a commercial for Ted Cruz. Give Penta credit for covering this incident fairly.


    Scott Phillips, Forbes:
    The erotic thriller was a staple in video stores in the 1990’s. The shelves of every Blockbuster Video store were filled with films like Night Eyes (1990) and Poison Ivy (1992). The genre owes its existence to a handful of classic thrillers like Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980), the Michael Douglas-Glenn Close smash hit Fatal Attraction (1987) and the sexy crime procedural Basic Instinct (1992) starring Douglas and Sharon Stone.

    The new documentary We Kill for Love chronicles the rise of the erotic thriller during the birth of the home video era and its near-total disappearance in our age of streaming. Writer-director Anthony Penta tracked down hundreds of titles (many of which only exist on VHS) to complete his research into the subject. Penta has also compiled extensive on-camera interviews with the major stars of the era including Andrew Stevens, Kira Reed, Monique Parent, Amy Lindsay, Athena Massey, and Jodie Fisher.

    The film examines how, despite the titillation and nudity, the erotic thrillers of this era were about female empowerment. In these films, women refused to be seen only as sex objects and took ownership of their lives. They weren’t waiting to be rescued by a man. They could face their enemies alone if they had to.

    We Kill for Love is being distributed by Yellow Veil Pictures so fans should be guaranteed home video access to this excellent film about films. I’ll be buying the Bluray not simply to rewatch the documentary, but so I will always have access to the bibliography of films and written articles listed in the film’s final credits. Don’t be put off by its 163-minute runtime. The documentary explores so many facets of the erotic thriller genre that it never lags. It’s not simply an interesting history of a sub-genre of cinema. It’s also a fascinating sociological and cultural history of 1990’s America.


    Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
    Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink | Share This Post
    Thursday, April 13, 2023
    ANGIE DICKINSON ON DE PALMA, 'A VERY SERIOUS FILMMAKER'
    'RIO BRAVO' AND 'DRESSED TO KILL' REMAIN TWO FILMS SHE SEEMS ESPECIALLY PROUD OF
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/brianangiesteps55.jpg

    Variety's Todd Gilchrist spoke with Angie Dickinson ahead of her appearance tonight at the TCM Film Festival, where she was to introduce a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo. Toward the end of the conversation, Dressed To Kill comes into the picture:
    Are there other films from your career you’re especially proud of?

    I don’t know. “Rio Bravo” is one that just holds up no matter when. “Dressed to Kill,” I would like to have been in it just a little bit more before they knocked me off.

    Audiences have embraced that film more in recent years. How was Brian De Palma to work with?

    He was great and he [allowed] no fussiness. It was hard work because he was a very serious filmmaker, and then he took on serious subjects, so you have to do it that way. But he was a master director — oh, my God.


    Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
    Post Comment | View Comments (2) | Permalink | Share This Post
    Saturday, April 1, 2023
    'DRESSED TO KILL' BONUS EXTRAS ON CRITERION CHANNEL
    AS 'DTK' & 'BODY DOUBLE' JOIN THE CHANNEL TODAY FOR EROTIC THRILLERS COLLECTION
    https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/criteriondtkextras.jpg



    Posted by Geoff at 6:04 PM CDT
    Updated: Saturday, April 1, 2023 6:13 PM CDT
    Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

    Newer | Latest | Older