Dressed to Kill

I don't think it's enough to say this movie is excellent.

What can I say? I'm a hitchcock fan.

I can only add that some people are complaining about the film because of the script. But, if you truly understand what is least important in the film is the script, as Martin Scorcese said. The intention of the film is to create suspense in every way possible and sex is just another tool. It's really a shame that this film doesn't get the merit it deserves.

In general, a good movie. A good story that builds suspense and that has some twists. The quite visual sex scenes also justify the R rating, though they integrate into the story, which justifies them generally. What does bother me a bit I that D Palma aims to make a Hitchcock-like movie and does not entirely succeed. (It certainly is a very high target to hit). Some of the scenes are just unnecessarily long, so long that they destroy the suspense they have build by making the viewer want the scene to move on. Maybe, that is also part of my other criticism of the movie, which is that I believe that it has not aged all too well. As said before, it is still a good movie and when you are willing to let yourself into the twisted world of De Palma, do not miss it.

This film is the beginning of the erotic thriller genre that "Basic Instinct" will so well exploit.

This movie was a long time on my bucket list, and finally there was a release of the uncut version on Blu-ray in Germany last year (there was only the R-rated verison on DVD available in Germany, even though the Cinema and VHS verison used to be the unrated cut!). Interesting movie that starts really weak, but then gets better and better. We first have Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson), the first murder victim and I did not enjoy this part of the movie at all. It's main part is the museum sequence, and though I get that there are some interesting ideas, that are conveied by her watching the lovers, the family, the kid that runs of, and the guy hitting at a woman, and how it is connected to what she is going through in her thoughts and emotionally. But in all it was too long and especially the chase scene is - though greatly filmed - not really getting anywhere, and adds some stupid elements to the movie - I mean, especially Kate - how stupid is she?

[spoiler]First she want's to get the attention of the guy, then she takes of her glove, to show off with her wedding ring? Naturally he walks away, so she follows without realizing that she looses her glove. Running through this museum we get the scene where he touches her shoulder with the glove and she sees it, but doesn't recognize that it is her glove? Then, only when walking away, and looking at the map she realizes that she is only wearing one glove? How much feelings does she have in her hands? So, she remembers that she took it off and mus have lost it, but not finding it, again she starts thinking and remembers him wearing it (great job, only figuring that out now!)
So she storms out, and throws away her other glove right at the steps (why? And how rude is that?), only to get lured into the taxi by this stranger waving her other glove. So because she wants it back, so gets to him (regardless that she just threw out her other glove, so she would still be ending up with only one glove?! They start making out in the Taxi and at his home, and when she wakes up, she get's all dressed, writes a note, we have a lot of situations where she looks at her hand - all of a sudden she realizes that she is not wearing any panties (really?! Wtf is wrong with the sensitivity of your skin, lady?!), so she searches his appartment, does not find it, then remembers that she dropped it at the Taxi so it's probably still there, she puts on all her other jewlery except her ring, which until now she did not realize was missing, goes into the elevator, drives down, then realizes that she is missing her ring, thinks about where she could have left it, only to remember that it was besides her watch in his appartment, so she drives back up again.
How stupid is she?[/spoiler]

And then there are silly coincidences that actually make no sense

[spoiler]We see the killer, he sees how she drives down with the elevator, but decides to stay just where he is, in case she comes back up - and because she forgot her ring, she does? And runs into him standing there, ready with his razor blade?![/spoiler]

This scene in my oppinion - as some others - are just lazy script writing. They needed a situation, so they created one without thinking two steps ahead.

However from there on I consider it to get better - the scene where Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) is introduced and meets with Kate Miller in the elevator has some ingeniouty in it, and is fun to watch and to experience. Of course there are minor things that don't add up, but Nancy Allen is not only a far better actress, also her character is far more interesting and smart, and with her also the movie picks up the pace and adds some interesting and thrilling scenes, right up to the final, where we see a lot of her that is really beautiful :)

On the downsides, however, I did not enjoy some prejedices the movie proclaims. Take for instance the "punks" - of course they are all black no-goods that assult beautiful women out of nowhere and try to rape her. Of course, the black police officer does not believe a word, of course anyone wanting a sex change must be a psychopath. Not cool. Even for a movie that is from the 1980s, I think it is a bit too much. But okey. Those are only side effects and nothing the movie proclaims as one of its main thesises.

So to sum up, it starts slow and bad, I did not like the acting of Angie Dickinson so much, as well as her character - but it gets better with Nancy Allen, who is great in all departments. Of course we also have a strong Michael Caine, and a believable sidekick with joung Keith Gordon as Peter Miller, the son of Kate. And Dennis Franz, who plays a typical - but in it's acting good and believable - detective. In the second half the movie gets really interesting, we have a lot of scenes that remind me of old Hitchcock movies, but we also have a number of Giallo references, kind of a: "What if Hitchcock had shot Gialli?" sort of movie. And I enjoyed that part.

Slow to get going. When it does it ok. Sometimes the shots work really well and sometimes they seem excuses to be stylish. When that syle doesn't work for you whats left to enjoy? Sometimes not much. What is it with DePalma and his nude scenes. So cheesy and dumb. I was taken out of the movie as it began because it was so ridiculous. The actual story when it gets going is OK but because we know the movie is a homage it's pretty predictable. The characters aren't really fleshed out with interesting dialogue. The story is more the focus.
I didn't think the end was good. The escape had no reference to the setting and after that I'd had enough of the Hitchcock impersonations by then.

Meh at it's best and since it's just a mediocre attempt at Psycho, this doesn't really do much other than show a good amount of skin at times.

**Lazy writing and bad pacing. Ultimately an unsuccessful homage to Hitchcock.**

Also, that museum sequence was just the worst.

Nope, maybe the movie has aged poorly. I stopped watching during the long and boring Angie Dickinson scene. The movie gave me no reason to watch further

Hot, hot, hot, hot, HOT mess. Not even going to address the grossly offensive last 80% of the movie. I will say I enjoyed the bits with Angie Dickinson and thought the whole museum scene was pretty great. De Palma clearly doesn’t give a fuck he’s lifted the entire movie from Hitchcock, and there’s something admirable about the way he’s trying to riff on Psycho and others. Other than the museum, the rest of the movie is pretty Razzie-worthy.