Body Double (1984)

(In French, On TV, November 2020) Classic Brian de Palma movies could be crazier than anything else at the multiplex, yet Body Double still easily leaps over that high bar for crazy. Obviously designed as an homage to Hitchcock fare such as Rear Window and Vertigo, it’s a film that gets started when an out-of-work actor peeks at another house and is powerless to stop a drill-driven murder. That part is wildly over-the-top, but still understandable: the real fun begins afterward, as our protagonist takes a trip through a fantasyland version of Los Angeles’ porn underworld, gets mixed up with another actress and tries to convince everyone that something weird is going on. Don’t be surprised to realize, maybe two-thirds of the way through, that you don’t know what’s happening any more—Body Double is obviously derived from high concepts rather than developed organically, and there are maybe ten minutes during which you have to wait for further answers to be dropped into your lap before any of this makes sense. But as usual for classic de Palma, the fun here isn’t for the overall plot than the individual set-pieces and shots that illustrate it: The frantic race to prevent a murder, for instance, or the nightmarish climax. It all makes up for wild viewing very much in-line with his best movies. There is a good use of Los Angeles locations (most notably the Chemosphere house), and those with fresh memories of the film’s Hitchcockian inspirations will find even more fun to be seen. Clearly, de Palma’s most outlandish films aren’t for everyone—but if you’re willing to tolerate some weird quirks, there’s still little like Body Double.