Golden Title: Dressed to Kill (1980)

Dressed to Kill (1980)
Rating: *****
Starring: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen

A Hitchcockian thriller courtesy of Brian De Palma, Dressed to Kill is one of the few titles to be bashed and burned by the uprising uptight uproars of a morally frightened public during its time of release. Quite a stir for a film that only featured a few brutal murders...

A steamy opening has us watching one married Kate Miller passionately showering and caressing herself with a soft sponge and soap water in the morning. This lengthy visage is soon interrupted when her husband forced himself to her, much to her dissatisfaction and disgust.

A murder still most squeamish for me

Apparently, Kate hasn't been happy for a while and this resorts to her into visiting a psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Elliot (Michael Caine), to try and find some meaning to her life. When one of her sessions with the doctor ends up being stale, however, she decided to be daring that day and allowed herself be stalked and seduced by a tall dark man, with eyes hidden behind a set of shades, at an art gallery. After a brief stalk-and-tease, Kate eventually finds herself love-playing with the man at his apartment later that evening, only to discover afterwards, much to her horror, that her dream lover was diagnosed with a venereal disease. Further distraught, Kate leaves the place in tears, not knowing that a blonde woman armed with a razor is just waiting around the corner to attack and slash her to ribbons.

The aftermath of this crime is witnessed by one Liz Blake, a call girl who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when she unwittingly saw the killer staring back at her. Liz is brought in for questioning no soon after, fearing that her own unfortunate chance with the blonde woman might have set herself as the next target for the killer. With no help from sarcastic cops, Liz's only hope of survival lies on Kate's nerdy son, Peter Miller, who's also on the trail to discover the truth behind his mother's murder.

Often labeled as a "slasher", Dressed to Kill is least of that and more of another Americanized Giallo, Italian murder mysteries that became monumental influences to the slasher sub-genre. Often a times, the film did dip into the bodycount territory as sharp razors are wielded with mad intent while stalked and chased victims run through the toughest spots such as elevator chambers and night trains in a gang-littered public! But unlike slasher films, Dressed to Kill focuses more on the narrative mystery on why Kate was murdered and who committed it, a plot more akin to mainstream thrillers than exploitative dead teen films.

Very Giallo indeed, Bobby

We eventually find out that the killer goes by the name Bobby and they're somehow involved with Dr. Elliot; the killer's unseen introduction not only thickened the plot but is also the source of the movie's then public outcry: you see, Bobby is a transsexual, a mentally unstable one that seemingly snapped after Elliot refused to sign papers that would have allowed their sex change operation. This homophobia-inducing depiction, intertwined with the movie's stab on the popular (and controversial) slasher element of sex-means-death formulation proved to be quite difficult to swallow by many, especially by feminists who saw Kate's murder as a form of punishment for being unfaithful. There's a bit of truth to that, as shit storm upon shit storm seems to pile up on her, strangely starting with an unsatisfying marriage, contracting a horrible disease like a slap on the wrist, and eventually getting brutally murdered by a deranged cross-dressing transsexual. It's hard to ignore that this woman might've been pushed around a bit much and it is upsetting, but the resulting catharsis is just too impressive to dislike.

The production of the film is admirable if anything; the acting is stellar (with Golden Globe winner Angie Dickinson as our ill-fated Kate Miller even winning a Saturn award in her role), the scoring is hauntingly beautiful with a right mix of emotion, majesty and depth thanks to our maestro Pino Donaggio, and there's a lot of great camera works and lighting that really remind me of works by Dario Argento or Mario Bava. Direction is filled with development and strays little from the story, despite seemingly littered with sleaze and downtown grittiness that are commonly found in cheap exploitation movies.

the famous split-screen action!

Unfortunately, the revelation felt a bit too drawn out and it lost most of its effectiveness by the time we get to know who did it. The only thing I can say about it, without spoiling much, is that it took a stab on recreating the twist reveal in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, minus the shock. Not a big drawback as it has a reasonably explained reveal and the last jump scare was pretty good.

Perhaps one of the best slasher-influenced thrillers of its decade, on which rides upon on its own controversial reputation; whether you hate it or love it, Dressed to Kill is undeniably one of De Palma's best works and, for the right audience, it's the an must-see for all fans of bodycount films!

Bodycount:
1 female slashed to death with razor
1 female strangled (dream)
1 female had her throat cut with razor (dream)
Total: 3