Pre-Psycho Redux Redux

We all know this story:

* A troubled blonde, having earlier been involved in an illicit carnal tryst, is slashed to death in a narrow, confined space by an apparent madwoman.
* A concerned family member plays detective to solve the murder. Ever present is a shifty, awkward male who seems to be defending the killer.
* Eventually, the murderer is revealed to be the shifty male himself, afflicted with a dual-personality, who is overpowered before he/she can commit another violent act while clad in female drag.
* A psychiatrist explains the schizo's twisted psychological dementia in a lengthy closing monologue.

Of course, I'm describing Alfred Hitchcock's renowned 1960 adaptation of Robert Bloch's Psycho, right? Actually, no. Gus Van Sandt's upcoming "restaging" of the classic shocker then? Wrong again. I'm talking about Brian De Palma's exceptional psycho-sexual-shocker Dressed To Kill!

Like most horror purists, I was at first outraged at the news that the director of such mainstream hits like Good Will Hunting and jaw-dropping dogs like Even Cowgirls Get The Blues was daring to tamper with one of cinema's greatest accomplishments. But having cooled down, I've reconsidered. Sure, Van Sandt's argument that retelling a film is like restaging a classic play is lame (film productions are permanent, whereas theatrical productions are not), but in his defense, he's hardly the first filmmaker to mine Psycho for box office gold. Remember William Castle's excellent Homicidal? De Palma's 1980 erotic thriller is a reminder, along with Cronenberg's update of The Fly, that remakes can sometimes outdo or at least equal the original.

At the time, De Palma didn't exactly go out of his way to advertise the film as a remake, but the first act will eradicate any doubt that Hitchcock's film didn't provide him with his structure, theme, and scare-tactics. De Palma's script spends its first half hour chronicling the escapades of guilt-ridden housewife Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) as she engages in an anonymous "afternoon delight" with a Robert Evans lookalike she's picked up in New York's Guggenheim gallery. But when she is gruesomely slashed to death with a straight razor in an elevator, viewers were as shocked in 1980 as they were in 1960 witnessing Janet Leigh's death by butcher knife in the Bates Motel. De Palma, like Hitchcock, was telling audiences that ANYTHING could happen next. Aspiring to far more than merely "Psycho Redux" and always a filmmaker with a social conscience, De Palma transplanted Norman Bates out of the repressed early 60's and into the hedonistic "Looking For Mr. Goodbar" era! (Think "Mother" was confused then...)

It's true that after 18 years, Dressed To Kill's twists and shocks are about as well-kept and telegraphed as "Psycho"s secrets. But this witty, easy-on-the-eyes, and audacious film is still a joy to watch, especially in its theatrical Panavision aspect ratio. The lengthy and largely silent stalk/seduction of Kate in the Guggenheim is one of De Palma's most virtuoso displays of mise-en-scene mastery. And there's a blackly delicious moment in which Liz has to choose between running off in the direction of a dangerous street gang, or go the other way and face the razor blade stalker (DePalma seems to be chuckling "Such is life in the Big City"). Liz's investigation of Dr. Elliot's practice, accomplished with the aid of Kate's brilliant teenage son Peter (Keith Gordon), is a lot more fun than the investigation of the ineffectual Vera Miles and John Gavin in Hitchcock's film (Peter uses a Super 8 camera to capture a visual list of suspects: how cool is that?). And Liz's attempted seduction of Dr. Elliot (in an effort to nab his journal) -- which results in awakening his homicidal alter-ego "Bobbi" -- is still supremely scary stuff, thanks to De Palma's flawless pacing and Pino Donnagio's unnerving strings.

Dressed To Kill is not without its faults: Ralph D. Bode's soft-focus cinematography reeks a little too much of Zalman King softcore junk like The Red Shoe Diaries at times, and the ending finds DePalma ripping off his own oft-imitated coda from Carrie. Flaws aside, I consider Dressed To Kill to be a masterpiece in its own right. While the word "homage" is immediately hauled out to cover the ass of any third-rate hack who can't come up with an original idea, in this instance, the term is apt. Like Tarantino's films, Dressed To Kill acknowledges the influence of earlier, classic works while managing to set more than a few new standards of its own. Just as Hitchcock reveled in Psycho's pulpier elements (to the vilification from critics of the era), so does DePalma (to slightly better first-time reviews) here. He wants Dressed To Kill to be all things: sexy and sleazy; classy and profane; funny and disgusting, all while revisiting his favorite subjects of voyeurism and the doppelganger. And for the most part, De Palma succeeds. There are few other films in which you'll have such fun being "had".

Michael Caine has admitted to choosing his roles based upon the film's location (he starred in the lamentable The Island the same year). But since Dressed To Kill was shot in familiar old New York, could there have been some "other" reason Caine took the role? I'm anxiously awaiting Caine's philosophy on transsexual cross-dressing in an upcoming "Secrets Of Screen Acting" tape (he looks like Anita Pallenborg under the blond wig). Nancy Allen is so adorable and funny that you'll wonder why she never became as big as star as Melanie Griffith, who basically stole her act for Body Double.

As evidenced by the recent reviews of Snake Eyes, the under-appreciated De Palma will forever be branded a Hitchcock plagiarizer and will likely have to wait a good long time for that token Oscar (he was awarded the 1981 Razzie Award for Worst Director). Long after the familiar putdowns have subsided, De Palma's Dressed To Kill will remain as a pre-eminent 80's example of an "upscale" slasher film, a subgenre that would later become vogue with the advent of Kevin Williamson. But unlike Scream and its sequel, and I Know What You Did Last Summer, Dressed To Kill doesn't wear its cheeky film savvy-ness on its sleeve. It exists solely to scare you silly, and if you get the in-jokes, well that's a bonus.

- Maxx Renn