Déclics

A photographer in Los Angeles (Michael Callan) has troubling dreams as he juggles visits to a shrink (Seymour Cassel), dealing with his amputee brother (James Stacy) and establishing a new romantic relationship (Joanna Pettet). Meanwhile a serial killer is on the loose.

"Double Exposure" (1982) is a psychological murder mystery with some slasher elements. Think of movies like Shatner's "Impulse," "The Centerfold Girls" or "Haunts" mixed with a little "Nightmare" from the year prior. It's basically a quasi-remake of Callan's own "The Photographer" from eight years prior.

The quality cast is rounded out by the likes of Pamela Hensley, Cleavon Little, Robert Tessier and Don Potter with the female cast highlighted by Misty Rowe (Bambi), Debbie Zipp (Toni), Sally Kirkland and Victoria Jackson (her cinematic debut in a bit part).

It runs 1 hour, 34 minutes, and was shot in the Los Angeles area, including Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks and Tarzana, Burbank and Santa Monica Beach.

GRADE: B-

A photographer keeps having bad dreams where he has visions of him murdering many of his models. His amputee stuntman brother tries his best to keep his head afloat as the photographer starts a relationship with the woman of his dreams. Is the photographer really the killer? And will he make his new girlfriend his latest victim?

Double Exposure is a wonky and uncomfortable mix of drama, police procedural, and slasher/giallo cliches. It wants to be a character driven psychodrama, but it's never quite deep enough. It doesn't succeed much as a slasher either due to the poorly paced suspense/attack scenes that tend to end on more of a whimper than a bang. To make matters worse, the final twist is telegraphed from a mile away and triggers more eye rolls than gasps.

That said, Double Exposure looks like about 50 million bucks. There's clearly a ton of talent involved in this film and every shot looks like something from a film that's got a ton of money behind it. When all else fails, just turn off the sound and enjoy how the film looks.

I had to scan the credits of this movie for surnames beginning and/or ending in vowels because I'd swear it was an Italian giallo. All the signs are there: gratuitous violence and nudity, out-of-control cinematography, a completely ridiculous plot. Michael Callan is a photographer who has incredibly cinematic dreams where he murders his beautiful, half-naked models. When his beautiful, half-naked models start being murdered in real life, both the police and his psychiatrist (Seymour Cassel) begin to suspect that he is the killer. But is it him or is it his creepy brother who is missing both an arm and leg (but still gets to date former "Hee Haw" honey Misty Rowe and mud wrestle Playmate-to-be Kathy Shower)? If you've seen even one of these kind of movies, you already know the answer. Still if you love Italian giallos and 70's and 80's low-budget American exploitation flicks (a select group of people, I know) you'll be in drunken, late-night TV-watching heaven with this one.

First time I saw this film many years ago, I thought it was a pretty fair slasher film, but on second recent viewing, it's waned a bit - while Callan is okay as the central character, a men's magazine photographer suffering from bizarre and murderous apparent dreams, Jim Stacy as his knock-about brother, maimed in an auto-accident, is perhaps the film's highlight. The switch in dominance between Callan and Stacy's characters is interesting to see evolve, but it's a transition that's made difficult to follow due to the film's erratic narrative. Joanna Pettet gets undressed and even has a "When Harry Met Sally" moment with Callan in the back of his camper-van, as the only woman with whom Callan's emotionally fragile character can consummate.

The violence is pretty extreme at times, with sado-masochistic homicide the flavour of the early eighties slasher film getting 'double exposure' here, full-frontal female nudity, mud-wrestling, even Cleavon Little in a minor supporting role as a cranky police chief. It's eclectic. The cast has surprising depth with producer Callan managing to assemble an enviable cast that includes big Bob Tessier as a bar manager, Pamela Hensley as a ball-breaking detective, Seymour Cassel as Callan's shrink, Misty Rowe as Stacy's squeeze, Sally Kirkland as a voluptuous hooker and blink-and-you'll-miss Terry Moore in a flashback dream sequence.

Lairy wardrobe, colourful dialogue, pulsating synthesisers and tricky cinematographic effects momentarily distract you, but the narrative is so inconsistent and the editing (or perhaps scene sequence and continuity) so incoherent at times, that it never maintains any momentum. Highly stylised, the bold concepts and loud motifs (not to mention the substantial cast) should have made for a better movie all things considered, and yet, it's still no Brian DePalma psycho-thriller.

A good old early eighties slasher film with a distinct giallo flavour to it, Double Exposure does what it sets out to do, but adds a little character to the proceedings too. Adrian Wilde is a photographer who suffers from bad dreams, especially those where he's killing the models who work with him. His brother, a stunt man whose career cost him an arm and a leg (literally), offers support but seems to be increasingly bitter and angry at the world. Wilde meets a girl called Misty, but his dreams and failing grip on reality threaten the relationship, and when the models start turning up dead in real life, Wilde reckons he's got a big problem on his hands.

The giallo side of things rears it's head as it become apparent that the true life killer is a photographer, but in the giallo style, just about every male character wields a camera at some point, from Wilde and his brother, the local barman, the psychiatrist and a gay colleague of Wilde's. Some of the killings seemingly take place in Wilde's dreams, and although the gore level is low the nasty level is quite high, especially when one model has her head forced into a bin bag that contains a snake.

So, is Wilde a nutter or is there some other utter nutter muttering in the background (with a camera shutter covered in butter)? I'll leave that up to you to find out, but I enjoyed this film, although I'm kind of getting fed up watching middle aged men getting it on with the chicks, like.