Double Negative

Michael Sarrazin is the journalist who can't remember anything about the night he found his wife raped and murdered on their bed; Susan Clark is his devoted girlfriend, who tries to help him piece the events together. Sounds good, but actually it's a muddled, visually unattractive thriller, with a predictable resolution. Anthony Perkins is fairly amusing as a kinky blackmailer. (*1/2)

This murder/mystery makes little sense. Its a pity that an actor of Perkin's caliber got stuck in roles like this. Note John Candy's short appearence early on. I say go see it, if you don't fall asleep before it ends, then at least you can say you saw it!

With a cast like this, I expected great things but Double Negative is a disappointment at best and a lousy thriller at worst. The film simply does not make sense even after seeing it twice. It's about a writer (Michael Sarrazin) trying to figure out the facts behind the death of his wife. Susan Clark plays his lover and Anthiony Perkins plays a mysterious man who connects the two of them. Actually, Perkins is probably the most interesting part of the film, which is not a difficult task. Some SCTV faces pop up for about a split second and the finale fails to clear up several questions. Double Negative has some great shots of Toronto in winter.

On paper it sounds great, with Anthony Perkins as a baddie involved in an unsolved murder, but drifts aimlessly most of the time.

Perkins is great though, easily the best thing about this movie. There are a few attempts to recreate Hitchcockian camera angles involving Perkins that I liked.

Apparently the SCTV studios doubled as the casting offices for this movie, the following all have tiny roles: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty.

I caught this under the meaningless title DEADLY COMPANION on Amazon Prime, although DOUBLE NEGATIVE, the original title, is slightly better. It's a subdued and cold Canadian thriller co-written by three writers, all of whom seem to have very different ideas about what sort of film they're making. Thus it begins with Michael Sarrazin playing a kind of wronged-man lead trying to find out who killed his wife, and ends up as a suspense thriller that focusses on a supporting flamboyant hitman character as played by Anthony Perkins. The story is utterly confusing and the cast, although decent, fail to make much headway with the script. The most fun I had was spotting early appearances from future greats including Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, and Michael Ironside.