Special Effects

Eric Bogosian of "Talk Radio" fame stars as Chris Neville, a hotshot young filmmaker. His career is going downhill fast, so he decides to try something unusual. He films himself murdering aspiring starlet Mary Jean (the late Zoe Lund of "Ms. 45" cult stardom), then proceeds to make a movie telling Mary Jeans' sad life. Swept into the filmmaking process are Mary Jeans' husband Keefe (Brad Rijn, "Smithereens"), and the detective (Kevin O'Connor, "Let's Scare Jessica to Death") investigating the case; the detective quickly gets stars in his eyes. Neville actually finds a young woman who's a dead ringer for the murdered actress, also played by Lund.

There is a good idea here, about satirizing the entire movie-making business, and showing what happens as real life and reel life blend together. It's written and directed by low budget movie icon Larry Cohen, so you know that he will come up with some interesting material, and movie moments. (It IS intriguing to think what a filmmaker of Brian De Palmas' sensibilities could have done with this!) It's a good blend of art and trash, with a little bit of sex and shots of the beautiful Lund baring her body. It's also a marvel of art direction: dig that garish studio and townhouse in which Neville does his dirty work. Perhaps the most entertainment value arises out of O'Connor enjoying his "technical adviser" capacity and becoming fixated on receiving the appropriate credits. Given that Neville is such a smarmy character, you watch and keep waiting for him to get his just desserts. Michael Minard supplies a fun electronic score that unfortunately is used a little too much.

The performances are fine. Lund has a field day in her dual roles. Bogosian is superb as the creepy director. Rijn, O'Connor, Bill Oland, H. Richard Greene ('Mad Men'), and Steven Pudenz offer fine support.

The most striking image of all: Neville standing on a floor completely covered with headshots. (Among those he thumbs through is one of Dustin Hoffman as "Dorothy Michaels" in "Tootsie".)

Seven out of 10.

Special Effects is kind of a serious parody, if that makes any sense, of what De Palma did back in the 80's (or perhaps Larry Cohen's work too), where a filmmaker becomes a murderer when he lets in a would-be actress to his home, films having sex with her and also films the act of death. But instead of going on the run or just hiding it and going on with his life, he decides to make a movie about this girl, using Keefe, the girl's husband (played by Brad Rijn), getting a police detective to be a consultant (because who needs to solve any crimes) and, via Keefe making a trip to the Salvation Army and her just happening to work there, a girl who with a hair change looks just like the dead Andrea Wilcox (both played by Zoe Lund of Ms 45 fame).

Eric Bogosian is the reason to see the movie, playing this nasty, brutal director with some level of... do we call it humanity? He sometimes plays it over the top, but not in a way where it chews the scenery. He is really there to be the best actor he can be, which is more than can be said of Lund (who is maybe half-good, not as Wilcox but as the 'new' Andrea, Elaine), and certainly not Rijn, who tellingly only made a few movies and is just terrible here as this angry, despondent husband.

Maybe the problem is that Cohen is just a bit too obvious with his satire, or maybe, in a way, not obvious enough. This should be really funny - once or twice I did laugh, more from the police detective's meddling - and when he does an actual sex scene with two characters it stops the movie dead in its tracks. Special Effects has a little fun with its premise, which is rather dark and takes not just from De Palma but liberally from Hitchcock (Vertigo, duh) and even Peeping Tom with the idea of a camera that, ahem, kills in its way. It also has a rather obnoxious 80's synth soundtrack, which could be fine in small doses but is laid over every scene like a cocaine-diddled cloak. And the horror scenes, when they come, are kind of shoddily filmed.

But, again, if you like Eric Bogosian, this is one of his better performances, and a good indication of what he would do later in the decade with Talk Radio.

After making a disastrous, special-effects laden film, a movie director decides to make a low budget biography of a murdered actress. To make her murder look as real as possible the director murders the actress himself. Could have been a very good film about snuff films, but the film's direction is a letdown. Zoe (Ms. 45) Lund (in a dual role) and particularly Eric Bogosian are very good in their respective roles of the murdered actress and the actress playing her, and the Cecil B. Demented director. Brian DePalma would have had a field day with this film.

Larry Cohen's "Special Effects" is an average snuff-themed horror film.Eric Bogosian plays here an on-the-decline director who murders a starlet(brilliant Zoe Tamerlis,who sadly died in 1999)on camera and decides to use a dead ringer to make a film about the killing."Special Effects" is average-the script is mediocre and the action is dull at times.Still the snuff/murder scene(the strangling)is pretty nasty!The ending is also effective.All in all I'd recommend this film for undemanding horror fans-it's really nothing special,but if you want a passable time-killer...

"Special Effects" follows a filmmaker who murders a naive, wannabe actress in his New York City home. After, he cons the woman's ex-husband into appearing in his film about her life and demise, attempting to recreate her murder with a lookalike actress.

Larry Cohen is alternately considered an auteur and utter hack depending on which critical circles you ask, and I frankly have not seen enough of his work to make a judgment call. That said, "Special Effects" is a bit of a tiresome thriller that juggles some interesting ideas surrounding self-reflexivity and voyeurism, but as a movie, never quite satisfies.

Part of this is due to the screenplay feeling lopsided and disorienting, and Eric Bogosian frankly does not make for an effective or menacing villain. The lack of threat and any sense of true danger legitimately strips the film of suspense, which is ironic given Cohen's clear admiration for Hitchcock. Zoe Lund's performance here is effective as Elaine (the second actress who becomes a vessel for Bogosian's replication of reality), but her turn as the naive Texas woman who first meets her demise is laughably bad. Brad Rijn is a serviceable and handsome leading man, though his chemistry with the other actors feels shaky. Like with most of the film, the pacing and tone of the finale is bizarre and feels rushed and slightly sloppy, though it is ostensibly the only moment where Cohen seems to ramp up toward something daring.

In the end, "Special Effects" feels like a lost opportunity. Its core thematic ideas are intriguing, but the execution is half-witted and feels quite sloppy at times. Save for Lund's turn as would-be-dead-girl-number-two and some time capsule photography of 1980s Manhattan, there is frankly not a whole lot to praise here. Worth a watch for hardcore genre fans, but that's about it. 5/10.