La mort en dédicace

My review was written in November 1991 after watching the movie at a Manhattan screening room.

A clash of two dissimilar personalities is examined with mixed success in the thriller "Where Sleeping Dogs Lie". Restrained approach compared to recent films like "Cape Fear" spells modest box office success.

Dylan McDermott portrays an unsuccessful writer in Hollywood who's frustrated by the commercial need to write blood-and-guts stories. His agent Sharon Stone puts on the pressure and he decides to write a detailed novel about a mass killer.

McDermott has just been evicted from his flat and moves into the creepy old mansion his day job real estate boss (Ron Karaatsos) has ordered him to sell. Gimmick is that he uses the house for inspiration, basing his novel on a notorious murder case that took place there.

Before the film can turn into a haunted house suspenser, Tom Sizemore shows up as a twitchy boarder. McDermott is mean to him, flauntging an air of superiority, but before long the tables are turned.

Director Charles Finch (son of the late actor Peter Finch) and his mother, co-scripter Yolande Turner, get good mileage from the insidious relationship of the Joseph Losey/Harold Pinter classic "The Servant".

Film requires a great deal of audience willingness to go along with several far-fetched plot twists notably in McDermott's character. However, both leads' good acting makes it worth the effort, leadking to its unsettling ending.

McDermott is properly macho and overbearing in the interesting departure from his previou straight-arrow roles ("The Blue Iguana", "Hardware"). Sizemore makes a strong impression as the unctuous worm who turns.

Stone ("Basic Instinct") is perfect in a small role as the bitchy agent. Est of the cat has a mere walk-on in a film that reportedly was heavily trimmed to reach its current release version. Result Is a vignette structure with little continuity between individual scenes.

Hans Zimmer and Mark Mancina's melodramatic score does a great job of setting and maintaining the creepy atmosphere.

Sure, it's slow on action, but what atmosphere! I really enjoyed this movie the first time around, when I wasn't really paying attention, so I watched it a couple more times on cable. This was the first movie where I had really seen Tom Sizemore and known who he was, and he was absolutely chilling. I thought the interplay between Sizemore's menacing character and McDermott's kind of confused, innocent character was a lot of fun. Poor Dylan. He had no idea what he was getting into when he let that guy into his house, did he? I think the Sharon Stone sequences looked kind of tacked on - not that she didn't brighten up the screen - and I agree with other comments that the plot could have been tightened up, but overall I find it a haunting, very entertaining movie that should have gotten a lot more attention than it did at the time of its release. It didn't show up on cable until several years later. I liked it so much I picked up a copy on eBay and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes creepy suspense films.

The script telegraphs all of its "surprises", the direction is strictly by-the-numbers and Dylan McDermott is a bland lead. There are only two noteworthy elements in this movie: the dangerous, edgy intensity Tom Sizemore brings to his role, and a couple of steamy moments provided by Sharon Stone, who was then at her best-looking phase; at one point she actually says to McDermott: "Don't fret, you 'll get the check in a week and you can have me now". Now that's what I call a GOOD DEAL. (**)

I was left waiting, and waiting... and waiting. "Where Sleepig Dogs Lie" is a sleepy, and cold-hearted psychological thriller with a lot converstational pieces and reflective posturing which doesn't go anywhere with it all. Dylan McDermott plays a struggling writer Bruce Simmons who moonlights as a real estate agent to earn some cash, yet he moves into the house he's meant to be selling after finding himself homeless. There he accidently uncovers the house's dark history - the previous tennants were brutally slaughtered by a murderer who was never caught. So there becomes the basis of his next novel... without realising what he's really getting into. Also a stranger (Tom Sizemore) arrives on the scene asking if he could rent out a room, and Bruce obliges. However in doing so, he might dig up a past best left alone.

So the premise had me hooked, just the execution left me lukewarm. The thing is, it was predictable and you could see the twists in the story coming. So you're just waiting for the thrills and spills to make up for its uneventul progression, but they never eventuate in spite of the dangerous predictament evolving. Which makes it rather boring because you're waiting for McDermott's character to figure it out and when he eventully does (takes him long enough) you'll think suspense would be at boiling point, yet its simply flatlines and rushes through its anticlimax.

It's disappointing, because I liked Sizemore's jittery performance. He grows particularly unnerving as film goes along, and it really does faulter when he isn't on screen becuase he is the most fascinating character. Forseeable traits, yet the chemistry between McDermott and Sizemore's characters is what the plot hangs off. Details upon details lead to uncomfortable and factured truths, and two minds are presumably after one end. Its just can you live with the consequences. And the final few minutes paint it perfectly. It's just the journey to that point was too straightforward that it lacked the ups and downs to keep me fully invested.

This is a film that has you thinking about it later on for a few days. You can't seem to get it out of your mind. I found it absolutely enjoyable. The storyline and the acting is terrific. Suspenseful and intoxicating.