This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

One of my all time favorites.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Brian De Palma has often been labelled a director who rips off Alfred Hitchcock. I really don't mind his lifts myself as it seems to me that he takes this stuff and reconfigures it into something new, something uniquely his own. It has to be said that with Body Double he goes full pelt with the Hitchcock lifts like never before; to the point it really feels like he did it to antagonise his detractors. In this one there are very blatant nods to Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958) in particular. Not only this, but he also seems to be parodying his own films here as well, with the final shower sequence surely a reference to the notorious shower scene in Dressed to Kill (1980) which was edited in such a way to make Angie Dickinson look like she had the body of a Playboy Playmate! Not only this but with Body Double De Palma included a notorious sequence of extreme violence which was a further nose thumb at critics who decried the heavy violence in both Dressed to Kill and Scarface (1983). As a consequence of all this, I find Body Double to be a very playful and knowing film from De Palma. Consequently, it is highly entertaining stuff.The story is wilfully artificial, with a thriller story-line which I unfortunately found quite easy to predict. It involves an unsuccessful actor with claustrophobia who is offered a luxurious futuristic apartment to live in temporarily after splitting from his girlfriend; from here he is the witness to strange ominous goings on involving his beautiful neighbour who has a habit of dancing semi-nude in open view. It's a story which taps into the voyeur in us all.The things I really like about De Palma is his taste for excessive content with an unapologetic style-over-substance approach. To this end, we have a story with severe fluctuations in tone, from the melodramatic, nastily violent, highly eroticised and moments of extreme weirdness. It is all, needless to say, highly stylish in presentation, with trademark fluid camera-work and long stretches of dialogue-free sequences where image alone tells the story and an effectively lush soundtrack adding additional flavour. In some respects this is a De Palma film turned up to volume 11, with lots of nudity, an excessively violent murder scene, overly dramatic acting from the main character, dream-like border-line surreal moments and an extended scene involving a porn star played by Melanie Griffiths played out as a music video to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Relax' including an appearance by singer Holly Johnson! Not only this but it's a film which both begins and ends on comic film-within-a-film sequences which only serve to accentuate the artificial bizarreness even further. De Palma was one of the very few A-List Hollywood directors who made films whose directorial style and no-holds barred content have earned them the label 'cult film'. Well, with Body Double I am going to go out on a limb and declare this his most culty film of all! It is not a film for those who equate movies to social responsibility and good taste but for those of us who like them for unashamed entertainment value, this ticks many boxes.

1984's "Body Double" isn't the best film of Brian De Palma still it's a tease of mystery and suspense all blended with sex and a creep tease to make it a watch even if it does seem like a parody of the Hitchcock films.You have Jake(Craig Wasson)a real Bill Maher look a like! who's a struggling actor who can only find work in Hollywood in B movie flicks, and the only way he can get thru life is to drink Jack Daniels! One day he's asked to house-sit at a beautiful hillside Hollywood apartment of a friend. And this would turn from some eye candy fun to a bloody view of murder! Jake has a telescopic peak into the bedroom of an actress named Gloria and night after night a striptease is given and thru the scope a third party is viewed by Jake and that's a crazy looking man who's a stalker! Soon this leads to a bloody murder and it opens up an underworld of X-rated film and porn for Jake as a woman by the name of Holly Body(Melanie Griffith)may hold the key to the truth of it all. Still this film despite it's suspense and erotic thriller themes takes an unexpected twist it's like it's a parody of a film within a film! Still this is a nice eye candy treat and a good watch clearly an 80's classic.

Director Brian de Palma's crime thriller is full of the expected Hitchcockian moments, from the murder viewed through a window (REAR WINDOW) to the hero's claustrophobia (a basic equivalent of VERTIGO). Obviously it's not as classic as its various predecessors, but there are enough twists and turns in the tale to keep one watching. However, you need to have your brain firmly in gear to do so or you may find yourself getting a headache.The acting is all average, sometimes good, sometimes quite bad, but on the whole okay, and the film benefits from a respectable cast, some of whom (notably Melanie Griffith and Dennis Franz) have gone on to greater stardom. Although the film is best when working on the mystery aspects (the erotic moments are not handled too well), there is one excellent, striking set piece.The moment occurs when the young woman is about to be murdered with a huge electric drill, and the hero desperately races to her house to try and save her, only to keep getting stalled, while the murderer also keeps being held up. The tension, as to whether the murderer or hero will strike first, is sustained remarkably well through the quarter of an hour long moment and it literally keeps you on the edge of your seat until the final outcome. This moment highlights an above average thriller, which veers too far on the silly side to be wholly enjoyable, but still contains plenty of nice photography and sinister shots to raise its value.

After struggling actor Jake Scully finds his girlfriend in bed with another man, he moves out and accepts an offer from fellow struggling actor Sam Bouchard to house-sit for a few weeks. Apart from getting to live in an ultramodern house, he also get to watch a neighbour do a sexy dance in front of her window every night at exactly the same time. He becomes infatuated, following her around and eventually meeting her. She also has another admirer however and while watching her one night through his telescope, Jake sees her murdered by this other man. The police are dubious about what he claims to have seen, but the case takes a bizarre turn when, while watching TV, he sees a porn star do the exact same dance he had watched for all those nights. He soon realises he has been an unwitting accomplice in a complex plot.De Palma has always referenced Hitchcock in his movies, and here, it's his rear window, and the concept is as bonkers and as brilliant as the decade it was made in.There are many interpretations of the films narrative, and this is why it demands repeat viewings. Is it all in Jakes head while he is suffering his bout of claustrophobia? So the only parts of the film that are real are the initial scene with him in the coffin, and then him being helped out of the coffin. After all, the majority of the film is almost dreamlike, thanks to the wonderful eye De Palma has, most noticeably the scene in the shopping mall where Jake sees the Indian following his victim from afar.The film can be seen as a wonderful epitaph to the decade that fashion, music and taste forgot, and no matter how garish the make up, clothes and sets are, it just adds so much t the narrative.It's a definite conversation piece, there are plot holes aplenty, but this just adds to the argument of where reality ends and the subconscious starts in the films narrative.And it also adds much evidence to my theory that 1984 was the best year for movies ever.It's a bonkers piece for sure, but it's thrilling, and never let's up the craziness.Essential viewing.