Touches You

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Double Exposure (1983) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Adrian Wilde (Michael Callan) is a photographer who is seeing a shrink because he's having very bad nightmares about murdering the women he takes photos of. He tries to strike up a relationship with Mindy (Joanna Pettet) but before long he begins to fear that his dreams are real.DOUBLE EXPOSURE isn't the most successful film that you're going to watch but there are enough good moments in it to make it worth watching. The best way to describe the film is saying it's a cross between the type of thriller that Brian DePalma would make but with the sleaze factor of a slasher. The two go well together and we get some nice performance that help make the film a bit better than it probably deserves to be.As far as the mystery goes, for the most part we're given some suspects and we're made to wait until the very end for the killer to be revealed. I thought the mystery aspect worked quite well, although there are some rather silly moments involving a couple cops working the case. The two of them pretty much just show up every so often whenever the film needs to remind the viewer that the murders are being investigated. What really helps the film is the fact that Callan is so good in the lead role of the troubled man who thinks he might be more damaged that he originally thought. Pettet and James Stacy both add nice support.The film works as a slasher and especially during the scenes where we see the killer talking various women including prostitutes. There's a nice sequence where we see a hooker lure the killer down an alleyway. Director William Bryan Hillman makes the film look quite good but a little more energy and a bit more suspense certainly would have helped things. As it stands, DOUBLE EXPOSURE certainly isn't a masterpiece but it's a mildly entertaining film.

Reportedly, Crown International studios original plan for this pick-up was to give it a fairly wide release, but after a bad reaction from audiences during previews, they ended up dumping it in just a few theaters before it went to video. Watching the movie, one has to wonder why the studio heads couldn't see for themselves they had an unsuccessful movie on their hands before showing it to audiences. To be fair, it's not a terrible movie. While low budget, it never looks cheap, being well shot. It's also acceptably acted. However, it's the script that sinks this movie. The story is very slow-moving. It takes forever for the movie to set up the situation, and once that happens it continues at a crawl until the end. Also, the ending does not really explain the haunting murder dreams the hero was having throughout the movie. I guess the movie could have been a lot worse, but that's hardly a ringing endorsement.

Troubled men's magazine photographer Adrien Wilde (well played with considerable intensity by Michael Callan) has horrific nightmares in which he brutally murders his models. When the lovely ladies start turning up dead for real, Adrien worries that he might be the killer. Writer/director William Byron Hillman relates the engrossing story at a steady pace, builds a reasonable amount of tension, delivers a few gruesomely effective moments of savage misogynistic violence (one woman who has a plastic garbage bag with a rattlesnake in it placed over her head rates as the definite squirm-inducing highlight), puts a refreshing emphasis on the nicely drawn and engaging true-to-life characters, further grounds everything in a plausible everyday world, and tops things off with a nice smattering of tasty female nudity. The fine acting from an excellent cast helps matters a whole lot: Joanna Pettet as sunny, charming love interest Mindy Jordache, James Stacy as Adrien's macho double amputee brother B.J., Seymour Cassel as Adrien's concerned psychiatrist Dr. Frank Curtis, Don Potter as Adrien's feisty gay assistant Louis, Pamela Hensley as gutsy homicide detective Sergeant Fountain, Cleavon Little as a hard-nosed police chief, and Misty Rowe as sweet, bubbly model Bambi. R. Michael Stringer's polished cinematography makes impressive occasional use of breathtaking panoramic aerial shots. Jack Goga's ominous rattling score likewise does the trick. Popping up in cool bit parts are Robert Tessier as a gruff bartender, Sally Kirkland as a saucy hooker, Kathy Shower as a fierce female wrestler B.J. grapples with in the ring, and Frances Bay in one of her standard old woman roles. A solid and enjoyable picture.

Michael Callan plays a smarmy photographer who seems, nonetheless, to be regarded as a perfect "catch" by any woman that runs across him; could this have anything to do with the fact that he also co-produced the film? He's a "hero" whom it's very difficult to empathize with, so the movie is in trouble right from the start. However, it's troubles don't end there. It has the production values of a TV-movie (check out that head made of clay or something, near the end), and the ending cheats in a way that I can't reveal, in case anyone wants to see the movie (highly unlikely). Let's just say that the killer knows more than we were let to know he knows. (*1/2)