Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Sorry, a blunt title, but that is how I reacted to this.From beginning to end I was either bored, not engaged with the characters, or irritated by any number of things (soft focus, music). Dickinson was too old for her role and the first part of her faffing around domestically, going to the art museum (Lord save us!) and in flagrante delicto in the taxi almost sent me to sleep.Maybe this film is just not right for me. I liked "Obsession", so I find De Palma's work OK.Not worth bothering with, in my opinion.

Dressed to Kill is written and directed by Brian de Palma. This film is essentially a hybrid between an American erotic thriller and a Italian Giallo. It features all the hallmarks of both genres of that time, a crazed slasher, sultry female leads, and buckets of blood, the only thing missing from this films is a synth score by Goblin or Tangerine Dream. This film has a far better structure then most Giallos. Even if this comes at the cost of not being surprised by who the killer is.Brian de Palma brings an extra level of finesse to this film. It's a more mature take on the Giallo genre, without it ever skimping out on De Palma's usual motifs. The shot compositions and his excellent camera movements are as good as any in his filmography.The film stars Nancy Allen as Liz Blake a high-class call girl, that witnesses a murder, and soon finds herself in the killers cross-hairs. Allen gives an alluring performance as the seductive Liz Blake. Even though her acting chops begin to stifle in any scene that requires any range or emotional weight. Though at times she's given some truly horrendous lines, that even George Lucas would cringe at.The film also stars Michael Caine as therapist Dr. Robert Elliott. After the murders begin he starts to receive messages on his answering machine, from one of his former patients, giving accurate accounts of the murder whilst claiming to be the killer. He begins to fall deeper into trouble, as he tries to reach out and help his former patient. He goes off on his his own Investigation, without the help of Police Detective. Marino who's played with typical gusto by Dennis Franz. The cast is rounded out with good performances from Angie Dickinson as Kate Miller a patient of Elliott's and Keith Gordon who plays her son.Dressed to Kill does have some issues, the dialogue at times can be rough on the ear, and the overall mystery is fairly simplistic, which leads to a slight lack of tension. Despite this, Dressed to Kill is an Incredibly fun and engaging film. It's masterfully shot, and is one of the best hybrid Giallos Iv'e seen.

Brian DePalma was born four days after Dario Argento on 11th September 1940, but they could have been separated at birth; and for those familiar with DePalma's work that would make you think of 'Sisters' (1973), a film that has a lot more to do with Hitchcock (an obvious influence on both their work), than with Argento in particular. The similarities come from an idiosyncratic assimilation of Hitchcock rather than from seeing and copying each other's work. Both directors like the 'Master' are relentless fetishists. I do find it hard to imagine DePalma's cinema without Argento's; 'Body Double' (1984), and 'Raising Cain' (1992) have grown out of 'Tenebre' (1982). Argento is a modernist rather than the more fashionable postmodern, and like Ingmar Bergman or John Ford he falls in and out of fashion with critics and the public. He has influenced his 'apprentices' Luigi Cozzi, Michele Soavi and Lamberto Bava; but he has also touched more celebrated filmmakers like John Carpenter (think 1978's 'Halloween'), Wes Craven, Takeshi Miike (Argento is 'big in Japan'), John Woo, David Fincher, and Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar. But with DePalma the influence runs a lot deeper… even the word Doppelganger could be considered, but I'm not sure who you would point the finger at as being the unfortunate one. For all their similarities though, you can compare DePalma to Godard (most obviously with 'Greetings' (1968), and 'Hi, Mom!' (1970), and Godard has written of his admiration for DePalma's 'The Fury' 1978), whereas you can't easily compare Argento to Godard. It is helpful to think of DePalma as a jazz musician riffing on themes, his favourite pieces to riff on being 'Vertigo' and 'Psycho'. Familiar with 'Giallo,' he rarely cites them as influences (he claims to despise Argento's films). DePalma's dreamlike tangle of memory and desire owes less to Hitchcock than to the psychological 'Giallo' of Argento, and the baroque set pieces and sociopathic gender games of 'Dressed to Kill' and 'Body Double' scream Argento, but it's 'Raising Cain's' finale that completes the deal. A woman bends over to pick up her child, revealing the killer standing directly behind her, a scene straight out of 'Tenebrae'.'Dressed to Kill' could easily be described as a 'Giallo,' as DePalma pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable and in good taste (with mainstream cinema). 'Dressed To Kill' was a film that was released at the right time; post- Stonewall, post-feminist, post-disco, post-Son of Sam, pre-AIDS. However as controversial as DePalma wanted to be, 'Dressed to Kill' only has the whiff of cheap perfume compared to the pungent odor of its contemporaries of the grindhouse; William Lustig's 'Maniac' (1980), and Abel Ferrara's 'Ms. 45' (1981). Even another film from the big end of town, William Friedkin's 'Cruising' (1980), which DePalma had for a time been attached to was more controversial and sleazy; yet 'Dressed To Kill' shocked because more people saw it. DePalma uses paperback pulp psychology (pure 'Giallo'), to demonstrate that filmmaking is an inherently 'visual' storytelling medium. It is clear he is always more at home with scenes free of dialogue; the characters speak in pure soap opera exposition.The opening 'shower scene' establishes the theme; Kate is in the shower masturbating whilst watching probably her husband shaving; it's DePalma's 'thing', linking sexual stimulation to voyeurism. Hands clutch her from behind and she screams. Looking, pleasuring, violating. The sound design connects the next scene, where Kate is in bed moaning with 'ersatz' pleasure; talk radio dominates the soundtrack rather than a lush romantic musical score, and a high-angle shot fixes on the faceless husband and Kate's unfulfilled expression. Later, when she attempts to 'come on' to her shrink, the Doctor advises her to confront her husband about her anxieties. Before doing this, Kate visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art with nothing more on her mind than a shopping list (an inspired touch), and links up with a mysterious stranger. Following a hot and sweaty seduction in the back seat of a cab, she goes back to his apartment for a game of post-office. Immediately after, she is confronted by a mysterious blonde with a 'Giallo' like shiny straight razor. As Hitchcock had done audaciously in 'Psycho', DePalma does the unthinkable in the first act killing the woman we had assumed was the heroine. It's a dangerous trick, as the audience now has to reach out to new characters, Liz and Peter as the film starts again. Like Marcus in Argento's 'Deep Red', Liz (a prostitute, an outsider) must do the detective work.As with Argento, DePalma likes set-pieces featuring long takes with a mobile camera, and for DePalma in 'Dressed To Kill' it's the Metropolitan Museum of Art sequence. DePalma's obsessively moody overwrought sequence is a slice of the purest melodramatic overkill. DePalma's timing of Kate's impulses with the unreal ambiance and heightened emotion is overplayed to absurdity. Technically DePalma is as accomplished as ever.The Italian Argento, coming from a Catholic background, is at home with the torments of repression and guilt and the horrors they can produce. DePalma (from Newark with an Italian American Catholic background… but attended Protestant and Quaker schools), embraces the hang-ups triggered by the liberation of a 'permissive' society. 'Dressed To Kill' celebrates the allure of perversion and desire, and the guilt that can create.The mistaken identity conceit is something DePalma had explored in 'Sisters' and 'Obsession' (1976), and would be revisited in 'Body Double' (1984), though all of this originates with Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' (1958). The cross- dressing and shower traumas are clearly from 'Psycho', as is the clinical explanation that ends proceedings. Always full of self-confidence, in the finale DePalma references 'Sisters' and the 'Carrie' (1976) dream and shock ending, it also hearkens back to the opening of 'Halloween' and prefigures its own parody, 'Blow Out' (1981).

Brian De Palma here directs another above-average thriller dealing with his principal interests of sex and violence, in his own flamboyant and inimitable style. All of the things you expect from a good De Palma film are here, from the fluid and interesting use of the camera which gives the film a classy visual look, to the elegant music by Pina Donnagio, to the Hitchcock references. Here, it's PSYCHO, with supposed heroine Angie Dickinson, a middle-aged housewife with a problematic sex life, who becomes drawn into a storyline involving a killer.De Palma shows a total understanding of the elements required to make a gripping thriller in this movie and he does everything right. Not least of which is assembling a solid and proficient cast, highlighted by Michael Caine's twitchy turn as a psychiatrist with a dark secret of his own. Fine too, is Dickinson as the bored housewife, around whose sex life much of the film is centred. De Palma enjoys playing with Dickinson's character, twisting her around so that a moment of joy becomes a moment of horror as she learns that a man she has just slept with has a venereal disease. Nancy Allen turns up as the classy prostitute with a heart, who finds herself stalked by the killer in some suspenseful sequences (the best of which is at a train station - something about De Palma and train stations is just right). Smaller parts are taken by Keith Gordon as the young, brainy hero, and Dennis Franz, who adopts the cop-you-love-to-hate type role which he would recreate throughout much of his later career.Highlights in the film for me include an excellent cat-and-mouse game in an art gallery as Dickinson attempts to snag a prospective lover; the aforementioned train sequence in which Allen is chased by both a gang of thugs and the killer; and of course the taut lift sequence. The violence is bloody and brutal without being over the top, and a strong sexual undercurrent runs throughout the movie, occasionally erupting into the aforementioned violence with a lot of power. De Palma can't resist inserting one final shock/dream sequence at the end, either, which rounds things off nicely. Although his repeated camera tricks sometimes work against him (the split-screen, for instance, isn't as effective here as in CARRIE, making the screen muddled instead of exciting), DRESSED TO KILL still stands as a solid, powerful thriller made at the height of De Palma's career.