Body Double

One of my favorite De Plama movies before I even knew it was a De Plama movie.

And now watching it fully realizing it’s a De Plama movie, I can see what a huge fan of Hitchcock De Plama is, which makes it so much cooler.

This movie feels like Vertigo, Strangers in a Train, Rear Window, all combine.

Craig Wesson was a perfect leading man in this, playing a young actor trying to get out of his shell, but it’s funny, every time I see Wesson I keep thinking Bill Maher (He was the guy in Amazon Women on the Moon). He plays Jake Scully doing a B-Vampire movie, Vampire’s Kiss, who’s Claustrophobia effects shooting. He comes home and finds his lady in bed with another man (Following a long beautiful tracking scene down the hallway, which everyone could see coming, except Jake, in turn making it sadder). His life is on a downward spiral, until he meets a fellow struggling actor who cuts him a break allowing him to house sit, it’s here where he begins spying on his next store neighbor that gets him tied up in a mystery, when someone else has taking interest in her

It has some great visuals that you would expect from a De Plama picture, but more than anything it’s a great homage to Alfred Hitchcock, just combining some of his best films into one. Makes me wonder what the fat man would have thought of the movie if he was alive to see it. If De Plama were not already so skilled at his craft, with great acknowledgement of that skill, this movie could have been shunned for ripping off Hitchcock (Although when done right Hitchcock is definitely the guy to rip off). De Plama’s style seems to shine more in the violence in the film, which he shows far more than Hitchcock.

Plus I love movies about Hollywood. Taking place at the end of the Golden Age of Porn, it was cool looking at how the industry worked when porn was more of a movie industry.

Body Double has always been a movie worth watching, whenever I caught it, but now its even better knowing it’s a Brian De Plama (channeling Hitchcock) film.