Body Double(1984)- User Reviews

Body Double is a shameless rip off of Hitchcock and oddly enough, of DePalma's earlier work as well. Badly acted by a bumbling lead, the dialogue is dumb and the film ultimately makes no sense. It actually grows stupider as it goes, unfolding into a silly conclusion that is just horrible. DePalma tries to inject the film with his visual flourishes which copy Hitchcock most of the time with the wide, long camera angles and so on. The film follows a thoroughly unlikeable lead played by an inept Craig Wasson. He plays a wanna-be actor who's relationship has just dissolved and who can't find work and is without a place to call home. His friend is conveniently house-sitting for a rich guy but has to leave town so he offers the place to Wasson. The crib is a perv's paradise. A big, ridiculous looking contraption built high up above all the other homes with a telescope in the living room which looks right into the home of a horny women who likes to dance half nude in front of her window. Can you see where this is going? Shades of Rear Window? Wasson is a shameless voyeur with that ***** eating grin and hard-on that you know he has as he watches his new atrraction dance every night. He grows an unhealthy infatuation with her and starts following her around, even steals her panties! (After she throws them away however).This leads to an inexplicably stupid meeting of the pair. In fact everything that happens in this film is inexplicable and just bizzare. The protagonist is such a bottom feeding slug that it's impossible to care about his dilemna so right there the film loses all hope. One of those shameless exercises that is so bad that it's good. Features some truly preposterous moments, such as when our hero poses as a porn star! The best thing about this movie is Melanie Griffith, who is great and the fearless stupidity that permeates the whole damn movie. I wonder what DePalma was smoking when he put this one together.