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| Dressed to Kill | 
| Category: Movie
Buy New: $9.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  100 reviews
Sales Rank: 5170
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Video Download
Running Time: 105 minutes
ASIN: B000IZ2YH4
Theatrical Release Date: July 24, 1980
Release Date: June 27, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 95 more reviews...
 This is a Joke, Right? May 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have waited at least a year to buy this DVD at an acceptable price; and now that I've finally got it and watched it, I'm in shock at how stupid this movie is. It is unbelievably amatuerish in plot, script, and acting. Perhaps, when this piece of junk first came out, it could be considered a decent film by the standards of the time. But, by today's standards, it is a complete mess. I've been had. The quality of the DVD video is a little "off" as well. It's not terrible, but it would help if it were remastered.
 Dressed to Kill DVD April 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I thought it was great quality. The digital restoration was very good. It also has the option of choosing the "R" rated version or the unrated version.
DePalma's Razor Sharp Erotic Psychological Thriller! October 30, 2007
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
1980 was a very good year for some groundbreaking films in different genres that completely reshaped and redefined the genre they represented. Ridley Scott's sci-fi noir thriller "Blade Runner", Stanley Kubrick's haunting psychological ghost story horror film "The Shining", and Brian DePalma's erotic psycological slasher thriller "Dressed To Kill".
Written & directed by DePalma, this chiller did for elevators what Hitchcock's "Psycho" did for showers two generations before it, and still has people sqeamish of elevators; and for good reason.
This is a film about voyuerism, paranoia, erotica, sexual perversion, sexual deviancy, sexual identity, psychology, fear, sexual escapades, and murder. Starring Angie Dickinson (tv's "Police Woman"), Nancy Allen (DePalma's "Carrie", "Home Movies", and "Blow Out, plus being DePalma's wife), Micheal Caine, Dennis Franz (DePalma's "The Fury", "Blow Out", and "Body Double", plus tv's "Hill Street Blues" & "NYPD Blue"), and Keith Gordon (DePalma's "Home Movies" and Carpenter's "Christine"), DePalma tells a story of a sexually frustrated housewife who is only trying to find sexual satisfaction and has a one night stand, then gets sliced the f**k up in an elevator by a transexual with a sexual identity crisis.
The film starts with, not one, but two back-to-back erotic sex scenes, the first as the film opens and Kate Miller (Dickinson) is in the shower, soaping herself in a very erotic way as her husband is shaving right outside the shower curtain. Then a man starts raping her from behind and she starts screaming, only to come to reality where she is lying in bed with her husband doing his 'business' on top of her, and she is faking the entire time, then he's done, and rolls over and goes to sleep.
She checks in on her son, Peter Miller (Gordon, playing a character that DePalma has said was based on himself at that age, a nerdy science geek with a computer, well, a machine that he built, called a differential analyzer), then she goes to see her therapist, Dr. Robert Elliott (Caine), and proceeds to tell him about her sexual frustration with her husband, flirting a bit with Dr. Elliott. She then visits a museum in one of the films many highlights of great visual storytelling, with over a twenty minute long take with hardly any dialogue at all. She meets a man, then a cool/frustrating game of cat-and-mouse begins, and the museum is like a maze, and DePalma uses this set piece to his best benefit, swirling the camera this way and that, and starting what will become a sucession of awesome flashbacks, shown in dual optor projection, so you see the present along with the flashback all in one scene.
After losing one glove behind, Kate leaves the museum in frustration, only to see the man awaiting her in a nearby cab, his arm extended, waving the missing glove (this is right after she takes off her OTHER glove and tosses it down), and she heads for the cab. Look close and you'll see a very quick glimpse of 'Bobbi', the killer, in this scene, once as the camera is slowly turning to show the cab, then after Kate gets in the cab, a gloved hand reaches out and picks Kate's glove up.?.?.
The cab scequence is VERY erotic, almost "Basic Instinct" erotic, but so much more tastefully done, as the guy proceeds to go down, if you get the idea. Kates screams her head off with pleasure!
Later that night, she awakens in the hotel room and starts gathering her things, proceeding to get dressed and leave. She remembers her panties were left in the cab (in another split dioptor scene). Oh, no!! She then stops at a desk in the room to write a 'thank you & goodbye' message to the guy, and discovers papers inside the desk from the local health department disclaiming that "you have contracted a venereal disease", which of coarse means chances are that Kate now has contracted the same disease as well...Oh, the horrors!!
She gets on the elevator (again, there is a quick shot of 'Bobbi' hiding behind an emergency door as Kate is awaiting the elevator). Kate remembers she left her wedding ring in the hotel room (in yet another brilliant split dioptor shot)...Oh, NO!! So, she has to go back up and retrieve it. When the doors open, there stands 'Bobbi' and 'her' straight razor (who we find out later she stole from Dr. Elliott), and is, yes, 'dressed to kill'! This slasher moment puts any and/or all other slasher films to shame (except "Halloween" and "Psycho") in just one scene! And, this is where DePalma splits the story from being Kate's to now being Liz Blake's (Allen), as he cuts to her and her 'john' (she's a professional call girl) waiting for the elevator a floor below. As the doors open, there is a moment where the two women's eyes meet in the elevator mirror, then the gleaming razor blade catches Liz's attention, and she see's the killer, all filmed in glorious slow motion, with an awesome score by Pino Donnagio. Liz grabs the razor blade after 'Bobbi' drops it, the elevator doors close, and now Liz is a murder suspect.
This is where the film turns into an awesome cop procedural, with a very hard-a** detective Marino (Franz), whose questions to Liz are fast, rapid, rabid, vile, and hilarious all at the same time. Yes, this is also satire, for DePalma puts irony and satire in all of his films. And, at the police station, DePalma makes use of another great set piece to show one person listening to another, as another listens to yet another, making it a game of who's listening in on who.?.?. And, the way he filters all of these transactions through pane glass brilliantly mirrors his split dioptor effect already used, and an upcoming split screen that he will eventually use.
Peter and Liz meet, and Peter and Dr. Elliott meet, and Peter takes it upon himself to investigate the doctor, believing his mother may have been killed by one of his patients; as does Detective Marino. But, he also suspects Liz, maybe not of murder, but of something. Meanwhile, Liz is spied upon by 'Bobbi', and Dr. Elliott is getting wierd messages on his answering machine from 'Bobbi' hinting at the crime 'she' just committed, even admitting to stealing the doctor's straight razor. In a split screen shot that lasts for a very good time, Liz is on the phone with her 'boss' trying to get the phone number of the man who was with her when the elevator doors opened, for he was a witness as well, but he took off running, and Liz has no success finding him. On the other side of the screen, 'Bobbi' is seen standing outside Liz's apartment building with binoculars, spying on her, as Liz, on the other side of the split screen is shown making more phone calls, talking to her 'boss' again, trying to line up a 'dinner and date' for the next evening. Then it shows Dr. Elliot on the other side of the screen listening to his answering machine, and checking and noticing his straight razor IS missing. Meanwhile, both sides have an episoed of tv's "Phil Donahue" playing in the background, and it is dealing with Phil talking to a transexual who has had the final operation; and, as both characters, Liz and Dr. Elliott continue going about their business, oblivious to the tv screen, still shown in brilliant split screen, the tv show starts getting larger and larger on both sides of the film as the subject of transexuality is being discussed. And, then the film goes back to 'normal', cutting to Liz going out for the evening, being followed by a blonde woman, maybe the very same blonde woman she saw in the elevator, and that killed Kate Miller. She sweet talks the young cabbie into running a red light, leaving the blonde woman behind, but when she arrives at the subway station, there is 'Bobbi' awaiting her, thus leading on an extremely breathless/breathtaking subway ride, with her running from 'Bobbi' the whole ride. I won't spoil the outcome of this scene for anything.
Peter has developed the film he has filmed of patients coming and going outside Dr. Elliots office, and he shows it to Liz, and she goes to Detective Marino, who acts as if he still doesn't believe her, but hints that maybe she could break into Dr. Elliot's office and steal his patient list, so she does.
And, this is one of the most memorable erotic scenes in film history!
Decked out in a raincoat with black under garments underneath, Liz proceeds to talk to Dr. Elliot about fictional (though she tells him they are real) erotic dreams she's been having, meanwhile flirting with the good doctor the entire time, and undressing as she talks about the dream. Matter of fact, the whole set up of telling him the dream s**t is supposed to get him aroused so she can seduce him then try and either get him to tell her about the patient that may have killed Kate, and/or sneak and steal his patient list like Dectective Marino advised. Meanwhile, it is dark, raining, and storming outside the office, making it even more erotic than imaginable. And, even more terrorfying!
Peter is outside the office, wiping rain from his face as he tries to watch from afar through a window that Liz has opened the blinds on for him to be able to see in. Again, it's a matter of who's watching who, like the police station when it was a matter of who's listening to/spying on who. The pacing is dynamic in this scene, tension building up so great, it could make a person have a stroke wanting for it to climax already; but, DePalma, the ultimate Master Of Suspense, isn't about to let up until it's time to let up!
Again, I'm not gonna go any further, for I don't wanna give away anything to anyone who's maybe never seen this classic masterpiece, except to say 'Bobbi' is caught, a great exposition scene is done, explaining who 'Bobbi' REALLY is and why the murder happened, and what will become of 'Bobbi'.
But, I will add that the film then proceeds into a dream sequence of 'Bobbi' killing a nurse and escaping the mental institution, and going straight for Liz. The way DePalma films a mental institution (like he did in "Sisters") is out of this world, for he makes you feel as if you are right there inside a very REAL madhouse, with inmates that look just like anything you could ever imagine ever seeing in an insane asylum.
Many people rag on the dream sequence, saying that it is too much like the ending of "Carrie", but they are wrong...It is the final scene in which the character(s) having the dream awaken(s) that is a bit too close to "Carrie". The dream sequence is possibly the best part of the film, and that's saying a LOT, because this film is loaded with awesome scenes every which way you look at it. Plus, I think it is extremely brilliant the way DePalma book-ends this film with dream sequences, the first one with Kate in the shower, and the last one with Liz in the shower, and they're both very suspenseful scenes in one sense or another.
Produced by DePalma's friend, George Litto, who had produced "Obsession", and "Blow Out" after this one, this is an excursion into psychological erotic madness that is as grotesque, gory, twisted, perverted, demented, deranged, horrorfying, spellbinding, sensual, elegant, thrilling, bloody, and scary as anything anyone that likes this genre of film would ever want in a film.
This is the film that got women's groups calling DePalma 'mysoginistic', saying he was too violent towards women in his films all because he filmed one woman (maybe two???) getting murdered in a very classy manner, yet there were all of these cheesy slasher flicks having women running around as naked as the day they were born, making them act like airhead bimbo's, getting cut all up like spaghetti, but that seemed to be OK; but they wanted to pick on DePalma for this classic masterpiece??? HUH??? REALLY???
This was also the first film that Depalma had to duke it out with the MPAA over ratings (they wanted to give it an X), so he cut it into an R-rated version (which I, personally prefer), but the DVD features both, the R and the Unrated (X) versions of the film, and they're on the same side of the disc, so you don't have to flip it over. And, this is loaded with a lot of great special bonus features!
HIGHLY recommended! Two Thumbs And A Big Toe!!
Thank you & happy Halloween! ;-)
PS: A bit of film trivia: DePalma used a 'body double' for Angie Dickinson's nude shower scene, which in turn inspired his 1984 classic "Body Double", which was his cinematic 'answer' to critics who wanted to bash him, reproaching his decision for using a body double in this film.
A very good but unexploited final twist September 29, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A great classic in the genre of the compulsive killer. It is well done though definitely easy. In many ways it is a remake of Hitchcock's Psycho, yet it is pure New York and it has some kind of a flavor, that of the modern cop-film. The cop is both arrogant and negligent and he runs risks via other people. He goes to a football game or some sports event with his children while someone is running the risk of being killed, and he knows it. So we have the inventiveness of a teenager and the tenacity of a hooker and they both manage to find the killer and even more or less trap him, though they could have been killed in doing so. The final touch though, the punch line of the film is a real twist in the fabric of logical thrilling. And what about having had it wrong all along? Entertaining indeed.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
 Big letdown of a movie September 8, 2007
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
The first 30 minutes to Dressed to Kill are dreadful, Brian De Palma's worst ever as a director. I stuck with the movie simply because I enjoyed some of De Palma's other movies such as The Untouchables, Carlito's Way, and The Phantom of Paradise. Dressed to Kill picks up a little bit after Angie Dickinson goes away, but it never shakes off its sleaziness. This movie is overrated like its director.
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