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| Dressed to Kill | 
| Category: Movie
Buy New: $3.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  102 reviews
Sales Rank: 3105
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 105 minutes
ASIN: B000IZVPRY
Theatrical Release Date: July 24, 1980
Release Date: October 1, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A classic September 4, 2005
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
When a director can have the actors and cameras tell a story over about 20 minutes without a word... you have a classic.
Such is the scene that starts in the museum with Angie Dickinson being cruised, then cruising, then being picked up and taken away. She wakens in the morning, finds out a secret, leaves and is then killed horribly. It is rare that you will see all that take place and not a word is spoken by any of the principal actors.
The movie shifts gears after that and the cat is after the mouse.
Technology that was available at the time is brought into use. DePalma's use of split screens and camera angels keeps the movie going along. Nancy Allen plays a role she plays well... a hooker. But one of the principal actors here.
I would say that this is DePalma's second best movie. His best is without a doubt 'Body Double'.
Sure, they're both a lot like hitchcock. But that's okay. I liked hitchcock and I'm glad to see somebody making films so close to his you sometimes cannot tell the difference.
Speaking of body double, I understand that the making of that film was as a result of the criticism that DePalma and Dickinson recieved for the use of a body double in this movie. Interesting.
A classic of the suspense in the eighties! August 23, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
If we drew a straight line between Hitchcock and his most remarkable followers two names: Claude Chabrol in France and Brian de Palma and weaving finer we should agree that Dressed is the best and most mature film of De Palma.
Evidently there are more than happy coincidence respect top previous Hitchcock entries. First at all Angie Dickinson has committed an unforgettable sin, she has infringed adultery and now like Leigh in Psycho she will have the weight of the guilt with her early death, curiously by the same sin.
The first part of the film concludes with her murderer, brilliantly made with a superb slow motion and astonishing handle camera.
The psychopath is a twist of Norman Bates. Two crossed and antagonist personalities living in the same body. Opposite sides of the same coin facing one each other and trying to maintain a fragile equilibrium, as we will see.
In the other hand we have a Peeping Tom but smartly embodied by a nerd: a brilliant electronic student who will become eventually in the target of funny double jokes.
But the main character is Nancy Allen that made an accurate role ( the best in her career) as charismatic and sympathetic pros who will be the hook and future victim of her dangerous game in her particular search of the assassin.
The script is smart and in despite of the fact more than twenty have elapsed, the movie maintains its febrile tension.
An undeniable triumph of de Palma, without forgetting obviously the fantastic performance of Michael Caine who lived his Golden Decade in the eighties: Educating Rita, Hanna and her sisters,
Mona Lisa and this one. He had to win at least another additional Award with Mona Lisa, too.
Watch it over and over and you will always find traces of good cinema. That' s a good signal and the best evidence we are in front of one of the four best suspense movies of the eighties.
3.5 STARS: A very good Hitchcockian styled thriller/hybrid horror flick. August 4, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill" is a very good suspense thriller/horror movie. The similarities between "Dressed to Kill" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" are clear and very well defined. "Dressed to Kill" starts out with a sexually unsatisfied middle-aged woman who sees a psychiatrist played by Michael Caine. The woman struggles with her sexual worth and displays a reckless attitude in a chance encounter with some stranger at a museum.
De Palma, like Hitchcock, uses classic cinematic misdirection to fool the audience into perhaps thinking that this middle-aged woman is the main character and her emotional problems are central to the movie's plot. So, what De Palma sets up to be as a drama or maybe even a love story turns into something much darker and much more horrific. Out of the blue comes a brutal murder that shocks the audience and changes the focus and expectations of the audience into what could have been a drama focused on a middle aged woman dealing with problems regarding her sexuality to a suspense thriller which is styled like a hybrid thriller/horror movie. The result is a very effective movie which truly shocks the conscience of the audience and creates a terrific little mystery for the viewer to put together.
The question in this movie becomes who is the murderer and what was the motive...De Palma hypnotizes the audience into a psychological thriller delving into the scary and dark world of the unconscious mind, classic psychosis and multiple personality disorder. Indeed, De Palma borrows heavily from Hitchcock with overtones of "Psycho" and other Hitchcock films to create an interesting movie that is able to stand on its own merits despite strong reliance on Hitchcockian techniques and style. Still, "Dressed to Kill" has that dream-like De Palma signature to it which is classic De Palma. The movie moves along with a murder mystery and De Palma provides the audience with another horrifying surprise or two to make "Dressed to Kill" into a clearly enjoyable horror movie viewing experience.
While not a classic nor a pure horror movie, "Dressed to Kill" is a must own hybrid horror/thriller or suspense movie that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys Hitchcockian styled suspense thrillers with an element of horror to it...you won't be disappointed. "Dressed to Kill" is almost a FOUR STAR movie in my opinion, but if you have read any of my reviews, you will know that 3.5 STARS is an excellent grade coming from this reviewer.
De Palma's mastery of the craft August 2, 2005
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
There are sequences in DRESSED TO KILL that may be as formally accomplished as any film sequences ever made. The scene in the police station, with multiple framings and glass partitions mirroring De Palma's use of the split screen in other sequences (and with the characters secretly eavesdropping and spying on one another while being oblivious to how they are being spied on by others) is a virtuoso example, but the most stunning--and the most famous--may be Angie Dickinson's cruising sequence in the museum, with Dickinson lured and teased by a mysterious man with whom she's flirting. Although this was a big hit when released, DRESSED TO KILL has not sustained its reputation quite so much over the years as much as other De Palma films have, such as CARRIE and THE UNTOUCHABLES and even SISTERS. In part this may be because the homages to Hitchcock in this film are a bit TOO over the top, even for De Palma. (The dream sequence at the end, as beautifully accomplished as it is, was a mistake to include after the similar dream sequence ending CARRIE.) It's also hurt by the feeble acting of Nancy Allen, De Palma's Tippi Hedren and wife at the time: although memorable as the spoiled beauty queen in CARRIE, Allen just didn't have the chops to compete onscreen with Michael Caine or, particularly, the astonishing Dickinson, who gives a superbly nuanced and sympathetic performance as the lonely aging beauty despite the fact that she has so few lines in the first half of the film. But the great technical virtuosity of this film carries all before it: no one can play with multiple points of view like De Palma can, and his very jokey script allows him numerous opportunities to play hilariously mean pranks on his characters.
This edition of the film comes with a fine featurette with Keith Gordon, who plays the teenage hero of the film, analyzing De Palma's techniques in this film with genuien insight; it also has another featurette that seems like a real mistake about the controversies surrounding the film's release, with De Palma still bitterly whining about accusations at the time of the film's putative misogyny and sensationalism (given his spectacular subsequent career in Hollywood, and the film's financial success when it was released, his grousing seems churlish).
dressed to thrill italian style April 18, 2005
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I think this is one of the best american thrillers ever. Yes i said it. It captures perfectly the atmosphere of the 1980s slasher craze, but De Palma bathes his film in a beautiful light which makes everything look smooth and sensual. Much in contrast to many other cheap looking slasher films of this period De palma has always been compared to Hitchcock, and it is obvious in parts of the construction of this film, but what a lot of reviewers miss is his obvious debt to the Italian thrillers of the 60s and 70s. Like Mario Bava and Dario Argento. with fluid camera movements, straight from Bavas Blood an Black Lace and black clad killers like that of Argentos The Bird With the Crystal Plumage 1971. Dressed to Kill is very stylish and is ajoy to watch. Great actors ,great music, sets camera action slash slash slash. Tenebrae by Dario Argento has some similarities to this film. So De Palma and Argento obviously have a close eye on each other. Ciao for now.
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