Showers, gloves and razors.

People always accuse Brian DePalma of ripping off Hitchcock. While it's true that DePalma uses many of the same visual and story motifs as Hitch, he uses them in his own way. He fully takes advantage of the R rating. Hitchcock only got to play within the R rating once and while De Palma goes to places that I don't think Hitchcock would have gone to, he does so with such exquisite camerawork and editing that we can't help but forgive him for borrowing so much from the master. 

DePalma had included his Hitchcock homages earlier in 1973's Sisters and in 1976's Obsession. But it's in 1980's Dressed To Kill that we see so many of them in one place. Right from the start we're thrown into a very sleazy version of Psycho. It opens on a scene where our protagonist Kate Miller, as played by Angie Dickinson, is fantasizing of being sexually assaulted in the shower. It turns out that she's imagining this in order to get through boring sex with her husband. She is sexually frustrated to no end and says as much to her psychiatrist played by Michael Caine during her appointment. She proceeds to head to an art museum where she spots an attractive man and awkwardly attempts to  flirt with him. The attempts are apparently ignored and she marches off annoyed but she drops a glove as she leaves. A glove that is then picked up by the man and used to lure her into a cab where he proceeds to "seduce" her. I say "seduce" because it's borderline rape. I won't get into the blatant sexism in this movie. You could write a book on how DePalma treats the women in his films. For the sake of this review, I'll move on. 

DePalma plays around so much with the camera in this film. A sizable chunk of this story is told on a purely visual level. The entire museum sequence is played without any dialogue as the camera floats around as Kate's POV as she chases the man down hallways and around corners in pursuit of her glove. A later sequence has her awaking in the man's apartment and getting dressed to head back home while little by little she remembers details that will give her away to her husband. A missing wedding ring, missing underwear. She's panicking and even moreso when she finds a letter addressed to the man informing him that he has a venereal disease. It seems DePalma is using Kate as an example of what might happen if you cheat on your negligent husband with a stranger. But I digress. 

At this point we're 45 minutes into the movie and almost half of it has had no dialogue.  DePalma uses split-focus diopters, steadicam, mirror shots within split screens, a melodramatic score by Pino Donaggio. And all in support of this apparent morality tale. Now, if you've seen Psycho, you'll know what happens next. Kate grabs the elevator and is murdered by a woman with a straight razor. Yeah, DePalma kills off his leading lady at the end of the first act. Not as revolutionary as when Hitchcock did it but just as shocking. 

It's at this point that we're then introduced to multiple different characters. A high-priced call girl played by Nancy Allen who witnesses the murder, Kate's son who is seeking justice and the detective investigating the case as played by Dennis Franz. And it's a role that Franz plays to the hilt. He's a tough NYPD cop who's also racist, sexist, homophobic and woefully ignorant. And he does this all while wearing an absolutely ugly jacket. Although part of me wishes DePalma would have done a sequel with Franz's character investigating another case. 

Now, while I've spoiled the big twist in the film, I'm not going to spoil the killer's identity. Needless to say, the rest of the movie is as visually interesting as the first act. It all builds to a tense finale that includes a very offensive motive for the killer. But hey, it was the 80s. This movie is very much a product of it's time and I choose to accept it as a great example of DePalma's mastery with visual storytelling while trying not to let it's outdated points of view affect me. Dressed to Kill is not quite the masterpiece some say it is but it's still a damn fine good movie. 

Ravenous is a tough movie to pin down. It's mostly horror but it has a twisted sense of humor throughout. It's tongue is planted firmly in cheek and it is not afraid to defy your expectations. When it came out in 1999, audiences avoided it en masse. The trailers didn't really give you an accurate version of what type of film you should expect. It sold it more as an action comedy and it is definitely not that. Not to mention the fact that 20th Century Fox barely promoted it and dumped it into theaters. Simply put, Ravenous is a tale of redemption with a heavy dose cannibalism thrown in. 

Guy Pearce plays Captain John Boyd, a veteran of the Mexican-American war. He is awarded for bravery but his superiors know that he is actually a coward who played dead when the battle was raging. As a punishment, they send him to a remote military outpost in the Sierra Nevada mountains. There he encounters your typical motley crew of rejects. The drunk, the religious nut, the stoner, the alpha male. Boyd keeps to himself and is withdrawn until a man named Colqhoun stumbles into the camp half-dead and with a story about being a guide for a group of settlers who got lost in the snow covered mountains. Together they all set out to rescue the settlers. And it wouldn't be much of a spoiler if I told you that things don't go well. 

The film had a trouble production involving the firing of two directors after filming had already started. One of them being Raja Gosnell, a man who is the definition of a hack. I shudder to think how he could have taken the subject matter and made an awkward mess of it. Eventually, Antonia Bird came in and made the film. Right from the start the movie announces itself as not your typical fare. The score from Michael Nyman and Blur frontman (and later, Gorillaz) Damon Albarn sets the weird tone that you're going to experience for the next 100 minutes. It defies description, especially because I am not at all musical and suck at describing what something sounds like, but it remains one of my favorite film scores ever and one that I still listen to frequently. That tone wavers from horror to comedy to thriller without causing whiplash. It lives within it's own genre and doesn't play by the rules that'd we've grown accustomed to expect. Boyd as our protagonist is a spineless wimp that is difficult to sympathize with but Pearce holds our attention and makes us kinda like Boyd despite his lack of character. The supporting cast made up of Jeffery Jones, David Arquette, Jeremy Davies and Neal McDonough are all fun and make their roles memorable but it's Robert Carlyle as Colqhoun that is the real standout. He plays Colqhoun as traumatized but a bit off and you know, if you've seen more than two movies in your life, that Colqhoun has a secret. And it's when that secret is revealed (it's in the trailers, and in the first paragraph) that the movie, and Carlyle, hit high gear. And while everything devolves into chaos, Bird shoots the movie wonderfully. She is not afraid of making the 1800s look as grimy as they actually were. This is not an idealized version of the west. Things are tough, the weather is harsh and the blood is sticky. The gorgeous shots of the mountains combined with the score, a score that actually uses period instruments, transport you to a version of the west you rarely see. All this in support of a strong story about how one man tries to find a way to redeem himself even if it costs him dearly. Boyd goes through hell and doesn't exactly come out of it intact. 

Ravenous is the type of film I like to champion. I've loved it ever since I first saw it in 1999 and keep trying to get more people to see it. It's at times hilarious and disgusting. Scary and mesmerizing. It's a shame that Antonia Bird never returned to the genre before she passed away last year. She made a film that will stick in your head long after you've seen it. And if you like it, spread the word. The cult of Ravenous has been slowly growing these past 15 years and there's plenty of room for new members.