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DRESSED TO KILL. (1980) 

Any synopsis is liable to make this release seem even more absurd than it actually is, but it would seem that an attractive middle aged wife (Angie Dickinson) has trouble separating tier real life from her sexual fantasies. An encounter with a stranger in an art gallery, leads to the inevitable grunt and groan sessions in a taxi and hotel room. In the hotel lift she is attacked by a muscular blonde with a razor and left bleeding to death. A prostitute sees the attacker and is herself followed but manages to escape. A psychiatrist's transvestite patient is suspected and the police ask the girl to help them. She teams up with the dead woman's son and with the aid of his 'bugging' devices establishes the identity of the killer.

In some people's eyes Brian de Palma is another Hitchcock, but although there are superficial and deliberate similarities in plot, Dressed To Kill is poles apart front the film it emulates. This is a typical exploitation movie of' the 80's with it's unsympathetic characters and unmotivated violence, and its lingering close-ups of bare flesh and writhing bodies a substitute for eroticism (Angie Dickinson was far sexier in Rio Bravo). Nevertheless, this is apparently all that some people expect in a movie. There are plenty of thrills and this version does contain most of the sequences which gave the film some notoriety at the time of its release.

The identity of the killer is suggested by a cut in the second reel, obvious by a dialogue scene in the fourth, and revealed in the fifth. For the last few minutes, the killer apparently escaped from a mental hospital, stalks the girl as she takes a shower. Incredibly, this turns out to be a nightmare, but I suppose if you can believe Michael Caine as a psychiatrist you will believe anything.

By the time the repeated titles on parts 2&3 are discarded, the film runs barely 47 minutes - rather less than you might expect from the times printed on the box.

The print is reasonably sharp with good but slightly pale colour..

See also review of 400ft version.


Distributed by: US: Ken Films UK: Mountain.
Format: Super 8mm.
Supplied on: 3 reels (400ft). 
Approximate Running Time: 48 minutes.
Colour & Sound.
Reviewer: Howard Billingham.
Reviewers rating: Print A/B Sound A

The above review was printed in Super Eight Film Review issue 3 also in issue 38.
Reproduced by the kind permission of Derek Simmonds.

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This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002

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