DtKDressed to Kill (The Criterion Collection)
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen
September 8, 2015

Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons

In my book, and those of many film fans, Criterion Collection is still the go-to company when it comes to amazing, high quality releases on Blu-ray and DVD. Now days there are many great companies putting discs out, but there’s still a shine to the name Criterion Collection that has yet to dull. So whenever they give a genre picture the Criterion Collection treatment, it’s always worth celebrating. The most recent reason to party down is the 1980 heavily Psycho-influenced, Brian De Palma-directed, psychosexual murder mystery Dressed to Kill. How does the move stand up all these years later, and does Criterion Collection deliver another must own disc for the serious cinema collectors? Well grab a straight razor and maybe some homemade pepper spray too (just to be safe) and let’s find out.

But first, let’s play Name the Movie, complete with SPOILERS!

So a famous and recognizable woman is the star of the show. The unhappy lady has an affair and then gets slashed to death suddenly and without warning in a confined space about a third of the way through the film. The movie then switches to two others to both continue the story and investigate the murder, with one of the characters being related to the woman. The killer turns out to be a very tall and mannish woman, but really turns out to be a gentle, meek and mild man who likes to cross dress and has a split personality. Whenever a woman gets this guy aroused, his evil and crazy feminine side comes out to kill the object of his desire. Oh and there’s a very memorable shower scene in the film. Okay, so based on that, what movie am I talking about?

Ha, trick question, as that description works for both Psycho and Dressed to Kill. When I said this movie was influenced by Hitchcock’s masterpiece of terror and tension, I wasn’t joking. Anyway, the recognizable woman mentioned above would be Angie Dickinson and Dressed to Kill begins with her taking that memorable shower I talked about. Only this time it’s more sexy than scary. Angie soon meets the business end of a straight razor in an elevator and the only witness to the crime is a young prostitute played by Nancy Allen. The hooker with the heart of gold is the psycho’s (ha, get it) next victim, but she is saved from a razor attack by Angie’s son, who just so happens to be an amazing techo-nerd of the first degree. The unlikely duo soon team up to uncover the mystery of the large lethal lady with the razor. Surprise, surprise, it turns out to be Michael freakin’ Caine! Yes, the sizable British actor who made his bones playing tough guys in films like Zulu and Get Carter, the man who turned Batman’s butler into a soft spoken badass, puts on makeup, pumps, and a skirt to do the Norman Bates thing.  Now if that’s not enough to get you to watch this movie, I don’t know what is.

Okay, so Dressed to Kill is as derivative as it gets, but that doesn’t make it a bad movie. On the contrary, I really enjoy this flick. It is well acted, plotted, and directed. Sure at times it’s over stylized, but that can be said of most (all?) of De Palma’s films. It is a thrilling, bloody, sexy, fun, and at times funny film and watching it again for the first time in years, I really enjoyed it.

Now on to the extras and goodies that put The Criterion Collection on the map. There are six interviews here, with director Brian De Palma, actress Nancy Allen, producer George Litto, composer Pino Donaggio, Victoria Lynn Johnson, who was Angie Dickinson’s body double in that famous shower scene, and art director Stephen Sayadian. All together these interviews run 83 minutes. There is a making of featurette that’s nearly 44 minutes and another one on the late cinematographer of Dressed to Kill, Ralf Bode, that’s over 10 minutes long. A third featurette is about how the movie was nearly slashed to death by the MPAA and how it narrowly avoided an X rating, and that one is also 10 minutes long. There is a another featurette about actor Keith Gordon talking about the filmmaking techniques used in Dressed to Kill that’s 6 minutes long. Storyboards, a trailer, and one last mini-doc about the differences between the R-rated theatrical cut, the director’s unrated version, and the television edit of the film, wrap up this list of extras nicely.

Despite Dressed to Kill’s overly obvious influence, it is still a Grade A thriller with plenty of sexiness and violence, not to mention great performances and more than solid and stylish direction. I enjoy it every time I see it, and I think you will too, especially on this new, beautiful, special feature packed Blu-ray. It is highly recommended.

About Brian M. Sammons

Brian M. Sammons has penned stories that have appeared in the anthologies: Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the books; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu and Flesh Like Smoke. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ Weird Fiction line. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

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