The latest fashion in murder

Dressed to Kill (1980)

I'm not going to go into the plot of this movie that much as there are so many twists that the less you know the better. I'll just say that there is someone murdering some people. It doesn't sound like much, but there's a psychiatrist, a prostitute, a young nerd and a detective all mixed up in this murder mystery. To be honest the story is rather simple, even though the mystery in it is quite nice. But the style makes up for that very well. It's very giallo-like with it's use of colors and set decoration, not to forget the stylistic murder sequences. This movie is like Brian De Palma's homage to Alfred Hitchcock and Psycho (1960). The similarities actually go even further than the obvious story structure, shower scenes and motives of the killer, some of the scenes are are framed alike and there are little nods towards it everywhere. Some people criticize this movie for ripping off Psycho, but I don't see it that way, it's an homage not a rip off as this movie still has a voice of it's own. Kind of like any Tarantino movie, you don't blame them for borrowing material from other movies, it's the same thing with this one. The acting is quite good throughout, even though I still don't consider Nancy Allen a great actress, but she's ok in this one. Angie Dickinson does the best performance and Michael Caine was strong as well. All in all this was a good giallo like thriller where the lack of story was balanced nicely with style and mood.
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