Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Bea Swanson
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Michael_Elliott
Double Exposure (1983) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Adrian Wilde (Michael Callan) is a photographer who is seeing a shrink because he's having very bad nightmares about murdering the women he takes photos of. He tries to strike up a relationship with Mindy (Joanna Pettet) but before long he begins to fear that his dreams are real.DOUBLE EXPOSURE isn't the most successful film that you're going to watch but there are enough good moments in it to make it worth watching. The best way to describe the film is saying it's a cross between the type of thriller that Brian DePalma would make but with the sleaze factor of a slasher. The two go well together and we get some nice performance that help make the film a bit better than it probably deserves to be.As far as the mystery goes, for the most part we're given some suspects and we're made to wait until the very end for the killer to be revealed. I thought the mystery aspect worked quite well, although there are some rather silly moments involving a couple cops working the case. The two of them pretty much just show up every so often whenever the film needs to remind the viewer that the murders are being investigated. What really helps the film is the fact that Callan is so good in the lead role of the troubled man who thinks he might be more damaged that he originally thought. Pettet and James Stacy both add nice support.The film works as a slasher and especially during the scenes where we see the killer talking various women including prostitutes. There's a nice sequence where we see a hooker lure the killer down an alleyway. Director William Bryan Hillman makes the film look quite good but a little more energy and a bit more suspense certainly would have helped things. As it stands, DOUBLE EXPOSURE certainly isn't a masterpiece but it's a mildly entertaining film.
BA_Harrison
A serial killer who likes to photograph the bodies of his victims stabs a streetwalker through the neck with an icepick, only to discover that his latest target is a male undercover cop in drag. Sergeants Fontain (Pamela Hensley) and Buckhold (David Young) arrive on the scene moments later to find that the killer has fled and that they are too late to save the life of their colleague. So begins this lurid early '80s psychological thriller that is totally preposterous, yet which offers up so much silliness, sex and slasher-style violence that I found it impossible not to enjoy.As the police continue their investigation, fashion photographer Adrian Wilde (Michael Callan) becomes their chief suspect: you see, he's been visiting his shrink a lot lately, suffering from dreams in which he brutally murders his models using modus operandi identical to those in the real-life slayings. As the dreams and murders continue, Adrian himself begins to wonder if he is the killer, but there are several more camera-carrying suspects for the viewer to choose from, including psychiatrist Frank Curtis (Seymour Cassel), bald bartender Alec (Robert Tessier), and even Adrian's own brother, stuntman B.J. Wilde (James Stacy), who has only only one arm and one leg.Intertwined with this murder storyline is a soap-opera style romance between Adrian and beautiful blonde Mindy Jordache (Joanna Pettet) which makes Double Exposure feel like a TV movie at times, a fact not helped by a cast better known for acting on the small screen. As a result, the sex and violence that punctuates the film only seems all the more exploitative: it's a bit like watching an episode of Hart to Hart, but with full frontal female nudity and graphic killings (come to think of it, Stephanie Powers in the buff would have made that series sooooo much better).The film's most entertaining moments occur during Adrian's dreams, in which the photographer, wild eyed and ranting, coaxes a beauty into a swimming pool before drowning her, kills another woman by throwing a rattlesnake into a bin liner and popping it over her head, strangles a hooker who flaunts her wares, and slashes a naked chick across the throat and breasts. Sexy highlights include Adrian romping with a babe called April (the same woman he slashes in his dream), the lucky photographer getting it on with Mindy (who moans her appreciation), and B.J. Wilde getting to grips with a female mud wrestler.The film eventually reveals the killer to be none other than B.J., who is even more emotionally troubled than his brother, the guy having never got his head round the idea that his mother was a whore (and probably a little bit upset over being cursed with such a silly name). It is never adequately explained how a bloke with only half his limbs could be such a successful murderer (strangling that hooker would have been especially hard) or, for that matter, how he manages to tie up Adrian in the supremely daft denouement.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.
Leofwine_draca
Here's something a little different from Crown International Pictures: a giallo-flavoured slasher with a strong psychological angle and a decidedly nasty edge. DOUBLE EXPOSURE tells the tale of a photographer plagued by nightmares in which he kills a string of young and beautiful women, and a real-life series of killings taking place at the same time. Could he really be the serial killer responsible? DOUBLE EXPOSURE feels very much like an '80s-era giallo along the lines of A BLADE IN THE DARK or NOTHING UNDERNEATH. It has an unusually vicious edge to it for a Crown International film; it's not that it's particularly gory - and it's certainly nowhere near as gory as your average Italian giallo - it's just that the murders are ruthless and mean-spirited. Being a Crown film, there's ample nudity if you're after that, along with a very low budget that gives a schlocky look to everything that occurs.The cast give solid rather than unspectacular performances and there are supporting turns for a few familiar faces like Cleavon Little. Michael Callan is pretty good as the weirdo lead, covered in sweat and acting deranged for the most part, although anybody with any experience of this particular genre of films will guess the identity of the killer early on in the proceedings. Nevertheless, DOUBLE EXPOSURE is a breath of fresh air when compared to Crown's typical output (i.e. low budget sex comedies).
Scarecrow-88
An LA serial killer is slaying prostitutes, moving next to nude models, and the film proposes that charming photographer Adrian (Michael Callan), a ladies' man, is perhaps this person. A cop dressed as a hooker is stabbed in the neck from behind and the LA police are seemingly powerless to stop the killer even when they are staked out only a block from where the murder took place. The film establishes the fact that Adrian is having bizarre nightmares involving women and violence. In one of these "dreams", Adrian murders a model in a pool, the victim later pulled from said pool by the police; detectives working the serial killings are frustrated that so few clues have turned up to give them some idea as to his identity. Adrian is a womanizer, lives in a rather nice mobile home, and sees a shrink (Cassavetes vet Seymore Cassel) regularly to help him cope with the strange dreams awakening him often at night in a cold sweat. Adrian has a crippled stuntman brother (missing an arm and leg due to a stunt gone awry), BJ (James Stacy), who is still rather sore about a broken marriage. BJ, however, still performs dangerous car stunts and tries, despite the handicaps, to pick up women at the local discos/dance clubs. Adrian begins what seems like a potential romance with a nurse who works at a rest home for the elderly but quits dating her (although she stays on his mind; he even stabs her in one of his dreams!). "Double Exposure",at times, seems more concerned with Adrian's photography duties instead of the plot centered around the murders…it almost feels like director Hillman could care less about the thriller aspect of the story in favor of following around Adrian on his many exploits. Actually, the serial killings subplot feels like exactly that: a subplot that intrudes on the LA adventures of photographer Adrian. If you do not like Callan or his character then "Double Exposure" will be a trial to get through I assume. It is only as the film progresses, and Adrian's mental condition worsens, that the serial killer part of the plot becomes more substantial. The film gives you warts and all in regards to the character of Adrian, his life's routine as a photographer. Again, how you like Adrian could dictate the experience. Callan really gives a full bore breakdown by film's end, really "going off the deep end". His character's reason for struggling to maintain his sanity—mommy was a whore. Yep, this development is pretty derivative. The laid back approach and jarring editing style (one minute we are in a hotel as Adrian sets up a shot with model Bambi and his brother, immediately moving into the next scene where he forces a model to help him unload camera gear as she gets dressed in clothes meant to reveal her tits) could be detrimental to the overall viewing experience as well, because director Hillman doesn't seem to want to make a straight thriller in the general sense. It is all about expectations, I think: this film sets you up with what appears to be a formula thriller then the screenplay seems to "change strategies". Quite an unusually paced movie. The detectives of the movie (including barking police chief Cleavon Little, given little to do but rip into his cops) are barely developed, because they seem to be characters Hillman seems less interested in. The revelation of the killer shouldn't really be of great surprise.Joanna Pettet is very good as Adrian's love interest, Mindy, wanting a prosperous relationship, but this will be tested as his psyche starts to fracture into pieces. Cassel really seems disinterested in his part as Adrian's psychiatrist, popping up periodically in small doses, worried about his patient's mental state as the model murders seem eerily related to the dreams often detailed during sessions. Cutie Misty Rowe is a model who befriends BJ and believes Adrian could be the killer. The lurid activities of brothers Adrian and BJ add a bit of sleaze to the film: this is definitely a Crown International Picture.
