Body Double, 1984.
Directed by Brian De Palma.
Starring Craig Wasson, Gregg Henry, and Melanie Griffith.
SYNOPSIS:
Brian De Palma’s thriller Body Double is 40 years old, and Sony is celebrating the milestone with a new SteelBook of the film that contains 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Discs, along with a code for a digital copy. No new extras were commissioned for this edition, but the studio did dig up some old interviews to include here, along with a solid making-of that’s been kicking around since the DVD days.
I’ve always found Brian De Palma’s 1984 thriller Body Double to be a curiosity of a movie, one that has always felt to me like two stories in one. That feeling was only confirmed when I watched it again for this review.
That’s not to say that it’s a bad movie. It just feels a bit disjointed, even though its two halves are equally compelling. Craig Wasson stars as aspiring actor Jake Scully, whose seemingly random encounter with fellow wannabe Sam Brouchard leads to him taking over Sam’s house-sitting duties in the Hollywood Hills while he’s away.
Before he leaves, Sam lets Jake know about a woman in a nearby home who performs a seductive topless dance in her bedroom each night. Jake becomes obsessed with her (yeah, that hasn’t aged well), but when he sees her being harmed one night by an unknown man, he decides to find her and try to help.
He catches up with her in an outdoor shopping mall and saves her from a Native American who seems to be following her with ill intent. Her pursuer manages to snatch her purse, however, and swipe the key card that allows entry into her home.
When Jake and the mystery woman finally come face to face, they start making out (yeah, another bit that hasn’t aged well) before she pulls away. That evening, he watches her enter her home and sees that the Native American is waiting for her with a big nasty handheld drill.
Jake fails to save her, but he’s soon pulled into another world when he realizes that a porn actress named Holly Body (Melanie Griffith) is known for a seductive dance that’s very similar to the one that he had been watching through the window. So, of course, Jake decides to find her, and somehow ends up getting cast in a porno movie with her. He enters her world and soon learns the twisted truth behind everything he has experienced.
For me, Body Double always takes a weird left turn when Jake does a porno. Is that really the only way for him to make contact with Holly? Sure, he’s a sex-obsessed creeper, but that information doesn’t make me like him, especially when I had tepid feelings toward him from the beginning of the movie.
As a result, this Hitchcockian homage to Rear Window and other similar thrillers doesn’t quite come together as well as, say, Dressed to Kill or Blow Out, but if you’re a fan, I’m sure you’ll want to grab this new SteelBook as soon as you can.
Sony has issued this edition for the film’s 40th anniversary, and you get the movie on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD platters, along with a code for a digital copy. I’m not sure if Body Double was remastered for this release, but it looks great, especially for a film of its vintage. It has the right amount of grain to feel like an 80s era movie, as it should.
Sony didn’t commission any new bonus features for this release, unfortunately, and my understanding is that there are some older making-of stuff missing here (this is my first time with the movie on disc), but the studio did unearth some old interviews to include with the other content ported over from a previous edition.
The holdover content consists of four featurettes — The Seduction, The Setup, The Mystery, and The Controversy — that run just under 52 minutes total. It was part of a DVD release in 2006, so it’s window-boxed and it’s standard definition, but it’s a good look at the movie from De Palma’s original idea to its release and the controversy that accompanied it in 1984.
The new content consists of 10 minutes worth of interviews with De Palma and stars Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffith, as well as a music video for the song “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which plays a major part in the film.
The interviews are standard-def too, and the way they’re set up, with text introductions that explain the question that was asked, they seem to be part of a package that was sent out to the media back in 1984 to promote the film. As such, they’re very cursory, but fans will probably want to check them out anyway.
A stills gallery and the theatrical trailer round out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★★★ / Movie: ★★★
Brad Cook
