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Doppelganger
AKA Doppelganger: The Evil Within
Directed By Avi Nesher
Released: 1993
Starring: Drew Barrymore, George Newbern, Dennis Christopher, and
Leslie Hope
Running Time: 104 minutes
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After the murder of her mother (in which she is the
chief suspect), Holly Gooding (Drew Barrymore) flees to Los Angeles. She
rents a room with Patrick (George Newbern), an aspiring writer, and a
complicated romance between the two begins. You see, Patrick's writing
partner Elizabeth (Leslie Hope) is in love with him and Holly believes
that she is being pursued by her own murderous doppelganger. And that
isn't even the weirdest part.
Did you ever catch the ending of a film in the middle of the night and
were completely baffled by what you saw? Were you totally entranced yet
not awake enough to get your shit together and find out what you were
looking at? Well, this happened to me with
Doppelganger.
Several years ago, I caught the climax of this flick on cable at 3 or 4 in
the morning and I was intrigued. The wildly funky and nonsensical horrors
that I had witnessed stayed with me in the back of my brain and somehow I
knew I'd find them again.
This lurid horror outing delivers the goods (and not just during Drew
Barrymore's shower scene). Isreali-born writer/director Avi Nesher takes
the body horror of Cronenberg, the wannabe Hitchcockiness of De Palma, and
the nonsense of an Italian horror film, then mashes them together into one
garish and seedy concoction. The negligent writing takes a backseat as
gallons of blood, some slimy gore, lots of freaky lighting, and a heaping
helping of sex stand up and kick the viewer's face in.
Unfortunately, the script starts to fall apart at the hour mark but I'm
hardly surprised or even that disappointed. With the right soundtrack,
Doppelganger
might have been able to cover up some of its cheesy flaws and woeful logic
problems, but composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek really drops the ball with his
weak score. Whoever did the overpowering lighting must have had only one
direction: "make their eyes bleed". And that pair of slimy H.R. Giger-inspired
creatures at the end… holy shit.
Released a year after Poison Ivy
(Drew Barrymore's finest hour) and only months after
The Amy Fisher Story
aired, Doppelganger
is my favorite of Barrymore's poor judgment movies. You'd think that
starring in this one was some teen angst or rebellion against her parents
on her part but her mother is in the film (as Holly's mother who gets
killed in the first 10 minutes)! So yeah, I have no idea why Drew wanted
to be in a movie as trashy as this and I don't give a double God damn. All
I know is that I'm glad she's in it.
Am I neglecting the rest of the cast? Well, yes, I'm kind of trying to.
George Newbern plays goofball writer Patrick Highsmith and that's about
it. Okay, he's not terrible but the guy is like some genetic mutant hybrid
of David Naughton and Paul Rudd. I like Leslie Hope (Bruiser)
as Patrick's writing partner and spaz Elizabeth. The awesome Dennis
Christopher (Alien
Predator, Stephen
King's It) is also in the cast as
Holly's psychologist, Dr. Heller.
Put Doppelganger
on the list of films I wish I'd known about back when they were released.
The fact that it devolves into total mind-bending nonsense for the finale
makes it even more appealing to me. I'm so glad that a certain cable
network never seems to retire its late night trash flicks. Don't get me
wrong, this is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination but it's
never boring. Bless you, sweet, sweet Drew Barrymore. And, you know, it's
never too late for Poison Ivy IV: The
Last Seducement. Bring it!
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Quotes:
Patrick: "Nice crowd. I feel like peeing in the punchbowl."
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