VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

HotToastyRag If I were dissatisfied with my marriage and Michael Caine was my therapist, I'd probably have a crush on him. Apparently, Angie Dickinson agrees with me, for in Dressed to Kill, she hits on him during a session. She's married to Keith Gordon, and dislikes many aspects of their marriage, including their bedroom activities. When Michael rebuffs her advances, she looks elsewhere.Dressed to Kill, while completely earning its R rating—it was originally rated X before certain elements were cut—is a very fun thriller. Depending on how comfortable you are in your relationship, this might be a good pick to watch during your steamy movie night. Brian De Palma's script will keep you guessing from start to finish, and you'll be on the edge of your seat once the serial killer makes an appearance and bodies start dropping. It can be pretty scary at times, but if you like this type of movie, it's a really great one. I'm a bit of a lightweight when it comes to scary movies, but I'm also a huge Michael Caine fan, so I ended up liking it.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to graphic nudity, sex scenes, and violence, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

gab-14712 What do you get when you combine Alfred Hitchcock and a thriller suspense story from the 1980's? Well, you would get 1980's thriller Dressed to Kill. From the beginning, you can tell that director Brian De Palma was trying to emulate Alfred Hitchcock's films of old. Many young filmmakers at the time tried to make films with a Hitchcock influence, but many of them failed. However, Dressed to Kill mostly succeeded in creating a "Hitchcock" film. According to famed critic Roger Ebert, "He (De Palma) places his emphasis on the same things that obsessed Hitchcock: precise camera movements, meticulously selected visual movements, characters seen as types rather than personalities, and violence as a sudden interruption of the most mundane situations." While the movie may not be peak Hitchcock, we get have an entertaining thriller that is violent, engaging, and surprisingly effective.My first thought of the movie was that it is a strangely erotic movie. In all honesty, it is really a softcore porn movie, at least that is what it felt like to me. It is a movie that pushes sex up to the top and then some. It does star some respectable Hollywood actors and a well-loved director, so at least the names give the movie legitimacy. Let me tell you why I believed this film was a porno at first. Just listen to the plot. There is this middle-aged woman named Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) who is frustrated with her sexual life. She goes to a therapist named Dr. Robert Elliot (Michael Caine) to help her through her crisis. After a session with the therapist, she randomly meets this guy at a museum and they have sex. After she finds out he has a STD, she leaves hastily. The problem is that she forgets her wedding ring. As she goes back to retrieve her ring, she is brutally murdered with a razor. Now there are all sorts of problems as everyone tries to track down the killer.I thought the performances were solid ones. The big name here is Michael Caine. He does wonderful in all his films, and there is no difference here. His character is very charismatic, but there is a hint of darkness hidden behind the charisma, and that interested me because I am used to Michael Caine playing a beloved, helpful good guy. Angie Dickinson gave a solid performance as the sexually-deprived housewife. I am still on the fence about Nancy Allen's performance. She played a high-class prostitute named Liz Blake and was named the only suspect for the murder. Her performance went over-the-top at times, a little more than I was comfortable with. It's funny because she was nominated both for a Golden Globe and a Razzie for her performance.One important thing to note about the movie is that it is not pushed forward narratively. De Palma and writer George Litto made this film more of a stylistic one. Also, certain themes we look at today were looked at differently thirty-seven years ago. The movie has a strange way in using transsexuality and schizophrenia to build the case for the homicidal maniac seen killing people in the movie. There are plot issues at hand, but plot is not the strongest suit of the film. It is all about the shocker value that is effectively delivered.Dressed to Kill is an interesting movie to say the least. It's an erotic thriller that follows the footsteps of earlier Hitchcock movies. But one thing to note is that it is not a Hitchcock film, but De Palma comes very close in recreating one. The film is suspenseful, thrilling, and there are what seems to be an indefinite amount of twists and turns. If anything, you get to see Michael Caine deliver a performance outside of his wheelhouse.My Grade: B

GL84 Following a housewife's brutal murder, the only witness to the incident teams up with the woman's son to try to find the culprit which leads them to the patient of a psychiatrist who treated her and tries to stop the killer from striking them in order to cover the crime.This one turned out to be quite the rather enjoyable effort. A lot of the film's great parts come from the manner in which this one deals with the expectations featured here of the film by following so close to its influences. As it follows so close to the main format here, as the general structure employed here comes directly with the structure of having the first half focus solely on the victim to get killed off and then morph over into the investigation into the incidents, that makes for a great deal of fun here as it deals with the few changes to be had with the storyline. That familiarity lends itself a great deal to the overall manner in which this one moves along as that keeps this one a lot more entertaining than it really should be without a whole lot of slashing action throughout here. With a big emphasis on the murder investigation and her involvement in the procedure, there's a nice emphasis here to follow up the later adverts of that ones' followers in a distinctly European manner by introducing not only the main investigation from the police but also going rather nicely into the amateur investigation by way of a piece of evidence only briefly glimpsed during the incident that becomes a central part of the investigation. These elements all give it a rather distinct and pronounced atmosphere to these brands of films which really lets it dwell in that type of sleaze far more comfortably than would be expected, not only from the type of nudity but also the rather stark sex scenes and frequently intoned psychosexual themes from the killer's motivation which is straight out of that particular school of thriller which makes this one connect quite well there. Even with some incredibly well-done stalker scenes, including the opening attack in the elevator, the subway sequence or the finale at the office which give this some rather suspenseful stalking as well to balance it all with plenty to like. These don't help the fact that there's just not a whole lot of slasher action here, as the more thriller aspects here dominate this one so it doesn't have a lot of stalking scenes and the body count itself is so low as to not really offer much in the way of bloodshed or gore. Those looking for a straight-up slasher won't be interested in this one at all.Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language, Full Nudity, Graphic Violence and several intense sex scenes.

Leofwine_draca Brian De Palma here directs another above-average thriller dealing with his principal interests of sex and violence, in his own flamboyant and inimitable style. All of the things you expect from a good De Palma film are here, from the fluid and interesting use of the camera which gives the film a classy visual look, to the elegant music by Pina Donnagio, to the Hitchcock references. Here, it's PSYCHO, with supposed heroine Angie Dickinson, a middle-aged housewife with a problematic sex life, who becomes drawn into a storyline involving a killer.De Palma shows a total understanding of the elements required to make a gripping thriller in this movie and he does everything right. Not least of which is assembling a solid and proficient cast, highlighted by Michael Caine's twitchy turn as a psychiatrist with a dark secret of his own. Fine too, is Dickinson as the bored housewife, around whose sex life much of the film is centred. De Palma enjoys playing with Dickinson's character, twisting her around so that a moment of joy becomes a moment of horror as she learns that a man she has just slept with has a venereal disease. Nancy Allen turns up as the classy prostitute with a heart, who finds herself stalked by the killer in some suspenseful sequences (the best of which is at a train station - something about De Palma and train stations is just right). Smaller parts are taken by Keith Gordon as the young, brainy hero, and Dennis Franz, who adopts the cop-you-love-to-hate type role which he would recreate throughout much of his later career.Highlights in the film for me include an excellent cat-and-mouse game in an art gallery as Dickinson attempts to snag a prospective lover; the aforementioned train sequence in which Allen is chased by both a gang of thugs and the killer; and of course the taut lift sequence. The violence is bloody and brutal without being over the top, and a strong sexual undercurrent runs throughout the movie, occasionally erupting into the aforementioned violence with a lot of power. De Palma can't resist inserting one final shock/dream sequence at the end, either, which rounds things off nicely. Although his repeated camera tricks sometimes work against him (the split-screen, for instance, isn't as effective here as in CARRIE, making the screen muddled instead of exciting), DRESSED TO KILL still stands as a solid, powerful thriller made at the height of De Palma's career.