Body Double (1984)

Brian de Palma’s 1984 film Body Double is literally the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. It’s obviously meant to be Hitchcockian, as the plot is nearly identical to Vertigo, but somehow it takes everything good about Vertigo and makes it absolutely unpleasant to watch. The first half of the film is so boring that I almost didn’t know if I was going to be able to make it through the whole movie, not to mention that it’s vehemently misogynistic. To sum up the (very thin) plot line of this movie: basically, some bland, second-rate actor (Jake Scully) catches his girlfriend cheating on him and ends up with no place to live. Another bland, second-rate actor (Sam Bouchard) offers him a house-sitting gig in Hollywood Hills, where he points out that there is a telescope where Jake can spy on a woman putting on a strip tease every night. Then, in true  Vertigo fashion, Jake begins following the woman as she drives around and runs errands and begins to suspect she’s in danger because a disfigured Indian man seems to be following her. It’s like, dude, you are literally doing the exact same thing as the “bad guy”, but that’s beside the point. Throughout the shots of Jake following the woman, he has some vague interest that maybe some scary-looking guy might be threatening her, but he’s more interested in spying on her in dressing rooms and picking her panties out of the trashcan -- her safety is of second importance to her sexuality. Anyways, the Indian guy snatches the woman’s purse and Jake chases after him, but when they run into a tunnel, Jake is overcome by his claustrophobia, much like John Ferguson was plagued by his vertigo, but Jake’s claustrophobia is much less charming. Then, the woman, Gloria, comes running after Jake and for SOME REASON wants to make out with this absolute stranger! It was the weirdest scene I have ever seen. I kept thinking, “Surely he’s imagining this, right? RIGHT?” But no, this beautiful woman was willing to make out and lowkey dry-hump this painfully average dude after he was literally stalking her. It was such a disgusting scene to me because it was trying to recreate Hitchcock’s idea of women as objects of desire, but it had absolutely none of the subtleties or artistry of Hitchcock’s films. The objectification of Gloria was so glaringly obvious and honestly offensive. It was incredibly frustrating to watch. After this horrible scene comes another horrible scene in which Jake witnesses Gloria being murdered because he’s spying on her again, but he’s too ashamed of his voyeurism to call the police -- again showing that he doesn’t really care for Gloria’s safety at all and that he only sees her for her sexuality. Then, the movie shows Gloria being murdered by the Indian man with a giant power drill, which I think was meant to be provocative but just came off as disturbing and unnecessarily violent. Jake tried to save Gloria but since he’s a total loser he failed to stop the murder. After this, Jake starts watching porn and notices that the pornstar, Holly Body, is doing the same dance that Gloria used to do when he spied on her. Through a series of events, Jake finds out that Sam hired Holly to perform her strip tease because he knew that Jake would watch and he wanted him to be a witness to the “Indian” killing Gloria, when really it was Sam in heavy makeup who killed her. Gloria was never the one dancing in the window, it was always Holly. Holly and Gloria are essentially the same to Jake because they are just a faceless body to him. All women are interchangeable to Jake Scully as long as they are serving the same sexual need. I hated this movie with a burning passion.