Special Effects (1984)

Instant Favorite.

Brilliant and touching

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Eric Bogosian of "Talk Radio" fame stars as Chris Neville, a hotshot young filmmaker. His career is going downhill fast, so he decides to try something unusual. He films himself murdering aspiring starlet Mary Jean (the late Zoe Lund of "Ms. 45" cult stardom), then proceeds to make a movie telling Mary Jeans' sad life. Swept into the filmmaking process are Mary Jeans' husband Keefe (Brad Rijn, "Smithereens"), and the detective (Kevin O'Connor, "Let's Scare Jessica to Death") investigating the case; the detective quickly gets stars in his eyes. Neville actually finds a young woman who's a dead ringer for the murdered actress, also played by Lund.There is a good idea here, about satirizing the entire movie-making business, and showing what happens as real life and reel life blend together. It's written and directed by low budget movie icon Larry Cohen, so you know that he will come up with some interesting material, and movie moments. (It IS intriguing to think what a filmmaker of Brian De Palmas' sensibilities could have done with this!) It's a good blend of art and trash, with a little bit of sex and shots of the beautiful Lund baring her body. It's also a marvel of art direction: dig that garish studio and townhouse in which Neville does his dirty work. Perhaps the most entertainment value arises out of O'Connor enjoying his "technical adviser" capacity and becoming fixated on receiving the appropriate credits. Given that Neville is such a smarmy character, you watch and keep waiting for him to get his just desserts. Michael Minard supplies a fun electronic score that unfortunately is used a little too much.The performances are fine. Lund has a field day in her dual roles. Bogosian is superb as the creepy director. Rijn, O'Connor, Bill Oland, H. Richard Greene ('Mad Men'), and Steven Pudenz offer fine support.The most striking image of all: Neville standing on a floor completely covered with headshots. (Among those he thumbs through is one of Dustin Hoffman as "Dorothy Michaels" in "Tootsie".)Seven out of 10.

Special Effects is kind of a serious parody, if that makes any sense, of what De Palma did back in the 80's (or perhaps Larry Cohen's work too), where a filmmaker becomes a murderer when he lets in a would-be actress to his home, films having sex with her and also films the act of death. But instead of going on the run or just hiding it and going on with his life, he decides to make a movie about this girl, using Keefe, the girl's husband (played by Brad Rijn), getting a police detective to be a consultant (because who needs to solve any crimes) and, via Keefe making a trip to the Salvation Army and her just happening to work there, a girl who with a hair change looks just like the dead Andrea Wilcox (both played by Zoe Lund of Ms 45 fame).Eric Bogosian is the reason to see the movie, playing this nasty, brutal director with some level of... do we call it humanity? He sometimes plays it over the top, but not in a way where it chews the scenery. He is really there to be the best actor he can be, which is more than can be said of Lund (who is maybe half-good, not as Wilcox but as the 'new' Andrea, Elaine), and certainly not Rijn, who tellingly only made a few movies and is just terrible here as this angry, despondent husband.Maybe the problem is that Cohen is just a bit too obvious with his satire, or maybe, in a way, not obvious enough. This should be really funny - once or twice I did laugh, more from the police detective's meddling - and when he does an actual sex scene with two characters it stops the movie dead in its tracks. Special Effects has a little fun with its premise, which is rather dark and takes not just from De Palma but liberally from Hitchcock (Vertigo, duh) and even Peeping Tom with the idea of a camera that, ahem, kills in its way. It also has a rather obnoxious 80's synth soundtrack, which could be fine in small doses but is laid over every scene like a cocaine-diddled cloak. And the horror scenes, when they come, are kind of shoddily filmed.But, again, if you like Eric Bogosian, this is one of his better performances, and a good indication of what he would do later in the decade with Talk Radio.

Arrogant and unscrupulous down-on-his-luck faded former big shot director Chris Neville (an excellent live-wire performance by Eric Bogosian) films himself murdering naive aspiring actress Andrea Wilcox (the gorgeous Zoe Tamerlis of "Ms. 45" fame). Neville decides to make a movie around the snuff footage and hires sassy lookalike Elaine (also played by Tamerlis) to portray Andrea in the picture. Neville even convinces Andrea's earnest, clean-cut hick husband Keefe Waterman (likable Brad Rjin) to be himself in the life and persuades pesky, hard-nosed Detective Philip Delroy (a fine turn by Kevin O'Connor) to serve as a technical adviser. Writer/director Larry Cohen, taking a break from his usual monster horror affairs like "Q" and "The Stuff," expertly crafts a deliciously twisted and absorbing thriller which unfolds at a gradual, yet hypnotic pace, offers a fascinatingly cynical inside look at the film-making process, maintains a properly bleak and eerie tone throughout, and builds a reasonable amount of tension as it culminates in one doozy of a startling double whammy surprise conclusion. Cohen gets a lot of intriguing millage out of distorting reality and astutely explores such weighty themes as the dangerously seductive allure of cinema, the manipulation of the truth, and American culture's obsession with making stars out of nobodies. The acting is uniformly sturdy and impressive, with Tamerlis a particular stand-out in a demanding dual role. As a tasty added bonus, Tamerlis bares her beautiful body a few times. Paul Glickman's glossy, glittering cinematography, Michael Minard's shivery, flesh-crawling synthesizer score, and the gritty New York City locations all further enhance the overall sound quality of this spooky, unsettling, and underrated little pip.

Nicely twisted and rather unpredictable thriller, with a very interesting character played by Bogosian. Worth a check...