Doppelganger

Most of the time, she appears as troubled young woman Holly Gooding, but she's first seen as what appears to be Holly's murderous double, or doppelganger, who brutally murders Holly's mother (Drew's real-life mom Jaid Barrymore) in Manhattan. Holly later turns up at the door of struggling young writer Patrick Highsmith (George Newbern) in LA, answering the latter's ad for a roommate. Patrick is more than happy to take the attractive Holly in, but is puzzled when, after driving across town for a restaurant meeting with his writing partner Elizabeth (Leslie Hope), he spots her on the street outside. He later spies a figure resembling Holly when he drives her to visit the house where she grew up, but she becomes angry and evasive when he brings the subject up. Later, Holly seduces Patrick, and they make love; but the next morning, Holly angrily claims that he was with someone else, insisting, "Don't confuse me with her!"

Holly herself has been having repeated, horrible visions--of blood spewing from her shower, of a horrible, monstrous face--and while attending a party with Patrick and Elizabeth, she freaks out when a woman who's had wine spilled on her dress transforms into her bloodied mother. Patrick himself becomes unnerved when he's confronted by an FBI agent, Stanley White (Dan Shor), who claims to be staking out his apartment and informs him that, although Holly was officially cleared in her mother's murder, the bureau still considers her a suspect. Later, while Patrick and Elizabeth go for a meeting with a producer (who never shows up), a young woman who appears to be Holly's double butchers Holly's brother (who has been practically catatonic since killing their father) in a nursing home. Holly protests her innocence, but Patrick and Elizabeth later find a bloody knife in the apartment.

Convinced that Holly is indeed being shadowed by her murderous double, Patrick goes to see Sister Jan (Sally Kellerman), a former nun turned phone-sex employee who explains to him that only pure love can defeat a doppelganger. The evil double calls Holly and tells her to meet back at the old house; Patrick convinces Elizabeth to join him in following her there. Inside, Holly is grabbed by the double, who injects her with a knockout drug and then attacks Patrick when he enters the house. But the attacker's "face" comes off during their struggle, and proves to be Dr. Heller (Dennis Christopher), who has been treating Holly, but has in fact been subconsciously convincing her to adopt the guise of the doppelganger and slaughter her relatives in a scheme to get ahold of her inheritance. He had also disguised himself as White and the producer as part of his plot, and is about to kill Patrick when Holly suddenly wakes up and undergoes a bizarre transformation. She splits into two bloody, skeletal figures, one of whom kills Heller and is advancing on Patrick when the force of his love for Holly apparently stops it. It recombines with its twin, and Holly emerges, back to normal (though requiring hospitalization).

If nothing else, one can't fault writer-director Avi Nesher for not covering all the exploitation bases in his second film; he manages to work in bloody murder, fairly explicit sex scenes, hallucinations, schizophrenia, skeletons in the family closet, a murder-for-the-inheritance plot, a mad doctor and slime monsters. That it all manages to work to a degree is a tribute to Nesher's confident, full-speed-ahead approach, charging through this potentially incoherent material as if it made all the sense in the world. And, for a while, it does, as the audience is kept off balance as to whether Holly does indeed have a deadly doppelganger making her life hell and what her strange visions mean. Nesher's visceral pace here recalls his first film, TIMEBOMB, though this movie lacks the exciting action material which elevated that film.

There was probably no satisfactory way to tie all the plot threads together, and even the pair of endings Nesher has come up with fails to adequately explain everything. They almost go so far as to contradict each other; if the killer double was actually Holly acting under Dr. Heller's spell, what's the story with the creatures she splits into? The dual ending also stretches the movie's believability to the breaking point. Prior to the climax, DOPPELGANGER has its own internal plausibility, but it's one that's dependent on a reasonable explanation. And the film never explains how Heller has apparently been able to alter his physical stature in addition to his face to take on all his aliases, while the monsters seem to belong in another movie altogether.

Still, the getting there is entertaining, and Nesher should be credited for creating a genuinely funny wisecracking female sidekick (Hope as Elizabeth). There are some well-timed potshots at wheeler-dealer Hollywood types along the way, and a sprinkling of amusing in-jokes; Patrick says his latest script is a horror version of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S--which this film somewhat resembles, right down to a heroine named Holly--and his own moniker is clearly a reference to mystery writer Patricia Highsmith. The actors, at least, behave as if they really believe in the story's bizarre turns; Barrymore in particular goes through a twisty (and twisted) role that might have defeated many other actresses with admirable aplomb. (Graphic violence, nudity, sexual situations, profanity.) leave a comment