凶手就在门外

剧中各种各样的戏耍警察大哥们的伎俩都是剧中坏蛋从现实的案例中模仿而来！令人佩服！但是电影从整体上来讲一般！
"Copycat" may not be the best, but it sure made this viewer think about the possibility of existing 'plagiarists' and their particular brand of death-threats.

90年代不知道在哪个频道看了这部电影~90年代 我们多么渴望了解外面的世界 那时候地方电视台的影视频道还是会播一些不错的美国片 情节刺激 惊悚恐怖 90年代好莱坞的典型剧情 如果放到现在的科技时代 通过互联网大数据以及无处不在的摄像头还抓不到区区一个连环杀手是不可能的 但是在90年代 电脑和互联网刚刚起步 又有一些高科技的手段推动剧情发展 又有这样智商超高的连环杀手逍遥法外的空间

最近突然想起了这部电影的某个情节 就是女主掀开被子里面全是虫子（实际没那么夸张 全是大蚂蚁）凭着童年残存的一点记忆搜索九十年代惊悚片 原来它的英文名叫copycat 于是重温了一遍 再看并没有觉得有多恐怖 只是觉得真是90年代连环杀手的经典桥段 又打开了90年代的回忆

重看留下最深印象的是电影的配乐 开头不久 女主从高科技满满的一堆显示器的工作台边起身 摘下眼镜 端着红酒杯 穿着吊带长睡衣披着软糯糯的毛衫 歪歪扭扭的走向窗边 垂直百叶窗瞬间打开 阳光直射进来 原来这是白天 可见女主在自己的这方小天地里过着没日没夜的日子 她只能透过玻璃落寞的看着外面的世界 镜头远处是港口停着的帆船以及更远的金门大桥~从桌前到窗前 响起的是一段优美而寂寞的音乐 千回百转也好 交响乐队演奏的层次性蓬勃而生 女主的心里有千百般的呐喊只能通过这段音乐流出~到了电影结尾 在楼顶 连环杀手被女警击中 这段音乐再次想起 再次听到简直是让我魂牵梦绕的梦中的音乐

这段音乐第一次出现时我就用QQ音乐识别 没有识别出 到了片尾耐着性子看了五分钟演职人员名单 知道了Music by Christopher Young 用Apple music搜索没有搜索出原声带 也没有这个音乐家下的这首作品 不死心又用网易云识别了下 一下子就跳出了电影的剧照 没错了 这首旋律叫Housebound

于是开启了今天全天的单曲循环 声声入幽肠 尤其是其中的钢琴部分 不复杂的几个音符 每一下都弹在了心弦上

Every once in a while, the Dream Factory bundles two prominent leading ladies together in a thriller, here is a triad of them cranked out within one decade, from 1987 to 1995. The sextet of performers is: Debra Winger and

Theresa Russell in Bob Rafelson's BLACK WIDOW, Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Barbet Schroeder's SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter in Jon Amiel's COPYCAT.

Each film presents a very different relationship between these pairs. In BLACK WIDOW, Winger's desk-bound Justice Department agent Alexandra pertinaciously bird-dogs Russell's ruthless husband-killer Catharine, even though the case is not within her remit. She even gives up her job just to be near Catharine, who is husband-hunting in Hawaii. They become fast friends and their sisterly affinity almost takes on an incipient sapphic erotism (very understated though), which could be accounted for what makes Alexandra tick.

She is driven by a strange fascination for Catharine, voluntarily putting herself between her and her new prey, French hotelier Paul Nuytten (Frey), only to be used as an incentive to prompt him to marry Catharine, a rather cunning move on the latter's part. Catharine is no ordinary femme fatale, her friendship with Alexandra might be plastic, her fang isn't, psychology-and-toxicology savvy, she can "almost" alway gets she wants. "Almost" is the operative word here. Her only misstep is that when she could do away with Alexandra in a freaky scuba-diving accident (or with malice aforethought), she thinks better of it. Chances are if Alexandra comes clean to Paul, it will upset Catharine's apple cart, that is exactly what happens, hubris is her Achilles heel. Although, the twist in the end feels more like a deus ex machina than an effectively engineered entrapment. Winger and Russell call forth enough appeal as both are cognizant of each other's disguises and true motives, with the latter leaving a more emphatically inscrutable patina of mystique that pips the former's conflicted interiority.

SINGLE WHITE FEMALE has NYC's grandiose, beaux-arts Ansonia edifice as its main setting (with the interior of its apartment colored in a dark blue, sinister register as if it is underwater), where lives Alison Jones (Fonda, in her pixie-cut fashion plate glamour), a natty software designer. After kicking out her unfaithful boyfriend Sam (Weber), she is charmed by a new roommate Hedy Carlson (Leigh), a dowdy, seemingly unaggressive girl who will, in due time, become her worst nightmare. Hedy's obsession of Alison shows evidence of genuine psychopathology, losing the sense of boundary, becoming clingy and possessive, imitating Alison's wardrobe and coiffure, a deranged Hedy will stop at nothing to turn Alison into her dead twin sister. Along the way, noisome members of the sterner sex will be duly if unrealistically snuffed until it is down to a catfight between these two besties to duke it out.

Schroeder's film is camper than BLACK WIDOW, eroticizing Leigh's voluptuousness in the buff, satirizing Alison's man-over-bestie fickleness, and a girl-on-girl kiss is brazenly effected as an impromptu means of self-preservation. But if Rafelson's film is a battle of wits between two intelligent women, here the suspense and thrill germinates from the physical manifestation of murderous intent, plus who doesn't want to watch Jennifer Jason Leigh go mental manically?

Jon Amiel's COPYCAT has no levity in its molecules, it means business, a dead-serious police procedural not above baring its savage teeth with a serial killer named Peter Foley (McNamara, shamming pretty-boy innocuousness) wreaking havoc in San Francisco, outrageously taunting the police by imitating the murders of previous notorious killers like Albert DeSalvo, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, among others. Two heroines are convened together, local homicide detective M.J. Monahan (Hunter) and Dr. Helen Hudson (Weaver), an expert of criminal psychology, especially as a profiler of serial killers, are forced to work together to crack the knotty case.

But the catch is that Helen suffers from agoraphobia after barely surviving a vicious attack in the film's prologue, in the hands of Daryll Lee Cullum (an uglified Connick mimicking a menacing look), a deranged murderer currently sitting on the death row. So while M.J. and her partner Reuben (Mulroney, a knockout in his prime) diligently investigate the killer's M.O., a house-bound Helen becomes a sitting duck, especially when a connection between Peter and Daryll Lee is established. During the climax, Helen is coerced to relive the ordeal in the film's opening and tasked to grapple with the incapacitating agoraphobia. In the event, she and M.J. must save each other and the latter ensures that she will not make the same mistake twice.

COPYCAT makes for a rapt viewing chiefly because of the excellent performances from the two leads. Weaver has that rousing stoical manfulness that could cow any man into capitulation, yet there is no trace of pretension or arrogance can be read on Helen's face, alternating eloquently between a professional and a victim, and sharing genuine bonhomie with Hunter, who makes a good fist of complementing Weaver's lofty stature with a dogged intensity both in her comportment and her action. At the same M.J. must ward off the micro-aggression being the only female inspector among her colleagues. Hunter navigates a delicate but totally credible way to imprint Helen's alterity on viewer's head space without falling back on stereotypes or platitudes (just watch the way she worms the truth out of a fellow policeman about who has arrived first on the crime scene, she is not just whip-smart, she has incomparable tact as well).

Interestingly, in both SINGLE WHITE FEMALE and COPYCAT, the gay best friend trope is emplaced but fortunately with disparate outcomes. Also, both movies feature a prominent presence of computers, heralding the upcoming digital era while reminding us how technology rapidly progresses (Helen needs two desktop PCs, one for playing chess, another for online chat, wtf?). Unavoidably, those films also betray signs of its time, for example Far-Eastern descendants are portrayed as stock repugnant characters in both BLACK WIDOW and COPYCAT, James Hong's venal shamus in the former is especially created with a pungent distaste. That said, for what it is worth, those three films establish a cogent case of the complexity of female relations, may it be rapport, admiration, obsession, jealousy, or sheer enmity, and they all pass the Bechdel test with flying color.

referential entries: Curtis Hanson's THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (1992, 7.0/10); Adrian Lyne's FATAL ATTRACTION (1987, 6.4/10); Barbet Schroeder's REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (1990, 7.4/10); Bob Rafelson's FIVE EASY PIECES (1970, 8.1/10); Nicolas Roeg's INSIGNIFICANCE (1985, 6.5/10); Joe Wright's THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (2021, 6.4/10).

Title:BlackWidow

Year:1987

Country:USA

Language:English, French

Genre:Crime, Drama, Mystery

Director: Bob Rafelson

Screenwriter: Ronald Nass

Music:Michael Small

Cinematography:Conrad L. Hall

Editor: John Bloom

Cast:

Debra Winger

Theresa Russell

Sami Frey

Nicol Williamson

Terry O'Quinn

James Hong

D.W. Moffett

Lois Smith

Diane Ladd

Dennis Hopper

Danny Kamekona

Leo Rossi

Mary Woronov

Rutanya Alda

David Hamet

Rating:6.8/10

Title:Single White Female

Year:1992

Country:USA

Language:English

Genre:Drama, Thriller

Director: Barbet Schroeder

Screenwriter: Don Roos

based on the novel "SWF Seeks Same" by John Lutz

Music:Howard Shore

Cinematography:Luciano Tovoli

Editor: Lee Percy

Cast:

Bridget Fonda

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Steven Weber

Peter Friedman

Stephen Tobolowsky

Frances Bay

Rating:6.4/10

Title:Copycat

Year:1995

Country:USA

Language:English

Genre:Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Director: Jon Amiel

Screenwriters: Ann Biderman, David Madsen

Music:Christopher Young

Cinematography:László Kovács

Editors: Jim Clark, Alan Heim

Cast:

Sigourney Weaver

Holly Hunter

William McNamara

Dermot Mulroney

J.E. Freeman

Will Patton

Harry Connick Jr.

John Rothman

Rebecca Klingler

Kelvin Han Yee

Rating:6.9/10

四平八稳、节奏舒适的一部悬疑惊悚片，1995年上映，华纳兄弟公司制作、发行。英文片名是Copycat，意思是模仿者，直接点出了凶手的作案特点。根据片中女主——犯罪心理学家海伦的分析，系列杀人凶案的作案者在模仿历史上著名的杀人狂，体现作案者高智商的是，他不仅仅只模仿一个人，而在模仿一个杀人狂的手法之后，会继续模仿其他的杀人狂。

海伦研究杀人狂，杀人狂也研究海伦，在海伦这里寻找灵感。影片开始海伦做完一次关于杀人狂的讲座后，在厕所被杀人狂达瑞袭击，一个警员被杀，另一警员及时赶来，抓住达瑞，将其下狱。这一恐怖经历让海伦把自己封闭起来，对外界患上了恐惧症。

几个月后，接连出现凶案，女警珍妮找到海伦，海伦也发觉自己被凶手盯上，于是便配合珍妮捉凶。不断有人被杀，海伦意外发现，凶手按照她在讲座上提到过的杀人狂的顺序来模仿，接着海伦预判了一些案件的细节，并据此锁定了嫌疑人皮特。

最后一案，海伦自己被绑架，被强制穿上厕所遇袭时穿的红外套，依旧被绑在马桶上，这是在模仿达瑞的手法。皮特杀死一名警察，摆好尸体，开始对海伦施刑。幸亏珍妮及时赶来，枪杀皮特，救了海伦。

PS：海伦做讲座时，皮特也在现场，所以他清楚海伦当天的遭遇。

前排右二是模仿杀人狂皮特

私信+++qun：

《叠影谋杀案》，95年出品的以变态杀人狂为主题的惊悚恐怖片。《异形》系列的御用女主角西格尼. 韦弗扮演一个以研究杀人狂行为模式的犯罪心理学家。不喜欢那个总是一本正经教条主义的女警察，她的搭档，那个爱漂亮又有点风流自许的帅小伙子倒是颇招人喜欢，乍一看有点轻浮，可是并不油滑，莫名其妙的死在唐人街混混的枪下太可惜了。恩，其实那个专门剽窃前辈创意的杀人狂长的也不错，不是所有的十恶不赦之徒都形象猥琐惹人生厌的，对这么个有着孩子般无辜眼神，看上去又颇腼腆的白人大男孩，估计没有谁会对他有戒心的。看完后我很无聊的特意倒回到影片一开始时女博士在大学做讲座时的片段看了一遍，果然在听众席中发现了一年后杀人狂的脸。