Doppelganger (1993)
Sleazy, stab-y and stupid, this goofy garbage gets gloriously gonzo and goopy! I had no idea that during the wilderness years of Drew Barrymore’s career she made a crazy horror movie. It immediately moved to the top of my list once I heard it edges into body horror territory. Initially I worried that might have been spoiler-y, but in the opening minutes the movie is already flashing images of a creepy bloody meat face as Drew gets groped. That’s if you weren’t clued in by the prominent opening credit for effects by Kurtzman, Nicotero, and Bergman, aka KNB EFX (The Walking Dead, From Dusk til Dawn, many more).
The movie opens with Holly Gooding (Barrymore) returning home after a sexual encounter to hear her mother conniving against her. Holly goes at her mom with a butcher knife, and the movie immediately establishes a hysterical (in both senses of the word) tone with stabbing, screaming, blood spray, and a gratuitous glass table fall followed by more stabbing. Holly moves to Los Angeles and rents a room (in a one bedroom apartment) from loser writer Patrick (George Newbern). Newbern looks like a failed proto-Paul Rudd, or like he should be the lead in a NBC sitcom that aired between Friends and Frasier for six weeks before getting cancelled.
Later, Patrick thinks he sees Holly out and about and then she claims it wasn’t her and acts suspicious. After they have sex, Holly once again acts like it wasn't her and she tells him she has a doppelganger, no further explanation. Patrick is so amazingly stupid that he just asks his writing partner what a doppelganger is and continues to let this obviously crazy person stay in his place and fuck him. At one point when things have escalated and he knows Holly has been accused of multiple murders/attempted murders, Patrick claims that he is not letting his dick make the decisions for him. I sure hope he was lying, because otherwise he is the dumbest motherfucker alive instead of just dumb and horny.
Throughout the movie, I had a couple different explanations for what could be going on. Eventually it basically confirmed all my ideas, but it adds MORE twists and reveals of giallo-level ridiculousness on top of that to the point where any actual explanation collapses on itself or contradicts the other elements. I was watching in 3B (3 beers deep) and the climax had my head spinning, but my wife was completely sober and said by the end of the movie she felt high from her brain trying to form logic out of this complete nonsense. This was made in 1992 (released straight to VHS in 1993), but someone must have slipped writer/director Avi Nesher some leftover 80s Hollywood cocaine, because this script is bonkers.
This would have been a perfect video store rental back in the day, a delightfully unwieldy but entertaining blend of 90s erotic thriller vibes and psychodrama with some slasher-y stabbings and gruesome goopy effects as a capper. At one point, Holly is dancing seductively at a party while everyone stares, and with the mood lighting and sexy Enya-y dance song it is such archetypal 90s sleaze and cheese that it took me back in time. Sex, violence, nudity, gore, special effects, and a screamingly stupid script, mm mmm, that’s some tasty trash!
Rando Trejo: Danny is a construction worker who makes a lewd comment and Drew knees him in the dick
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