‎Dressed to Kill (1980) directed by Brian De Palma • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Dressed to Kill

1980 Directed by Brian De Palma

The Latest Fashion In Murder

A mysterious, tall, blonde woman, wearing sunglasses murders one of a psychiatrist's patients, and now she's after the prostitute who witnessed it.

Michael Caine Angie Dickinson Nancy Allen Keith Gordon Dennis Franz David Margulies Ken Baker Susanna Clemm Brandon Maggart Amalie Collier Mary Davenport Anneka Di Lorenzo Norman Evans Robbie L. McDermott

105 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 10

93/100

The opening of Dressed to Kill, with its soft-core seduction and luscious yet calculated imagery, is Brian De Palma grasping his fundamental characteristics and shrinking them into a singular sequence of delight and horror. A woman, standing naked in the shower, is watching her husband shave behind the foggy glass, and as dreams morph into fantasies and nightmares, we as an audience witness an entire history of a relationship through sensual gestures and primal fixations.

It is this woman, played by Angie Dickinson, who De Palma takes not as his main subject but as a flirtatious prisoner of sorts. Cutting from the opening sequence, we see Kate having sex with her husband in an unromantic and unsatisfying fashion, and…
Review by Sally Jane Black 23

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

If you've been following along, you can probably guess what I hated about this. De Palma's style is great. He's got this slick, noirish feel that makes good use to shadow and reflection and odd angles to drive the intensity of any given scene, but almost right away, I predicted his big twist. And, of course, the twist left a sour taste in my mouth. All the Hitchcockian references, all the gloriously bloody murders, all the weird inventions by the hapless kid that could make this a great film seem wasted by the transphobic plotline.

The list of films that commit this sin is a long one. [SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR OTHER FILMS--I CAN'T SAY WHICH ONES WITHOUT SPOILING THINGS ABOUT…
Review by sydney ★★★★ 3

I like the acknowledgment of how tough it is to be a gal, the sympathetic look into an older woman's desires, the touched-upon-but-not-fully-developed issues of victim blaming, the confusions of masculinity and femininity. That all this is done from such a ~sexy~ male point of view is...questionable, as is, obviously, the implications of the ending. But the gender politics should be dissected by someone smarter and more knowledgeable than me.

Leave all of that out of the equation, and you still have a beautiful thriller that pulls off being campy AND scary AND exciting AND emotional all at once. Elegant exploitation.

De Palma had a Hitchcock marathon, watched a few 70's Argento films, drank a bottle of whiskey, passed out...and this film is us watching his dreams. The "rip off or homage?" debate is valid, but I like to think that he saw the sexuality just begging to be let out in Hitchcock's films, and decided to set it free.
Review by Aaron ★★★★ 17

Part of Hoop-Tober 2016

“Look, I know what dirty is, and this is dirty.”

Werner Herzog has often spoken of what he calls “ecstatic truth”—the ability of literature, music, and film to reach a deep, profound, poetic level of truth beyond mere factual reality. A recitation of facts can be informative, but it is not necessarily illuminating—it is “the truth of accountants,” superficially accurate but devoid of mystery and character and complexity. Ecstatic truth probes beyond that to levels of abstraction and imagination, reaching the elusive, ineffable parts of the psyche and the soul that make us human. An encyclopedia entry on fear may yield scientific detail on autonomic responses, but it can’t hold a candle to a viewing of…
Review by Grooveman ★★★★★ 4

More epic trash from De Palma. His shot compositions are so ridiculously awesome I could watch any of his films on repeat and never need to watch anything else.
Review by Mr. DuLac ★★★★

Don't make me be a bad girl again!
-Bobbi

Brian De Palma is hardly the first or only director to ape Alfred Hitchcock, but I dare say he might be the best at it. The thing is De Palma clearly recognizes what made Hitchcock one of the greatest directors of all time. Whether or not he's emulating him or ripping him off is debatable, he has the talent for whichever it is though.

It could also be argued that the story itself is a different and sleazier take on one of Hitchcock's greatest films. There's several elements that clearly point to a certain film, but to mention them would also be spoiling some key plot points in the film. While…

Recent reviews

Review by Mark Avery ★★★★

Hitchcock's Vertigo meets Argento's Tenebrae...

Awesome!
Review by John DeCarli ★★★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

I can totally understand being offended by seeing transexuality used as simply a twist in a thriller, but I do think that's all the film intends. It doesn't come off as mean-spirited to me, everyone seems to accept it pretty easily. Great film otherwise.
Review by Greg Pike ★★★½

De Palma is a master. There are so many incredible moments here - the Museum sequence, the elevator scene, the train scene, etc. He just has such a way with the camera. There's a lot to love here! Genuine thrills and delightful moments of camp. But unfortunately it's very much a product of its time and it is VERY dated in its views on what it means to be transgender. It's problematic to begin with, but eventually it gets straight up offensive. That being said, if you're able to watch it knowing that it's a misinformed movie from 1980, this thing is a really fun thriller with some great filmmaking.
Review by Naoki Ferrio ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Who says a psychiatrist couldn't be the psycho?. In fact, those who have the profession which associated with treating others mental illness usually the most vulnerable ones.

Doctor Robert Elliott (played by Sir Michael Caine, yes honey! the loyal butler of Batman played a handsome enigmatic yet cuckoo shrink. I found him very attractive here) who turned to be Billi, a sadistic-equipped with razor blade-killer every time Elliot get aroused. Billi apparently was the other hidden persona of Elliot which had a suppressed desire to be a woman. She believed that she was trapped in a wrong body and acknowledged as Elliot's patient.

Elliot's tried to shove down Billi by looking at a mirror on his working desk every time…
Review by Sebastian Wilder ★★★½

[1980 Retrospective- entry 28 of 60- July 25, 1980]

Well this is certainly a step up from Prom Night and it's funny how watching these films in the order they came out can affect your perspective that way. If I'm comparing Dressed to Kill to the best horror films of all time then it doesn't really stack up well. If instead I'm comparing it to the horror film I watched last week then it compares very nicely.

De Palma is a director I have soured on as I've seen more of his work. You can't help but do that after having to sit through Redacted, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Raising Cain and The Black Dahlia and then revisiting movies…
Review by vinnycfilm ★★★½

Michael Caine in a raspberry award winning performance. The film is not anywhere near as bad as the critics would have u believe. The plot is basic. Woman murdered another woman is a witness. She turns to the police and a shrink for help. It's stylish nonsense. Fun and forgettable
Review by Fesapo ★★★½

70/100
Review by Samantha Williams ★★★★★

1.) Sad no one makes movies like this anymore.

2.) De Palma + camera = gripping.

3.) Few things more terrifying than a woman naked in a shower--a killer lurking.

4.) That ending. Jesus!

5.) As a transgender woman, I was not offended at any time during this movie. Period.
Review by Hank ★★★★

Dressed to Kill is testament to Brian De Palma's furthering of the psychosexual aesthetic initially laid forward by Alfred Hitchcock. A wonderfully suspenseful and erotic tale about one man's gender confusion and his homicidal tendencies towards the women he's aroused by. In the age of normalizing gender dysporia, I think this film should be talked about more for being ahead of its time for its blunt depiction of transgenderism as a mental illness. Kudos to you Brian de Palma!