Movies
A Kiss before Dying
James Dearden's remake of a 1956 quickie (Gerd Oswald, director) isn't so much modernized as deliberately old-fashioned. Specifically, Hitchcock-fashioned. Not, in fact, since early De Palma has anybody labored so hard to emulate The Master. And the result is a veritable feast for Hitchcockians: the indoor stage-set passed off as outdoors; the dramatic overhead angle; the shot of a grim-faced couple in an otherwise universally laughing movie audience; the clip of Vertigo on television. Much of this is appetizing enough to the eye, and the preludial murder makes a savory hors d'oeuvre; but the flat dialogue, the transparent plotting, the dime-novel psychology, and the overall slavishness conspire to kill the taste. Matt Dillon, Sean Young, Max Von Sydow. 1991.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R
