69
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Slant MagazineEric HendersonSlant MagazineEric HendersonBody Double, while not his finest, is the best candidate as De Palma’s signature film. It’s a wicked, feature-length double entendre from a Doublemint era. Take it at face value, take it for its prurience or take it for all it’s worth. Hell, try taking on all three at once.
- 91The Film StageThe Film StageDe Palma’s exuberant style comes to perfect use when dream and reality become thus entwined: as soon as Jake and Gloria’s lips meet, the camera starts encircling the couple frenetically, as though struggling to capture this spiral of pure pleasure, while a green screen projection of the beach replaces the real one.
- 90The TelegraphRobbie CollinThe TelegraphRobbie CollinBody Double isn’t trash, misogynistic or otherwise. It’s unrepentantly trashy – not the kind of film you watch while your parents or kids are in the house, or with your curtains open. But it’s also a complex, provocative suspense thriller that bears comparison with the three immaculate Hitchcock classics – Vertigo, Psycho and Rear Window – it gleefully drags through the sludge.
- 90The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyIt's sexy and explicitly crude, entertaining and sometimes very funny. It's his most blatant variation to date on a Hitchcock film ("Vertigo"), but it's also a De Palma original, a movie that might have offended Hitchcock's wryly avuncular public personality, while appealing to his darker, most private fantasies.
- 90Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrBrian De Palma has gotten a bad rap on this one: the first hour of his 1984 thriller represents the most restrained, accomplished, and effective filmmaking he's ever done, and if the film does become more jokey and incontinent as it follows its derivative path, it never entirely loses the goodwill De Palma engenders with his deft opening sequences.
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertBody Double is an exhilarating exercise in pure filmmaking, a thriller in the Hitchcock tradition in which there's no particular point except that the hero is flawed, weak, and in terrible danger -- and we identify with him completely. The movie is so cleverly constructed, with the emphasis on visual storytelling rather than dialogue, that we are neither faster nor slower than the hero as he gradually figures out the scheme that has entrapped him.
- 70Time Out LondonTime Out LondonDe Palma actually has the gall to combine the plots from both Vertigo and Rear Window in one big voyeur-fest and pull it off with a certain sly efficiency.
- 60EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanOnce you get past the ridiculous story this is a fine example of De Palma's lush overkill style and certainly has a redeeming thread of silly sick humour.
- 40TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineContrived, shallow, distasteful, and ultimately pointless, BODY DOUBLE is more an exercise in empty cinematic style than an engrossing thriller. Although cinematographer Burum executes some absolutely breathtaking camera moves, his effort goes for naught when pitted against director De Palma and cowriter Avrech's insipid narrative. What De Palma has done here is simply take elements from two superb Alfred Hitchcock films, REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO, and combine them into one insipid film. While Griffith is sexy and appealing in her role, Wasson's character is so bland that he generates little interest.