Copycat

An otherwise ordinary super-smart serial killer movie that is elevated considerably by the performances of two of my favorite actresses: Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. Weaver is a psychologist who studies serial killers and is almost killed herself by a creepy Harry Connick, Jr. at the beginning of the film. The attack traumatizes her so badly that she hasn’t set foot outside of her fortress-like apartment in over a year. Hunter is the San Francisco police detective trying to find another serial killer who is re-enacting the crimes of previous monsters like Bundy, Son of Sam, and Dahmer.

This new guy is very smart, and always several steps ahead of the two women, as psycho killers always are in this type of movie. It always bothers me some, first because I don’t really believe in such people—yeah, there are plenty of monsters out there, but other than Ted Bundy, I’ve heard of few of them who were smart. Mostly they are just lucky that stranger crimes are the hardest to solve. They didn’t really bring any brains to the enterprise. But we seem to love to see these guys, or Hannibal Lecter would be forgotten by now. I admit it, I too like to see them … but I live for the scenes where they are brought down at the end. And I’m always a little pissed off that their ends are never as horrible as the crimes they inflicted on their victims. What I really yearn to see is a movie where the woman who is being stalked manages to turn the tables on the bad guy. Say, he’s prepared a table for several hours sweaty work with knives and such, she knocks him out, and he comes to strapped to his own table. And then we spend some time with the motherfucker, as she feeds him his severed fingers and toes and balls and cuts off his nose and pops out his eyeballs … okay, call me bloodthirsty, but I’d really like to see that.