Le double maléfique

The good? Acting by the "Nice Guy" writer, Newbern, is great. Drew Barrymore's sultry little dances and always seductive scenes. Plot twist will probably surprise you. The bad? Early in Drew's career...look to Ever After and Wedding Singer if you want better acting. Special Effects are stuff I could do with enough silly-putty and Jell-O mix. The ugly? A lot of the plot isn't needed. Could have been wrapped up in a TV show slot, and it indeed felt rushed at the end with a "bad-guy explains his whole evil plot" sequence.

It's good for a laugh, and good to waste some time, but don't be too critical of it. It's more of a confusing B-Movie trying to be a REAL movie than anything.

During the opening credits, we see an aroused Drew Barrymore squirming around with an unidentified man. She appears to be enjoying a very pleasant sexual experience, but is later haunted by this memory. Next, Drew Barrymore visits an unidentified woman and stabs her after bleeding from the nose and showing webbed fingers. The story really gets started when Barrymore (as Holly Gooding) arrives in Los Angeles to answer a "roommate wanted" ad placed by cute young writer George Newbern (as Patrick Highsmith). He wears a hat to bed, but Mr. Newbern is not balding...

Also in town is a Barrymore twin she calls her "Doppelganger"...

Newbern first sees the second Barrymore at a café with ex-girlfriend Leslie Hope (as Elizabeth). Then, she disappears. Dennis Christopher has fun as a mad doctor with Hell to pay and Sally Kellerman is a reformed nun. Newbern doesn't know what to think, and neither will you. There is a lesson here - if a beautiful young woman arrives to be your roommate, there will be a catch. Cheers to Avi Nesher and the crew for finding and re-decorating what looks like my old Los Angeles apartment. The curtains, tea kettle and dish drainer went with the place. The TV never worked.

***** Doppelganger (4/24/93) Avi Nesher ~ Drew Barrymore, George Newbern, Leslie Hope, Dennis Christopher

I think that this movie was good. Drew Barrymore did an excellent job. Although this wasn't the traditional horror flick, it was a movie worth watching, (even more than once).

The stage curtains open ...

"Doppelganger" isn't the best psychological horror movie I've ever seen, but there is something about it that peaked my morbid curiosity to continue watching it right up to the very end. And then, even when you think you've got it all figured out, you don't - they give you one more eye-popping final scene that you won't soon forget.

The movie starts off setting the mood right away. A woman is attacked mercilously and murdered by a knife wielding woman who very much resembles our main character, Holly Gooding (played by Drew Barrymore). Then we cut to the immediate future where Holly is looking for a place to live and meets her new roommate, Patrick (played by George Newburn) when she responds to his ad in the paper. As he gets to know her, he learns the dark secrets behind her family and that she believes she is being followed by her doppleganger, who is performing horrendous deeds. When her own institutionized brother's life is threatened, she decides to take maters into her own hands. Things aren't all as they seem - or are they?

Drew Barrymore never looked better and sold her character, though she's had better turns in other movies. George Newburn filled his role and did his job. I thought that the best performance came from Leslie Hope, who played Patrick's very candid, high-strung friend, Elizabeth. I loved her in this movie. The soundtrack is a product of its time with a sensuous dance scene involving Drew swaying hypnotically to the rhythmic beat, running her hands up and down her body.

"Doppelganger" isn't a bad movie. The one thing that I really liked about it, is that it doesn't sell out with some B. S. ending. At first, I thought it was going to, but then the real fun starts to happen - and I liked it. It pretty much covers all the bases when it comes to horror. It is a guilty pleasure and worth the watch at a solid 6 stars out of 10.

Such a strange, strange film, but sadly not in a good way. "Doppelganger" is an odd, sensual supernatural horror feature, which is well produced and slickly catered for (it's irresistibly slick). It's a great opening… strikingly seductive but brutal where it has Barrymore's real life mother portraying in her mother on screen. There's obviously money behind it, especially during the climax scenes with a special effects / make-up FX extravaganza. It's a WTF moment. While it might look good, there's no denying how ridiculously silly the story becomes (like some sort of parody) and the acting (mainly the support; Leslie Hope and Dennis Christopher) is overdone. Drew Barrymore is the star, but looks all out of place in the role and George Newbern as her lead comes off bemused more often. The concept isn't bad, but the hollow plot lacks cohesion and involvement in what turns out to be nothing more than unintentionally hilarious in its b-grade shadings and a disappointing smokescreen by the end.