Body Double (1984)

Continuing my recent run of Brian De Palma films comes his twisted homage to Hitchcock, a film that manges to include all of his directorial quirks whilst embracing the story's inherent sleaziness. Craig Wasson plays Jake Scully, an unsuccessful actor who finds himself in need of a place to stay after finding his girlfriend in bed with another man. He is befriended by Gregg Henry, another actor on the circuit who offers Jake his penthouse apartment (that he himself is just borrowing) while he is out of town. From here Jake starts to spy on a beautiful woman who lives in an apartment down the road. However things quickly turn very strange as Jake starts to become obsessed with the woman. Adding to the complications comes the appearance of a strange, scarred man, who seems to be stalking the woman as well. 
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From here the film continues down a tunnel of bizzare events where the lines between what is real and not are often blurred. This is largely down to De Palma's heightened sense of reality, he riddles Jake with claustrophobia and fantasy sequences, and the films' over the top approach to the action is a perfect fit for it's voyeuristic and sleazy nature. It is also clear as the film goes on that De Palma has a good sense of humour about the whole thing, a strange music video style sequence late on (to Relax of all things) seems oddly fitting and the film's climax (which was apparently the inspiration for the title of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs) is suitably wacky. Still the Hitchcock influences are unmistakable, it works as a sort of mix of Rear Window and Vertigo but never feels like a straight up rip-off. In fact the film is highly watchable and enjoyable, it has a particularly unique tone that fully evokes the ear in which is was made that I really appreciated and all the actors involved seem to be on the same page, playing things very straight throughout.
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I don't have much else to say really, Body Double works as both a standard thriller and homage to Hitchcock whilst remaining its own beast. It is crude, and often tasteless, enjoying pushing at normal sensibilities and playing off of your expectations. It feels like a director letting loose and enjoying himself, and as long as you don't look for too much more you should enjoy sharing in its giddy excess.