Doppelganger  (1993) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Scoop's comments in white:

Doppelganger is a movie that almost worked.

Almost.

It starts out with a mystery that may be psychological or supernatural. Drew Barrymore plays a woman who may or may not have murdered some members of her family. Could she have committed them in one of her multiple personalities, or is there truly a physical doppelganger, a supernatural being split from her own personality, an exact physical double which represents her evil side. 

  • The first 75 minutes of the film are very confusing, because some of the evidence points to Drew, and some of it supports the existence of a doppelganger. There are also other mysterious inexplicable circumstances that seem to be supernatural. Drew's roommate, who is trying to help her, keeps running into people who either are dead or never existed at all.
  • Then the film presents an explanation which, while improbable and perhaps unnecessarily complicated, does manage to explain why the clues pointed in both directions, and provides a logical (if contrived) explanation for the existence of the doppelganger as well as the other mysterious non-existent people. Good enough. I was satisfied for about a minute and I thought the film would end in another minute or so, as soon as the bad guy finished his official movie bad guy "let me hold a gun on you while I explain the plot" speech.
  • Then, the next ten minutes provides some of the craziest, most over-the-top nonsense I've ever seen, as well of some of the cheesiest special effects. It turns out that even though there was an answer to the mystery in the natural world, there is some insane supernatural nonsense afoot, and it seems to have no bearing at all on the previous activity in the film!
  • Finally, in the last minute, the film does one of those "what the ... ? " moments where the scene is handled in such an ominous manner, with the looks they exchange, the things the camera focuses on, and the eerie music, that we realize that something important and mysterious just happened to end the movie. Unfortunately, is is too important and mysterious to be shared with the audience, and we have no idea what it is, or what it is supposed to mean.

I guess they will tell us everything in Doppelganger 2, or perhaps it will be called Trippelganger.

Tuna's comments in yellow:

NUDITY REPORT

see Tuna's comments

Doppelganger, aka "Doppelganger: The Evil Within" (1993) is a straight-to-vid horror thriller staring Drew Barrymore as a girl who moves from New York to LA after the brutal murder of her mother, which she is suspected of. She rents a room from wannabe writer George Newbern. He learns of her belief that she has a Doppelganger, an evil alter ego, that killed her mother and is after her. Her shrink follows her to LA, and there is a brother who was accused of killing his father, or was it the brother's Doppelganger that killed the father? Or was it Drew? Or Drew's doppelganger? Or was it the shrink, who pretended to be everyone's Doppelganger because he had the hots for Barrymore?

DVD info from Amazon.

  • no widescreen

  • no features except a small photo gallery

Or maybe I was the Doppelganger ...

This is one of the more muddled films I have sat through lately. On the plus side, we see Drew's breasts, first in a shower scene, where the nozzle starts spraying blood for no good reason, and then in a sex scene with Newbern. End plusses. The film is too convoluted to care much about, and the properties of a Doppelganger seemed to get redefined after each day of shooting, when they looked at the footage.

The Critics Vote

  • no major reviews

The People Vote ...

  • IMDB summary. Voting results: IMDb voters score it a fairly respectable 4.1/10
  • no box office info - straight to vid
The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, both reviewers say it is a D-, and would not recommend it at all except for Drew Barrymore's, young, firm, pre-reduction breasts, if that's a selling point.

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