While recording sound effects for a slasher flick, Jack Terry stumbles upon a real-life horror: a car careening off a bridge and into a river. Jack jumps into the water and fishes out Sally from the car, but the other passenger is already dead — a governor intending to run for president. As Jack does some investigating of his tapes, and starts a perilous romance with Sally, he enters a tangled web of conspiracy that might leave him dead.
Direction
De Palma's split-screen obsession reaches fever pitch — two terrors, one frame.
Sound
The scream reconstruction ranks among cinema's most devastating sonic sequences.
Cinematography
Vilmos Zsigmond turns Philadelphia into a neon-soaked fever dream.
Director
Brian De Palma
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The opening slasher spoof is De Palma's middle finger to producers who wanted actual Halloween money — he shot it in three days with zero budget.
Antonioni's Blowup haunts this film, but De Palma swaps photography's cool detachment for sound's invasive intimacy — we don't observe murder, we wear it in our ears.
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