Naive young Karen wants to help her struggling amateur filmmaker boyfriend Christopher raise enough money so he can divorce his wife. Meanwhile, jolly psycho-prankster Otto stalks the building where Christopher is shooting a low-grade adult movie in order to keep himself afloat.
Direction
Split-screen before it was his signature; the man was born ready.
Editing
Circular structure that'll make you rewind and swear.
Practical Effects
Gloriously fake blood and a weapon you'll never forget.
Director
Brian De Palma
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
De Palma financed this with $11,000 and his mother's life savings. She produced.
This is essentially De Palma's film school thesis: every obsession he'd chase for fifty years—voyeurism, split-screen, violent women, Hitchcock theft—packed into 80 minutes.
US
