Dressed to Kill (1980)

Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) is a provocative, stylized thriller that operates simultaneously as homage, erotic fantasy, psychological horror, and transgressive spectacle. Positioned squarely in the tradition of Hitchcockian suspense, the film draws heavily from Psycho (1960) in structure, theme, and visual language, but overlays that foundation with De Palma’s distinct cinematic bravado—split screens, dreamlike slow motion, voyeuristic framing, and a swirling Pino Donaggio score.

Released during the post-Taxi Driver wave of urban paranoia and sexual anxiety in American cinema, Dressed to Kill was controversial upon release and remains divisive today. Its lurid blend of sex, violence, and gender politics has inspired both impassioned praise and heated critique. Yet even detractors often concede the film’s technical mastery and its place within the larger conversation about cinema’s relationship to voyeurism and desire.

Plot Overview

The narrative is divided into three intersecting arcs:

Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) is a dissatisfied housewife in therapy with psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine). After a failed seduction attempt with her husband and a provocative therapy session, she ventures to a museum where she embarks on a silent, erotically charged flirtation that leads to an impulsive sexual encounter with a stranger. As she leaves the man’s apartment, she is brutally murdered in an elevator by a mysterious, blonde-wigged assailant.

Liz Blake (Nancy Allen), a high-class call girl, witnesses the murder and becomes the next target. As a potential suspect and the only witness, Liz teams up with Kate’s teenage son, Peter (Keith Gordon), to uncover the killer’s identity.

Dr. Elliott, caught between his professional obligations and the unfolding investigation, becomes increasingly suspicious as the killer—known only as “Bobbi”—sends him threatening messages and stalks those connected to Kate.

What begins as a sleek erotic thriller transforms into a psychological murder mystery with noir and slasher overtones, ultimately culminating in a twisted resolution that owes as much to Psycho as it does to the stylistic decadence of European giallo films.

Themes and Analysis

Voyeurism and Cinematic Gaze

Dressed to Kill is fundamentally about looking—watching, being watched, and the act of filming itself. De Palma’s camera often glides seductively behind characters, mimicking the gaze of a stalker or voyeur. The film’s most famous sequence, a nearly wordless 10-minute seduction in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a masterclass in visual storytelling: tension and eroticism unfold through glances, body language, and spatial geometry, absent of dialogue.

The film implicates the audience as complicit voyeurs. Kate’s sexual awakening, Liz’s danger, and the killer’s stalking are presented in a hyper-stylized manner that invites the viewer to indulge in the imagery even as it critiques the very impulse to do so. De Palma asks: Why do we watch? And what are the moral costs of cinematic pleasure?

Gender, Sexuality, and Identity

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Dressed to Kill lies in its portrayal of gender identity and mental illness. The killer is revealed to be Dr. Elliott’s alternate persona, “Bobbi”—a trans woman personality emerging from his psychological conflict over his gender identity and sexual desires.

The film has been heavily criticized for its depiction of transgender identity as inherently pathological and violent—a critique that remains relevant in light of modern understandings of gender dysphoria and trans representation. Critics have pointed out that Dressed to Kill continues a problematic Hollywood trope (seen in Psycho and Silence of the Lambs) that equates gender non-conformity with madness and homicidal impulses.

Yet De Palma’s interest seems less in making a statement about real-world transgender people than in exploring the split self and repression—a theme common to his work. Bobbi functions as a metaphor for the violent eruption of suppressed desire. While this does not absolve the film of its problematic implications, it does frame it more as a psychological construct than social commentary—albeit one rooted in outdated ideas.

Sexual Repression and Freudian Dynamics

The film is saturated with Freudian symbolism: therapy sessions, mother-son dynamics, dreams, mirrors, and castration anxiety. Kate seeks sexual fulfillment outside of her sterile marriage, only to be punished by death. Dr. Elliott’s repressed desires manifest violently through Bobbi. Liz, despite her profession, becomes the moral center of the film—a pragmatic survivor who uses her intelligence and sexuality not as tools of corruption, but of empowerment.

The killer’s motivations, while sensationalized, are rooted in a fear of emasculation, literally and figuratively. The recurring motif of razors and elevators (symbolic penetrative spaces) reinforces the theme of gendered power struggles.

Performances

Angie Dickinson, though her screen time is limited, gives a haunting performance as Kate. Her physicality and subtle expressiveness carry the film’s opening half, particularly during the extended museum sequence, where her longing and shame are conveyed without a single word. Her death, abrupt and brutal, is a shocking narrative rupture akin to Janet Leigh’s fate in Psycho.

Nancy Allen (De Palma’s then-wife) plays Liz with charm and surprising emotional depth. Her performance straddles camp and sincerity, and she brings both vulnerability and agency to a role that could have easily been exploitative. Though written within the confines of the "hooker-with-a-heart" trope, Allen’s Liz is a savvy, self-aware survivor.

Michael Caine delivers a restrained and ambiguous performance as Dr. Elliott. His clipped demeanor masks a sinister interior, and though the role doesn’t allow for much range until the climax, Caine’s cold detachment makes his eventual unmasking all the more chilling.

Keith Gordon, as Peter, plays a precocious teen with the obsessive tendencies of a budding De Palma protagonist. His technical genius and emotional maturity help ground the film’s final act, and he serves as both surrogate detective and voice of moral clarity.

Direction and Style

Brian De Palma’s direction is flamboyant, precise, and always self-aware. He blends Hitchcockian suspense with the visual stylings of Italian giallo—high-contrast lighting, elaborate tracking shots, fetishistic attention to detail, and a heightened sense of color and sound. Scenes unfold more like operatic set pieces than standard narrative beats.

Notably, De Palma makes extensive use of split screens and slow motion to manipulate temporal perception and heighten tension. His direction emphasizes form as content—every frame is meticulously constructed to elicit a reaction, whether arousal, fear, or discomfort.

The score by Pino Donaggio is lush and dreamlike, recalling Bernard Herrmann’s work for Hitchcock while adding its own layer of melodramatic sensuality. Donaggio’s music doesn’t just accompany the action—it amplifies its emotional and erotic undertones, functioning as a seduction in itself.

Legacy and Influence

Dressed to Kill was a commercial success and has since become one of De Palma’s most iconic—and controversial—films. It stands as a textbook example of postmodern genre filmmaking: at once homage and pastiche, sincere and satirical, erotic and horrifying.

The film’s legacy is inseparable from its controversies, particularly regarding gender representation and violence against women. Modern viewers may find its depictions troubling, but its influence is undeniable. From Basic Instinct to Mulholland Drive, echoes of Dressed to Kill can be seen in numerous thrillers that explore the intersection of sex, identity, and spectacle.

The film also helped solidify De Palma’s reputation as a master stylist—a filmmaker more interested in the grammar of cinema than its message, more invested in how stories are told than what they mean.

Final Thoughts

Dressed to Kill is not an easy film to categorize or even to endorse without qualification. It is visually exquisite and thematically audacious, yet undeniably problematic in its gender politics and depiction of mental illness. As a cinematic experience, it’s hypnotic—often shocking, sometimes exploitative, always gripping.

It reflects the anxieties of its time—about sexuality, identity, and violence—filtered through De Palma’s obsessive lens. Whether viewed as a technical tour de force or a flawed cultural artifact, Dressed to Kill remains one of the most boldly stylized thrillers of the 1980s and an essential, if uneasy, entry in the canon of psychological suspense cinema.

A dazzling, disturbing thriller that showcases De Palma at his most visually expressive and thematically provocative. While its gender politics demand critical scrutiny, its craftsmanship, suspense, and narrative daring make it a landmark of erotic psychological cinema.