On one hand, it’s preferable that Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill is being remade as a direct-to-DVD feature, if only because it will do the least amount of damage to the classic erotic thriller’s legacy (in much the same way that Marlo Thomas’s made-for-television, gender-inverted variation of It’s a Wonderful Life barely harmed the memory of Frank Capra’s holiday mainstay). On the other hand, I hate to see a brilliant piece of cinema treated like a cum rag.
Hyde Park Entertainment’s Ashok Amritraj, however, having worked with Elie Samaha, knows from cum rags, so I can’t think of a better guy to blow a load all over De Palma’s 1980 box office hit (which, coincidentally, engendered a bit of controversy thanks to its frank sexuality and perceived misogyny). To prove that he has no intention of making a good movie, he’s hired a no-talent named Rick Alexander, whose name you might recall from the recently announced Conan the Barbarian remake (I’d fulminate over this, but I figure John Milius will take care of it on his own – which is to say the notorious asthmatic will write a vivid revenge fantasy that’ll get laughed out of every studio in town*).
To be fair, Amritraj was named Spirit of India’s Man of the Year in 1998, an honor famously denied Slim Pickens twenty years prior despite his career capping performance in The Swarm. He also just finished production on David R. Ellis’s Asylum and James Wan’s Death Sentence, which means he might have his name on two of this year’s worst movies. But don’t fret: Amritraj exec produced Battlefield Earth. Nothing fazes this guy.
(Devin left a joke in here about Harry Pottery’s Dressed to Kiln. I don’t know how to incorporate it into this piece, but it did make me laugh, so… now you know.)
*Look, I love Milius, but he lost it a long time ago.