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What would happen if you added a really long body horror sequence to the tail end of an erotic thriller? It’s a question that you probably didn’t know you wanted an answer to, but trust me, you do. Doppelganger is by no means an excellent movie, but the surprising finale, which bears a resemblance to The Thing, is so absurdly shocking that it has to be seen to be believed.
The rest of the movie falls more in line with the femme-fatale movies of the 90s, such as Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction. By the time of the movie’s release, Drew Barrymore had already stepped into the role of the beautiful but unstable lead in Poison Ivy. But Doppelganger plays on her youthful innocence as well as her more “rebellious” side. The result is a very messy but wildly unpredictable thriller with a healthy dose of outright horror to round the whole thing out.
‘Doppelganger’ Is a Pretty Normal Thriller – Until It Isn’t
Doppelganger revolves around the idea that a person can have multiple sides of their personality manifest as separate physical entities. Drew Barrymore plays Holly, a sweet and charming young woman with a troubled past who believes she has one of these doppelgangers following her and ruining her life. Her brother is in a mental hospital for killing their abusive father, while she is suspected of recently killing her mother. Holly swears she wasn’t involved in any of it, that it was her exact double doing these things. She has also been acting much more sexually around her new roommate, Patrick (George Newbern). It’s up to Patrick to figure out if this otherwise demure woman he’s falling in love with is truly an insane murderer, or if she’s telling the truth about this supernatural entity.
When the truth finally comes out, it’s best not to think too hard about the details. On the surface, the twist of the real villain of the story fits perfectly with the kind of melodramatic thrills you’d expect from this kind of movie. But it doesn’t hold water for very long after the initial shock factor wears off. Luckily, there’s a second twist to the movie that takes it not only to a whole new level of surprise, but also to a totally different genre. Even though a rational (if unlikely) explanation is given for Holly’s misfortunes, the finale shows that there really is a supernatural element to her story, revealed in an extremely gross way. Not only is the genre shift unexpected, but the intensity of the body horror is sure to catch you off guard.
The Ending of ‘Doppelganger’ Is Shockingly Disgusting
The explanation of Holly’s doppelgänger situation is pretty muddy, and the execution of the villain’s scheme stretches the suspension of disbelief right to the breaking point. However, the general gist of it feels very in line with other erotic thrillers of the time. It has multiple murders, the mystery element of who exactly Holly is and whether she is truly responsible for said murders, and the sexual tension (which leads to straight-up sex) between Holly, her therapist Dr. Heller (Dennis Christopher), and Patrick. It’s not a very good example of these things, and if it weren’t for the final twist, Doppelganger would be a pretty forgettable entry in Barrymore’s early filmography. Having said that, the fact that the movie pivots hard into body horror in the last twenty minutes is outright shocking and kind of makes up for what the movie lacks in terms of being a straight thriller.
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The 10 Best Horror Movies About Doppelgängers, Ranked
These terrifying films give a new meaning to “double trouble.”
Technically, the movie does drop hints about the true supernatural aspects throughout, but it’s virtually impossible to guess what they mean until the actual reveal. When Holly does finally split into two beings, instead of another person masquerading as her double, the transformation is as slimy and grotesque as any David Cronenberg film. There’s also a shot straight out of The Substance when two different faces are painfully pulling themselves apart from each other. That’s after Holly has twisted herself into a Junji Ito-type spiral to enter a strange worm stage – there’s a lot going on in this scene, to be honest. But it’s all effectively disgusting, thanks in part to the makeup effects created by Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero of The Walking Dead. If they’re the ones bringing a monster to life, you can bet it’s going to be a terrifying one.
‘Doppelganger’ Shows Drew Barrymore As Both Angel and Devil
Drew Barrymore in the 90s seems like the perfect embodiment of her character Holly in Doppelganger. She was famous for playing sweet and sympathetic children in movies like Cat’s Eye and E.T., but started playing more and more risqué roles in her teens. Just a year before Doppelganger, she starred in the much more traditional erotic thriller Poison Ivy, as an unstable teenager terrorizing another girl and her family, murdering the mother and seducing the father. Barrymore was also gaining a reputation as a party girl in her personal life, something she talked openly about after getting sober. This dual perspective of Barrymore is exactly the nature of her character, Holly, and her supposed doppelganger. Although the physical human “twin” is revealed to be an impostor, Holly does indeed have two sides to her personality; after her father abused her as a child, Holly created a second identity to shield herself from the emotional trauma. This identity manifested as a much more sexual and violent version of Holly.
The main version of Holly is presented as very innocent and sweet, a happy and charming young woman venturing out on her own after several unexpected personal tragedies. She’s often surrounded by angelic figures and motifs, and in a dream sequence, all the attendees at her funeral are cloaked in white rather than black. She’s the exact opposite of the “dark” version of Holly; even the clothes that the impostor wears to disguise themselves as Holly’s doppelganger are much darker than what her main personality would wear. Of course, there’s no real physical difference between the two entities that Holly splits into at the end of the film, but the very fact that she does eventually split in half lends itself to the idea of dual personas.
That divide between innocence and darkness feels very reflective of Drew Barrymore’s early career, and it has to be said that she delivers a pretty solid performance in Doppelganger. Yes, the premise is silly, and yes, the machinations of the villain are a little hard to follow. But Barrymore’s charm and the impressive special effects of the unexpected finale give it that push to make it worth watching.
- Release Date
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May 26, 1993
- Director
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Avi Nesher
- Writers
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Avi Nesher
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Drew Barrymore
Holly Gooding
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George Newbern
Patrick Highsmith
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Dennis Christopher
Doctor Heller
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