Dead Ringers

Year 15, Day 285 - 10/12/23 - Movie #4,567

BEFORE: Yesterday was load-in day for New York Comic-Con, and I'm completely exhausted. I only had to do two runs over to the convention center, pushing a cart with three boxes on the first run, and carrying a collapsible banner and stand on the second, but I'm wiped out.  Came home early and took a nap before we went out to dinner (my wife's birthday will take place during the convention...) and so I really really need to get some sleep tonight if I'm going to survive the next three days, which each involve spending 12 hours working at a convention table.  Oh, I've done it before, many times, but I was never THIS old when I've done it - and now I've got sore legs and bad knees and arthritic fingers maybe, and a sore back.  

So I'm going to keep watching movies at night and posting if I can, but if I should feel the need to suspend the blog for a couple days, I'm willing to do that, even if that means I fall behind and I don't finish the horror movies by Halloween - some sacrifices need to be made in the interest of my own health and sanity.  I might be able to catch up while on vacation next week, we'll see.  And then I could always double-up during the last week in October, that's not out of the question.

Genevieve Bujold carries over from "Coma", and it's another film from the rather obscure (?) "medical horror" genre. 

THE PLOT: Twin gynecologists take full advantage of the fact that nobody can tell them apart, until their relationship beings to deteriorate over a woman. 

AFTER: Well, this seems to be the month for lesser horror films from notable directors, so far in October I've watched films from Wes Craven ("Swamp Thing"), John Carpenter ("The Fog"),  George Romero ("Creepshow") and Michael Crichton ("Coma").  Tonight it's David Cronenberg - now, were all these films those directors' BEST films?  Eh, I'm not so sure.  

Also, a running theme this year has been movies where an actor plays two (or more) different characters in the same film, or at least different versions of the same character, as in multiverse stuff.  I'm planning to list them all at the end of the year, but you can probably figure some of them out, like the "Flash" and "Spider-Verse" movies, and the one that won Best Picture.  But sometimes it really HAS been twins, like Tom Hollander played twins in "Breathe" and a certain actress played twins in a mystery movie, but to even say which one is kind of a spoiler, so I won't. So far there are FOURTEEN films watched this year with one actor playing dual roles, that's got to be some kind of record.  

There's something inherently weird and creepy about identical twins, that's for sure.  And any actor would probably consider it a challenge to play two characters in the same film who look exactly alike, but might be different in subtle ways - because if they both look AND act the same, then, like, what's the point of having two characters?  No, that's got to be in there, even in the multiverse stuff, like in "The Flash" - what made one Barry Allen different from the other?  One had super-speed and the other didn't, but one watched his mother die and the other didn't, so that's GOT to have an effect.  

So "Dead Ringers" therefore plays around with what might be the difference between the two gynecologists, but I'm afraid the best they could come up with was that one was SLIGHTLY more outgoing and confident than the other.  The quieter one, Beverly, also seemed more capable of being emotionally attached and having a long-term relationship, and one preferred to write their research papers while the other saw clients, but these are MINOR differences.  Like, one could be a serial killer and the other one could be the FBI agent who hunts him down, that would really be something...  Late in the film, one gets addicted to drugs after being alone for too long, but then the other one follows suit, umm, I think, so then that's not a difference at all, is it?  They kind of imply that when one takes drugs it affects the other one, but that can't be a thing.

Unfortunately this was listed as a horror film, but is it, really?  It's creepy, sure, because identical twins are weird and creepy, and it's cringey, because surgical operations are cringey, but is it scary?  Outside of one dream where one brother imagines that they're Siamese twins and their girlfriend Claire bites through the connecting tissue, it's just not that scary.  Maybe at the end, but by that time I couldn't even tell the brothers apart because they'd kind of switched positions and maybe even personalities, so I didn't even know which was which.  

For a time in the first half of the film, Beverly always hid in the background, while Elliot was the public face of their practice, but I'm just not sure WHY they kept up this deception, I mean, they went through medical school together, side by side, did everyone then just forget about this when they opened up their own gynecology practice?  And were they pretending to be just one person when they saw patients, because I think that MIGHT be illegal to impersonate another doctor, even if you're also a doctor with the same degree and the same last name.  Was this some kind of scheme to double the available hours they could see clients?  Or were they able to double-bill on the insurance if each client was secretly been seen by TWO gynecologists instead of one?  Consulting fees?  What's the angle here, exactly?  

Oh, right, the sex.  Elliot would start a relationship with the most attractive clients (also unethical, at least, if not illegal) and then when he got tired of them, his brother Beverly would step in and pretend to be him and get laid a few times before the women realized how boring he really was. Jeez, it seems like an awful lot of work for a little payout, that's all. And furthermore, once the women figured out their little scam, you've got to imagine they'd probably want to find a new gynecologist after sleeping with both the exciting brother AND the non-exciting one.  When your gynecologist is also not one but TWO of your ex-boyfriends, I really can't imagine a more awkward check-up.  Best to just move on, right? 

Well, the two twins get locked in a downward spiral, so really, it's going to be a moot point very soon.  Claire goes away for a few weeks to shoot a movie, and Beverly calls her hotel and her very gay assistant answers, and he totally gets the wrong idea.  Meanwhile his brother takes on a bigger consulting job at a hospital, leaving Bev alone to run the practice, and he turns to drugs, because that always ends well.  His girlfriend was gone for what, two weeks?  OK, ten, but come on, pull yourself together, man!  Before you know it, he's commissioned an artist to design a set of gynecological instruments for "mutant women" and then starts inhaling the anesthesia from his patients during surgery, and really, that's not a good look. 

This year has also been filled with films where people make some really bad choices about who they sleep with - no, you should not sleep with your gynecologist, it's unethical for him and awkward (at best) for you.  Neither should you sleep with your pharmacist, your MMA coach (twice? really?), the guy who accidentally got booked into the same AirBnB (two different movies? really?), another patient in the same psychiatric hospital as you, your best friend's sister, your dead husband's best friend, your boyfriend's favorite singer/songwriter, your former high-school teacher or the young artist who's staying in your house.  And it SHOULD go without saying that you should not have sex with a horse, yet this is where we found ourselves in January, isn't it? 

Also starring Jeremy Irons (last seen in "The Flash"), Heidi von Palleske (last seen in "RED"), Barbara Gordon (last seen in "Life" (2015)), Shirley Douglas (last seen in "Lolita"), Stephen Lack, Nick Nichols, Lynne Cormack (last seen in "Guilty as Sin"), Damir Andrei (last seen in "Shazam!"), Miriam Newhouse, Richard W. Farrell, Jonathan Haley, Nicholas Haley, Marsha Moreau, Denis Akiyama (last seen in "Pixels"), Jill Hennessy (last seen in "I Shot Andy Warhol"), Jacqueline Hennessy, Bob Bainborough, Joe Matheson (last seen in "The Hurricane"), Nora Colpman with a cameo from David Cronenberg (last seen in "Into the Night").

RATING: 4 out of 10 latex gloves