Special Effects
Special Effects

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- 53/100 based on 1,179 votes

Reality and illusion collide in this thriller about a megalomaniacal movie director who murders a young would-be actress, then sets about making a feature about the deed, casting the dead woman's clueless husband as the patsy, and finding a dead ringer to play the part of the dead actress.... (Full plot summary below)

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Actors in Special Effects:

Zoë Lund
Eric Bogosian
Brad Rijn
Kevin O'Connor
Bill Oland
H. Richard Greene

Full Plot Details

Reality and illusion collide in this thriller about a megalomaniacal movie director who murders a young would-be actress, then sets about making a feature about the deed, casting the dead woman's clueless husband as the patsy, and finding a dead ringer to play the part of the dead actress.

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Movie Reviews

Ozus' World Movie Reviews - 9/10 by Dennis SchwartzAn uneven homage spoof on auteurs like Hitchcock, Powell and Ferrara.
Lessons of Darkness - 6/10 by Nick SchagerA significant (if ultimately chaotic) entry in the director's canon of ramshackle tributes to the dark, dangerous, voyeuristic allure of the cinema.
Q Network Film Desk - 5/10 by James KendrickIt is as if Cohen had a list of ideas he wanted to incorporate, but no real sense of how to articulate them, so they all wind up in a big, messy stew.
User Review - 8/10 by Shawn W86% The ending was a bit of a let down, other then that, I really enjoyed this dark film.
User Review - 6/10 by Bill BFor m this was an interesting look at mid-'80s NYC, following around a director who kills a woman in his own apartment, then eventually contrives to get her husband (under suspicion for the murder!) to reenact the murder on camera for the film that he's working on. It's an interesting watch, with Eric Bogosian playing things pretty fast and loose just to see what he can get away with, and I absolutely loved his apartment. Worth a look if you have the chance.
User Review - 6/10 by Carlos IInteresting, but sleazy picture. The lead actress is so horrible and almost completely torpedoes the whole movie, but listening to Cohen's ideas on the picture, gives me a different appreciation for the whole thing.
User Review - 6/10 by Jack GHave you ever noticed that there is always one guy who ruins the topless photo shoot for everyone else? In this case, it is Keefe(Brad Rijn) who tries dragging his wife Andrea(Zoe Tamerlis) back home to Oklahoma from New York. She will have none of it, escaping out the bathroom window before seeking out disgraced film director Chris Neville(Eric Bogosian). However, she realizes too late what he intends his next project to be... Wearing its low budget proudly on its sleeve(so much so, that some of the dialogue seemed to be fading out at times), "Special Effects" is a movie that wants to have its exploitation and complain about it, too. That it works as well as it does is down to Eric Bogosian's natural intensity. In this case, he puts it to good use playing a director who cannot tell reality from make-believe anymore. With a backdrop of a gloriously sleazy and tawdry 1980's New York City and a loft that is alternately tacky and awesome, this movie could also be seen as a warning against the glamour of filmmaking.
User Review - 6/10 by Al MFilm within a film has struggling Director resorting to a snuff film by secretly filming a murder and building a film around it. I've always enjoyed Larry Cohen's sly wit, which is especially present in the script-writing homicide investigator here.
User Review - 6/10 by Eric RSpecial Effects is the story of a runaway wife Zoe Lund (infamous writer/actress who's notorious for her role in Ms. 45 and her writing of Bad Lieutenant!) whose an actress-wannabe in New York City trying to make it big until husband Brad Rijn tracks her down and forces her to watch videos of their beautiful son. Eager to get away, she concocts a story of being in the next Chris Neville film. Neville (played nicely by Eric Bogosian) is a once major director who has completely bombed and fled to NYC in an attempt to make his comeback film. Lund talks her way into Neville's house, then bed until she catches him trying to film their sexual escapade, to which she verbally tears him apart, which ends in her murder. He covers it up and the husband gets pinned for it, but Neville is so fascinated that he wants to make a movie surrounding the death, which he talks the husband into starring in alongside his wife's doppelganger (also played by Lund). The two spark up a relationship despite Bogosian's evil intentions. The end result of this movie has genuinely left me confused. The story is fantastic and iconic writer/director Larry Cohen (It's Alive franchise, Phone Booth, etc) does an exceptional job making this film, but why was it just ok? I'm thinking that maybe the entire cast, save for Bogosian and Lund's second character were overall intolerable. Despite the story have many textured layers to it, there are a lot of choppy and awkward parts that don't play out well throughout. This may be one of those films that requires multiple viewings to get an actual appreciation and understanding for. A great incite into the movie business. Not bad, but better served being viewed more than once to fully grasp.

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