Dead Ringers (film)
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Dead Ringers | |
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DVD Cover for Dead Ringers |
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Directed by | David Cronenberg |
Produced by | Marc Boyman David Cronenberg |
Written by | Novel: Bari Wood Jack Geasland Screenplay: David Cronenberg Norman Snider |
Starring | Jeremy Irons Geneviève Bujold |
Music by | Howard Shore |
Cinematography | Peter Suschitzky |
Editing by | Ronald Sanders |
Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
Release date(s) | 8 September 1988 (premiere at TIFF) September 23, 1988 6 January 1989 |
Running time | 115 min. |
Country | Canada / USA |
Language | English |
All Movie Guide profile | |
IMDb profile |
Dead Ringers (alternative titles Alter ego, Gemini, Twins) is a 1988 psychological horror film directed by David Cronenberg.
Based loosely on the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus, identical twin gynecologists, the film stars Jeremy Irons in a dual role as Elliot and Beverly Mantle. Elliot, the more aggressive of the two, seduces women who come to the Mantle Clinic. When he tires of them, he passes them on to the shy and passive Beverly, without informing them.
When Beverly becomes attached to a troubled actress (played by Geneviève Bujold), it upsets the equilibrium between the twins. The actress' rejection of Beverly sends him into clinical depression, prescription drug abuse and delusions about "mutant women" with abnormal genitalia. Their codependent relationship pulls Elliot down as well.
The movie ends tragically, with the mutual murder-suicide of the twin brothers.
[edit] Trivia
- Jill Hennessy and her identical twin sister Jacqueline Hennessy make their film debut in this movie. Jill would go on to co-star in Law & Order and Crossing Jordan while Jacqueline would become an award-winning journalist and TV host.
- Favorite David Cronenberg film of Korean director Chan-wook Park.[1]
[edit] External links
- Dead Ringers at the Internet Movie Database
- Criterion Collection essay by Chris Rodley
- Dead Ringers at Rotten Tomatoes
Transfer • From the Drain • Stereo • Crimes of the Future • Shivers • Rabid • Fast Company • The Brood • Scanners • The Dead Zone • Videodrome • The Fly • Dead Ringers • Naked Lunch • M. Butterfly • Crash • eXistenZ • Spider • A History of Violence • Eastern Promises • Maps to the Stars