Copycat – Dated now, but cutting edge at the time

Seeing as ‘Aliens’ is my favourite film of all time, I watch pretty much anything with Sigourney Weaver in.  However, out of all the ‘post 1986’ films she’s appeared in, only this one really made me feel like I was watching Ripley (only doing a different job to ‘nuking the site from orbit’).

The most famous xenomorph hunter in the galaxy has hung up her Pulse rifle and flame thrower in favour of a (safer?!) career psychoanalysing serial killers and publicising her books on the topics with a series of college lectures across America.  Unfortunately, her subject matter attracts worse things than a hall full of ghoulish, hormone-filled teenagers – she ends up nearly being killed by a serial killer.  By luck, she survives (and this isn’t spoilers as it all happens within the first quarter of an hour of the film), but finds it impossible to leave her flat for fear of the outside.  There, she utilises (what now looks like a prehistoric) internet connection to converse with the outside world until a new serial killer starts copying all the ‘classics’ i.e. Bundy, Manson etc and the police need her expertise to bring him to justice.

The lead officer is played by Holly Hunter, who does the whole ‘no-nonsense’ cop routine down to a tee.  She’s good and you certainly won’t hate her performance, but her character is a bit more of a ‘one-note’ trick and, despite having – literally – more freedom than Weaver to move around the film’s world, doesn’t really have any scope to develop.  However, the two of them play off each other well and, although this certainly isn’t something as cheesy as a ‘good-cop/bad-cop’ movie, the two have plenty of good interchanges.

I remember watching this back in the nineties when the internet was in its infancy and cutting and pasting pictures out on computers, then sending them via email was actually a pretty ‘sci-fi’ concept (well, almost) and ‘Copycat’ did well to utilise this ‘new’ technology and bring out the dark side of how the internet could be misused.

If you’re into your serial killer type movies then you should definitely enjoy this.  It may not be remembered quite so fondly as ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ but I do think it has enough originality and star-power to be up there with the best of nineties thrillers.  Plus, if you’re a fan of ‘Aliens’ like me then just try and listen to (almost!) every Sigourney Weaver line and see if you can hear how it’s come straight from ‘Aliens’ itself (not to mention even the soundtrack and musical stings sound like James Horner’s 1986 work!).
8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one