In which Drew Barrymore singlehandedly puts the “erotic” in this forgotten erotic thriller.
A neglected erotic thriller that got lost in the glut of the 1990s erotic thriller boom, Doppelganger (1993) comes courtesy of writer-director Avi Nesher, of such acclaimed films as She (1982), Time Bomb (1991) and Raw Nerve (2000). Okay, none of those are acclaimed, and neither is Doppelganger, but at times it is a pretty entertaining, if bonkers, little flick, thanks largely to its star.
Nubile young Drew Barrymore plays dual roles as Holly Gooding and Holly’s evil doppelgänger. Holly wears sexy white tights and heels because she’s a good girl with a bad girl streak lurking just underneath. You see, the opening scene involves Holly’s wildly unethical psychiatrist (Dennis Christopher) bringing her to the brink of orgasm. Holly is really enjoying herself here, and we’re off to the races!
Next, we see someone we assume is Holly (Drew in sunglasses and a headscarf) viciously stabbing a woman to death in an upscale Manhattan apartment. The murdered woman is Holly’s mother, who is played by Drew’s real mother, Jaid Barrymore. I bet Drew exorcised some childhood demons that day on set!
So Holly leaves New York City after being implicated in the murder and moves to Los Angeles, where she rents a room from a neurotic writer in a backwards baseball cap (it was the ‘90s) named Patrick, played by George Newbern. Holly and Patrick start having sex, or maybe Patrick is actually having sex with Holly’s doppelgänger, who re-emerges in LA and then starts making Holly’s life—and Patrick’s—a living nightmare.
It really turns into Newbern’s movie and he’s a very likable Everyman lead, if also a bit bland. We all knew a sensitive, romantic writer type like Patrick in the ‘90s—hell, I was that guy in the ‘90s. Leslie Hope also turns in scene-stealing supporting work as Patrick’s long suffering writing partner Elizabeth, who’s been harboring a not-so-secret crush on him. Whenever the two share scenes, we’re transported into a delightful screwball comedy, with the quips flying fast and furiously, thanks especially to Queen Quipster Elizabeth. Newborn and Hope have terrific chemistry, bantering and bickering like two friends destined to be more than that. Of course, Newbern’s Patrick is blinded by the lustful lips and sensuously swaying hips of Holly. Frankly, we can’t blame him one bit for that. Elizabeth is great, she’s smart, sassy, has cool hair, and talks smack like a boss, plus she’s not at all homicidal, but it would be hard for anyone to compete with Holly when she’s sexy-dancing her way right into Patrick’s pants. See what I mean?
Drew’s lascivious lips do much of the heavy lifting for her in Doppelganger, along with a stunning dancing-with-herself moment when Holly seems to be in a carnal trance. Sensually caressing her body while swaying seductively to the music, she looks positively orgasmic in her own little world. It’s pretty hot, and so is Drew. She was around seventeen when she filmed this movie, so, in hindsight, it’s a little icky to lust after her when she’s running her hand up her thighs and under her skirt but Drew and I are the same age, so I’ve already been watching her in scenes like this for roughly two-thirds of my life. Plus, teen Drew and teen me were quite an item, lemme tell ya. Doppelganger followed the previous year’s Drewsploitation* masterpiece Poison Ivy (1992), a film in which Drew really brings the heat in some extremely raunchy sex scenes with Tom Sherritt, who was almost sixty at the time. A couple years later, while guesting on The Late Show, Drew famously/infamously lifted her sweater and flashed David Letterman as a birthday surprise for the blushing host. Drew’s wild child years eventually came to an end, but for a stretch there she was tantalizingly naughty.
In one memorable yet inexplicable scene, Drew is showering when the water begins to turn to blood. Soon she’s covered in the red stuff but continues to rub her hands all over herself. It’s almost as if she likes showering in blood. I mean, we sure like watching her shower in blood, so there’s no complaints on our end. I think she’s imagining the water is blood, or was this a dream sequence? God I can’t remember. Honestly, by the end of the movie I still had no idea what was real and what wasn’t.
The central mystery of who the hell is Holly’s evil twin, and is she real or imagined, is resolved at the end with a convoluted explanation (hint: the unethical psychiatrist banging his teenage patient is involved)), followed by a jaw-dropping hard right turn into full-on Cronenbergian body horror. Seriously, one minute we’re in an erotic thriller with Drew Barrymore caressing her own breasts and moaning in ecstasy, and the next we’re in a scaled-down version of the infamous ending of Society (1990). If you know, you know.
It’s all nuts. The whole movie is nuts, but for much of its running time it’s also a standard thriller with lots of sexy Drew and her lascivious lips thrown in for spice, and then suddenly—BAM!—it’s a super gross creature feature. There are also some surreal dreamlike sequences interspersed for added spice. It’s all weird and barely makes sense, but ultimately you watch Doppelganger for one reason, and that reason is Drew Barrymore smack dab in the middle of her epic Drewsploitation* period. Sure, Newbern and Hope are pretty great together and definitely worth rooting for, but everything in this movie hinges on Drew’s scorching hot, early ‘90s sex appeal, and Drew certainly doesn’t let us down.
*I’ll be trademarking “Drewsploitation” soon and will use it again when I finally write my inevitable post on my favorite Drewsploitation flick, Poison Ivy.
Doppelganger is available to stream on Tubi.
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