An underrated 1990s thriller is taking Netflix by storm after being added to the service.
Every month, the streaming platform releases a bunch of original movies and TV series, but always adds a stack of existing content of films ranging from classics to recent blockbusters.
The films that typically rise up the most-watched charts are the big budget films that topped the box office, but an anomaly has presented itself in the form of Copycat.
Copycat, a psychological thriller released in 1995, stars Sigourney Weaver as Dr Helen Hudson, a criminal psychologist who becomes agoraphobic after almost being killed by her previous subject, the fictional Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr).
It soon emerges that Cullum is committing crimes based on previous murders, and with the help of two San Francisco police officers, played by Holly Hunter and Dermot Mulroney, hunts him down.
Upon its release, the film, directed by Jon Amiel, was a moderate box office success, grossing $79m from a budget of $27m.
It wasn’t until the film was released on VHS that Copycat started generating a big following, becoming a word-of-mouth success and earning praise that belied its initially middling reviews.
Now, 30 years on, the film is considered one of the most intelligent, taut and creepy thrillers of the 1990s, even being called “the most underrated” film of the decade by new viewers.
The film’s journey was tumultuous, with Copycat undergoing many post-production edits after poor audience scores, as early viewers didn’t like the original ending written by Ann Biderman and David Madsen.
Ultimately, Frank Darabont, fresh from his critical acclaim for 1994 prison drama The Shawshank Redemption, was brought in to write new scenes, which Warner Bros approved of.
The Washington Post compared the film to Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs as it “depicts the victimisation of women through the eyes of its female protagonists”, much like the earlier movie did with Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling.
Meanwhile, The New York Times said that, while the film “recalls unsettling aspects of other thrillers”, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, “it has a personality of its own”.
It’s worth noting that the film is not based on a true story.
In 2024, crooner Connick Jr revealed that Weaver was so disturbed by his performance that “she wouldn’t talk to [him]” on set.
“Every time I came around, she went the other way,” he told SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham. “She was like, ‘I don’t want to be around that guy!’ “
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