Themes: Work Ethics, Out For Revenge, Serial Killers
Main Cast: Carol Kane, Molly Ringwald, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Barbara Sukowa, Michael Imperioli
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
Photographer Cindy Sherman, who often uses motifs from exploitation films in her work, pays witty tribute to slasher films in this satiric horror-comedy. Dorine Douglas (Carol Kane) has spent 16 years at the bottom of the totem pole as a copy editor for Constant Consumer magazine when, due to budget cuts, she's downsized into a contract employee and forced to work out of her home. Dorine isn't at all happy about this, and when she's called back into the office to help obnoxious writer Gary (David Thornton) fix a glitch in his computer, she's not at all upset when he's accidentally electrocuted. Dorine brings Gary's corpse home to join her in front of the TV. When pushy publisher Virginia (Barbara Sukowa) orders Dorine and overly ambitious Kim (Molly Ringwald) to salvage Gary's story from his notes, Dorine snaps, and soon Gary has some company in Dorine's increasingly crowded home office. Office Killer also stars Jeanne Tripplehorn and Michael Imperioli as more of Dorine's co-workers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Carol Kane has often played cutesy in her career, from Taxi to Scrooged to The Princess Bride. But in this deliciously tongue-in-cheek horror romp, photographer-turned-director Cindy Sherman guides her star into a deeply weird place where amusing tics and cartoon gore go hand-in-hand with rich psychological shadings. Kane, clad in drab officewear and thick glasses, plays put-upon worker bee Dorine like a cross between Sally Field's bespectacled schizophrenic from Sybil and her own primate-clubbing nutter from The Mafu Cage. Of course, Office Killer isn't simply a vivid portrait; it's also a queasily gripping story, conceptualized by Sherman and Elise MacAdam and co-written by director Tom Kalin, whose own Swoon displayed a similar knack for stylized violence. From her 1970s Untitled Film Stills to more recent photos riffing on the paintings of the old masters and playing with grotesque dolls and medical refuse, Sherman has leveraged B-movie archetypes into emotional insight and cultural comment, a feat she repeats here through the use of over-the-top horror tropes. Where Wes Craven's Scream ridiculed slasher flick clichés in a way that appealed to hip, seen-it-all youngsters, Sherman's angle is more subversive as she seeks to uncover the serial killer lurking inside the meek, the dispirited, and the neglected amongst us. In that undertaking, she couldn't have gathered a better supporting cast; everyone from '80s survivor Molly Ringwald to almost-superstar Jeanne Tripplehorn to frequent mobster Michael Imperioli plays the material with the perfect mixture of irreverent cheek and colorful terror. Kevin Thompson's vivid production design and Sherman's gift for framing comically vile tableaux guarantee that Office Killer is never less than visually arresting. That it's also such an entertaining embrace/critique of genre trappings is a testament to the narrative skills the first-time director has brought to the fore ever since she began her career as a conceptual photographer. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
An office worker named Dorine is called upon to do late work; her computer breaks down and she asks the help of a co-worker, Gary Michaels, who is electrocuted while trying to fix the wires. Dorine dials 911, but hangs up when the call is answered. She places the corpse on a cart, rolls it down to her car, loads it in her trunk, and takes it home, placing it in her furnished basement (we don't see the body until later). Then, seemingly without reason, she goes into a murder spree. She kills Virginia[who?] by poisoning her inhaler tube, taking the second corpse to her basement, placing it on a sofa, next to Gary's. Then comes the turn of two young Girl Scouts who arrive at her door to sell cookies. The young girls join the other corpses in the basement, Dorine seen eating the cookies with relish while working on her new laptop. Intriguingly, she sends messages from Gary to the remaining office workers, implying he is alive and has left the office or his wife. There are three more murders before the movie ends, all planned with cool design and seeming absence of malice. The last scene shows Dorine, after her mother's death, setting fire to her basement, then, sporting a blond wig, driving away in her car, circling a newspaper ad with her pencil for an office job, a look of triumph in her face.
