COPYCAT, one of a dirty half-dozen 1995 thrillers occupied with serial murderers, is quite well acted, but a qualified recommendation stops there; the quotient of fiendish torment that’s dished out is excessive enough to qualify as porn, practically a how-to for budding psychopaths. “Now, I’m not going to lie to you. This is going to hurt.”  *

San Francisco—per movie lore, where else?—is being plagued by a serial killer, dubbed ‘Copycat’, because his twisted modus operandi is in meticulously recreating the crimes of the infamous. Assigned to the case, detectives ‘Mary Jane Monahan’ (Holly Hunter) and ‘Ruben Goetz’ (Dermot Mulroney) seek assistance from ‘Dr. Helen Hudson’ (Sigourney Weaver), author and expert on serial killers. Hudson lives in guarded seclusion, suffering from agoraphobia as a result of being attacked by a merrily depraved freak who was captured before he could finish his assault. Hudson knows the realm, and Monahan is a sharp snoop, but whoever/whatever Copycat is, he is always a step or three ahead of them.

In a definite veer from his sickness-absent works (Sommersby, Entrapment, The Core), Jon Amiel directed, with a script from Ann Biderman (Primal Fear, Public Enemies) and David Madsen that was retouched by top guns Jay Presson Allen and Frank Darabont. Christopher Young provides another of his effectively tense scores. The writing works best with the interplay between the testy and understandably terrified doctor and the cool and calm Monahan: Weaver and Hunter spar expertly. The character of a female homicide detective was unusual (Hunter commented that at the time there were maybe fifteen in the whole country) and there’s a terrifically creepy turn from Harry Connick Jr. as self-pleased nutjob ‘Darryl Lee Cullum’. Less engaging is a subplot of jealousy between Mulroney and a smarmy fellow cop played by Will Patton, and there’s the tiresomely expected jive with the department chief telling everyone to cool it. While kudos are due to the powerhouse actresses (Weaver or Hunter could read ingredients on a sack of peat moss and make it interesting), and acknowledging that the show moves with slick precision, it also reeks of voyeuristic exploitation, one more depressing revel in misery (mostly directed at women) with too much lingering on the horrific details.

Production costs amounted to $27,000,000. Take in the States was $32,052,000 (56th place) with possibly $47,000,000 more abroad. Note that Holly’s hairstyle is different in nearly every scene. With William McNamara (as you know who), John Rothman and J.E. Freeman. 123 grueling, blood-soaked minutes, a ‘well-done’ but needless spree of viciousness that we’d wager was/remains a favorite among prison inmates.

* More dead than alive in ’95—Copycat was bested by Se7en (grisly but oddly more tolerable).Then there was Just Cause (Connery and a fine cast), Virtuosity (sci-fi element, with a standout job from a new Australian dude named Russell Crowe), Hideaway (falls into the Horror category more than Crime, and also lands in Campville–Roger Ebert’s review is fun) and Killer: A Journal Of Murder (unrepentant confession time in prison, with yet another slash of 90 proof nastiness from James Woods).

“I Fought The Law“—if you just couldn’t get enough crime: Heat, The Net, Dead Man Walking, Casino, Money Train, The Usual Suspects, Murder In The First, Devil In A Blue Dress, Kiss Of Death, Clockers, Strange Days, Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead.