Special Effects

A ditzy blonde (Tamerlis) hits NYC hoping to make it in movies, but her first gig is a death scene - her own. A failing director secretly films himself and the actress in the sack, then murders her and sets about making a movie based on the killing, with the dead girl's husband as the likely murderer. This brass-necked approach includes inviting the investigating cop (O'Connor) to advise on procedure. Bogosian plays the director, Chris Neville, as a suave monster, avoiding any psychological or moral dimension (although we're told the reason he likes flowers is because they're so beautiful and they die so quickly). After a shaky start, the twists of the plot begin to take hold, and there's even a serious angle. This is the age of the non-entity, the glorification of the nobody, as long as they're victims, says Neville. Consider the virtually non-existent careers of a Dorothy Stratton or a Frances Farmer. What makes them worthy of a $10m eulogy on film? Murder, madness, suicide - that's what stars are made of today.