Doppelganger: The Evil Within

Stars: Drew Barrymore (Poison Ivy, Guncrazy, The Amy Fisher Story), George Newbern (Father of the Bride), Dennis Christopher (Breaking Away), Sally Kellerman (Boris & Natasha). There is apparently a critical contingent out there who honestly believe that Drew Barrymore's acting abilities have improved since E.T., but I've yet to see any strong evidence to support this notion. Doppelganger certainly doesn't provide any. Here, Barrymore combines both of the roles she's played to date: cherubic moppet (E.T.) and violent teen sex kitten (everything else), as Holly Gooding, a basically good Big Apple girl who's suspected of airing out her mother with a butcher knife. Fleeing to L.A., Holly moves in with the worst of all possible roommates: a struggling screenwriter named Patrick Highsmith (George Newbern), which means that the audience is forced to endure oodles of self-referential movie biz talk, all of which is only slightly less tedious than embarking on a belly-button lint expedition. After Holly jumps Patrick's bones on the kitchen floor one evening, she tells him the following morning that he slept with her "doppelganger," or evil twin (something the audience has known from the get). An inheritance angle worms its way in when its revealed that if Holly's mental-hospital-bed-bound brother should croak, she stands to gain big bucks. Naturally, there are a couple of attempts on the brother's life, and Holly is the prime suspect. All that remains is for the film to break a few common laws of physics (like the one that says matter can't be in two places at the same time) before lurching into its go-for-broke ending. In the true spirit of the mess they've made so far, the filmmakers provide a conventional and a supernatural ending at the same time, neither of which make a wisp of sense. Audience: Barrymore fans and desperate horror junkies. [DVD Review--Feb. 11, 2003--Artisan, 104 min., R, $14.98. For what it's worth, Doppelganger makes its debut on DVD nearly a decade after its original video premiere, and while Drew Barrymore has gone on to bigger and better things (excepting, of course, Tom Green), the film is just as lame. Sporting a decent transfer with some soft and grainy images, the disc includes only one forgettable extra--a photo gallery. Bottom line: As we said 10 years ago, for Barrymore fans and desperate horror junkies only.]