Horowitz/Smith "Doppleganger" Definitely Portent of Bad Things to Come

Thank goodness the short film Doppleganger (written and directed by Michael Horowitz and co-directed by Gareth Smith) was only 14 minutes long. This supposed thriller was far from spooky or dreamlike. The entire film was just a big voice-over, except for rare snatches of dialog that would have sounded corny in a middle school play.

The idea of the dopplegänger, or sinister double (often a portent of bad luck in German folklore), has been done so many times in TV and film and been the title of so many movies, that I had trouble pegging down the stinker I wanted to review on IMDB. Does this mean playing with a character's other self is doomed to ridiculous cliché? Hardly. Since I've been mentioning the Buffyverse frequently in recent posts, I'll cite the BtVS episode, Doppelgängland, as an example of the fun that can be had with doppelgängers.

Wikipedia takes a look at a stock character related to the dopplegänger, the evil twin, and quite aptly explains that the evil twin retains the same fundamental characteristics of the original character, but the character's morality does a 180. So, in the episode "Doppelgängland," the sweet and gentle Willow becomes a bloodthirsty killer (she's still intelligent, stubborn, and quirky). This is a key element to why Horowitz and Smith's Doppelganger doesn't work: the doppelgänger convention requires that the audience is familiar with the original character. This means the convention is best employed in a serial television or comic series, and at the least requires a feature-length to establish the original character and his/her doppelgänger flipside. How can the doppelgänger's twisted personality resonate if we're unfamiliar with the original's quirks and characteristics? Horowitz/Smith attempt to shortcut this familiarity by telling us the original is a successful advertising exec with tons of money, a cool pad, and hot girlfriend. This is a stereotype, not a character, and the ad exec's doppelgänger is as predictably boring as he is.

I try to say something good about everything I review, so I'll say that actress Rebecca Gayheart, who turned out to be the actual protagonist in the painfully inept twist ending, was striking and would play well in a film that was actually thrilling or spooky.