Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver) is a criminal psychologist and an expert in serial killers. Since being attacked and almost murdered by convicted serial killer Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr.) she has also become a pill popping, alcoholic, agoraphobic who hasn’t left her fancy penthouse in a year. She depends on her live-in aide, Andy (John Rothman) to provide anything she needs.
Soon there are several gruesome murders happening in the San Francisco area. Three women have been tortured and strangled. There are stirrings in the press about a serial killer. Detectives MJ Monahan (Holly Hunter) and Ruben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney) are assigned to the investigation. Helen reads about the murders in the paper. She calls the police to give them an insight to the killer’s psyche but is dismissed as a crank, until they learn who the caller is.
Against advice from her boss, Lt. Quinn (J.E. Freeman), MJ contacts Helen. At first Helen refuses to help, but eventually she can’t help being sucked into the mind of another deviant. She reviews the photos of the murders and confers with MJ and Ruben about her findings. Helen tells them that they are in fact hunting a serial killer and that the killer is copying the murders of Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler. Shortly after that Helen is contacted by the serial killer.
When another murder happens the MO is different from the first three victims. Helen realizes that it is the same killer, but this time he is copying the crimes of team killers, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, the Hillside Stranglers. The next murder mimics the murders committed by David Berkowitz as The Son of Sam.
Helen’s apartment is invaded by the killer who seems to be playing a cat and mouse game by copying the MOs of serial killers mentioned in Helen’s last lecture before she was attacked by Cullum. Then a copy of Helen’s book on Cullum, and autographed by Cullum, is found in her bed. Inside the book, covered in ants, is the severed finger of a victim. The police now realize that Helen is on the list of people designated to be murdered by the copycat.
“Copycat” was released in 1995 and was directed by Jon Amiel. It is an American psychological thriller with horror aspects.
The film didn’t do as well as it should have at the box office. It seems to have gotten lost in the mix of other films released in 1995 such as “Se7en”, “The Usual Suspects”, and “Heat”. That’s a shame since it was a really good film. It did do a lot better on home release.
I had seen this film on either VHS or DVD, can’t remember which. This was the first film where I saw Harry Connick Jr. act. Previously I had only seen him sing. I was quite impressed with his performance. I was also intrigued by the idea of having both leads in the film female. Both Weaver and Hunter give strong performances, Hunter as a smart and capable professional and Weaver as a damaged but intelligent psychologist who knows she is flawed but her desire to know what makes people evil propels her into worlds that try to crush her. It results in the two women having a grudging respect for each other and adds dimension to their characters. The only character that wasn’t fully fleshed out was the killer, which was OK with me. There’s a lot of ways to make a monster, none of them good, and none of them acceptable.