Never Talk to Strangers
This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary. (December 2015) |
Never Talk to Strangers | |
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Directed by | Peter Hall |
Written by | Lewis Green Jordan Rush |
Produced by | Andras Hamori Jeffrey R. Neuman Martin J. Wiley Rebecca De Mornay Robert Lantos Barbet Schroeder |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Elemér Ragályi |
Edited by | Roberto Silvi |
Music by | Pino Donaggio Steve Sexton |
Production company | |
Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 86 minutes |
Countries | United States Canada Germany |
Language | English |
Budget | $6.4 million |
Box office | $6,858,261[1] |
Never Talk to Strangers is a 1995 American thriller film directed by Peter Hall and starring Antonio Banderas and Rebecca De Mornay.
Plot
Psychologist Dr. Sarah Taylor (Rebecca De Mornay) is a guarded, aloof criminal psychologist who interviews a client who is a rapist, and is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. It is later revealed that she was the subject of daily rapes as a child by her estranged father, who is now shown to be very ill. Sarah meets Tony Ramirez (Antonio Banderas) in a shopping mall, and she gives him her number. She begins a relationship with Tony, despite the creepy advances of her neighbor, Cliff (Dennis Miller), with whom she once had a one-night stand.
Days into this new relationship, Sarah begins to get death threats and strange gifts, such as dead flowers. As she gets more romantic with Tony, the gifts get more extreme. Her lifelong cat is dismembered, at which point Sarah goes to the police. Sarah then hires a detective and has Tony followed, and breaks into his apartment only to discover that he has a file on her, including information about her mother's death in a car accident, twenty years before. Tony is actually investigating her, trying to learn the whereabouts of a former boyfriend of hers who had disappeared suddenly.
Ultimately, it is revealed that Sarah suffers from multiple personality disorder, brought about from her abuse as a child, and from her father brainwashing her to cover up the murder of her mother. Her alternate personality is responsible for all of the strange gifts, and for murdering her ex-boyfriend. When Tony goes to her father's house, Sarah (under the control of her alternate personality) follows him, shoots and kills him there, and then kills her father when he tries to intervene. When Sarah reverts to her normal personality, not remembering what has happened, she presumes that Tony was crazy and killed her father, and that she killed Tony in self-defense. In the end, she is seen entering into a relationship with Cliff.
Cast
- Rebecca De Mornay as Dr. Sarah Taylor
- Antonio Banderas as Tony Ramirez
- Dennis Miller as Cliff Raddison
- Len Cariou as Henry Taylor
- Harry Dean Stanton as Max Cheski
- Eugene Lipinski as Dudakoff
- Martha Burns as Maura
- Beau Starr as Grogan
- Phillip Jarrett as Spatz
- Tim Kelleher as Wabash
Reception
Never Talk to Strangers received negative reviews, holding only 15% on Rotten Tomatoes.[2]
Soundtrack
The film features "Love Sick" performed by Alfonzo Blackwell.
References
External links
- 1995 films
- 1990s crime films
- 1990s independent films
- 1990s mystery films
- 1990s psychological thriller films
- 1990s romance films
- American films
- American crime films
- American mystery films
- American romance films
- American thriller films
- Canadian films
- Canadian thriller films
- Dissociative identity disorder in fiction
- German films
- German crime films
- German thriller films
- English-language films
- Erotic romance films
- Erotic thriller films
- Films shot in Budapest
- Films shot in Toronto
- American independent films
- Neo-noir
- Serial killer films
- TriStar Pictures films
- Canadian independent films
- German independent films
- Films produced by Barbet Schroeder