Double Negative (1980) User Reviews

Major Disappointment

[cfc_can · 3/10 · 28 November 2000]

With a cast like this, I expected great things but Double Negative is a disappointment at best and a lousy thriller at worst. The film simply does not make sense even after seeing it twice. It's about a writer (Michael Sarrazin) trying to figure out the facts behind the death of his wife. Susan Clark plays his lover and Anthiony Perkins plays a mysterious man who connects the two of them. Actually, Perkins is probably the most interesting part of the film, which is not a difficult task. Some SCTV faces pop up for about a split second and the finale fails to clear up several questions. Double Negative has some great shots of Toronto in winter.

Could have been a TV movie.

[gridoon · 4/10 · 16 January 2004]

Michael Sarrazin is the journalist who can't remember anything about the night he found his wife raped and murdered on their bed; Susan Clark is his devoted girlfriend, who tries to help him piece the events together. Sounds good, but actually it's a muddled, visually unattractive thriller, with a predictable resolution. Anthony Perkins is fairly amusing as a kinky blackmailer. (*1/2)

Negative is right.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 1 November 2021]

A truly boring thriller about a man with a wife and girlfriend who finds out that the wife is dead. Murdered. He has no memory of where he's been. Michael Sarrazin is a handsome actor but he seems bored by the part. Susan Clark is the girlfriend, in a hairstyle similar to Glenn Close's in "Fatal Attraction". Anthony Perkins, Howard Duff and some of the SCTV cast members costar, all dealing with a convoluted script that is curvier than a mountain road. This is the perfect solution for insomnia. Quite a disappointment for a thriller that is a few years ahead of its time. The execution of the plot is what destroys it as is the obvious belief that the writers were being intelligent.

Yawn...

[sgt619-1 · 2/10 · 2 December 2002]

This murder/mystery makes little sense. Its a pity that an actor of Perkin's caliber got stuck in roles like this. Note John Candy's short appearence early on. I say go see it, if you don't fall asleep before it ends, then at least you can say you saw it!

Snoozy Canadian Thriller

[Lebowskidoo · 7/10 · 23 June 2019]

On paper it sounds great, with Anthony Perkins as a baddie involved in an unsolved murder, but drifts aimlessly most of the time.

Perkins is great though, easily the best thing about this movie. There are a few attempts to recreate Hitchcockian camera angles involving Perkins that I liked.

Apparently the SCTV studios doubled as the casting offices for this movie, the following all have tiny roles: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty.