Perfect Strangers

Today, I am continuing my spotlight on the career of notable b-movie writer/director Larry Cohen, who I interviewed earlier this year. Next up is 1984’s Perfect Strangers.

The plot of Perfect Strangers is summarized on IMDb as follows:

A hit-man tries to seduce the mother of a child who witnessed his most recent kill.

Perfect Strangers was both written and directed by Larry Cohen, and was released in the same year as another of his films, Special Effects. Perfect Strangers was Cohen’s follow-up directorial feature after the 1982 cult classic monster movie Q: The Winged Serpent.

The cast of Perfect Strangers includes Brad Rijn (Special Effects, A Return To Salem’s Lot), Anne Carlisle (Liquid Sky, Desperately Seeking Susan), Stephen Lack (Scanners, Dead Ringers), and Ann Magnuson (Small Soldiers, Glitter, Panic Room).

The cinematographer for the film was Paul Glickman, a frequent Larry Cohen collaborator who also shot The Stuff, Special Effects, God Told Me To, and See China And Die.

Perfect Strangers was edited by Armond Lebowitz, who also cut Larry Cohen’s films The Ambulance, Full Moon High, A Return To Salem’s Lot, Special Effects, The Stuff, and Q: The Winged Serpent.

Currently, Perfect Strangers has a 5.3/10 user rating on IMDb, from just over 230 submitted user reviews.

When I first heard about Perfect Strangers, I thought that the concept sounded pretty promising. The idea of a hitman needing to take out a child witness, and doing so by initiating a relationship with the mothers, creates an interesting atmosphere for tension. Unfortunately, this movie never really goes anywhere with that idea, and never feels much like a thriller or a romance.

The biggest issue with the movie is, surprisingly, the writing. Cohen has written some interesting and thoughtful screenplays, but this definitely isn’t one of them. I’m not sure if this was just rushed, but the characters don’t have any depth to them, and their dialogue and interactions all feel and look incredibly forced and unbelievable. Worse yet, there are a number of subplots that range from being uninteresting to being mind-warpingly ridiculous, like the presented local feminist action group members in that story who all behave like one-dimensional, man-hating caricatures written to life from the darker corners of the internet.

It doesn’t help that Cohen just doesn’t seem to have anything to say with this movie. His stronger stories have typically had roots in satirizing elements of culture, or understanding popular anxieties. Perfect Strangers comes off like the entire film was an excuse to rail against modern feminists and new-age mothering techniques, which he had mysterious personal vendettas against. The result is a straw man dressed up like a romantic thriller, and it shows.

Another huge problem with Perfect Strangers is the cinematography. The entire movie was filmed in pretty extreme soft focus, like it entirely takes place in a sitcom flashback or a shitty sex scene. I actually thought that something was wrong with the transfer, but apparently the movie was intended to be filmed in blur-o-vision. It is not only distracting, but it makes the entire movie look less rich and detailed, and almost supernatural. For a movie that should be grounded in a grim and gritty reality, the technique just doesn’t fit at all.

Last but not least, and I can’t emphasize this enough, Perfect Strangers has some of the most obnoxious, shitty child acting I have ever seen, which is particularly impressive because the child character is essentially a mute. I can’t totally blame this on the child, though: I’m pretty sure this was an inevitable outcome for casting a two year old. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Cohen didn’t write the kid as just a little bit older, so that they might have been able to find a child actor capable of pulling it off. The child could just be a mute or something, and the story could have worked almost exactly the same.

I’m pretty sure that Perfect Strangers is the worst Larry Cohen feature I have seen so far, but I still have a few left to get through before I’ve gotten through his primary filmography. I certainly can’t recommend it to anyone: this was a career misstep on Cohen’s part for sure if you ask me.