Pacific Heights

Like Fatal Attraction, this is a sort of horror thriller about encroachment on yuppie property and yuppie revenge for same; screenwriter Daniel Pyne and director John Schlesinger remove the misogyny, and occasionally muster some irony about the theme, but to little avail. Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine play an unmarried couple who purchase and restore a Victorian house in San Francisco and rent out a couple of apartments; their downstairs tenant, Michael Keaton, never pays rent or security, refuses to leave, and thanks to his exploitation of tenants’ rights, makes their life a living hell. Part of what keeps this from working is that Modine’s character is almost as obnoxious as Keaton’sGriffith proves to be the pluckiest member of the trioand matters are not improved by a lot of gratuitous camera movement and an especially lousy dream sequence. With Mako, Nobu McCarthy, Laurie Metcalf, Sheila McCarthy, and an almost unrecognizable Tippi Hedren. (JR)

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