Raising Cain

Having spent the latter half of the eighties trying out new styles of filmmaking; Wise Guys' knockabout comedy, The Untouchables' prestige gangster pic, Casualties of War's Vietnam movie and The Bonfire of the Vanities' satirical misfire Brian De Palma returned to what he knew best, the Hitchcockian psycho-thriller, for Raising Cain. John Lithgow plays three roles: child psychologist Carter, his evil twin brother Cain, and their Norwegian father, Dr Nix, who likes to experimental on the young. Carter's wife is concerned that her husband isn't quite paying their daughter the right kind of attention; she's also having an affair which, upon discovery, threatens to send him into a psychotic rage... A relentless blend of murder, multiple personalities, cross-dressing, crazed parents, bizarre dream sequences and stunning cinematic assurance, Raising Cain harks back to those twin masterpieces Psycho and Peeping Tom, but is pure unadulterated De Palma.