Copycat movie storyline. In San Francisco, the criminal psychologist Helen Hudson is specialized in serial-killers. During a trial, the accused Daryll Lee Cullum kills a police officer and tries to kill her and she becomes agoraphobic. Now Helen lives a reclusive life with her gay friend Andy that helps her.
Sometime later, there is a wave of crimes and Detectives M.J. Monahan and Reuben Goetz are investigating the murder cases. Helen identifies that the murderer is copycatting notorious serial-killers and she anonymously contacts the Police Department. After fourteen phone calls, she is identified by the police. Detectives M.J. and Reuben visit her and Helen teams up with them and prepares the profile of the killer that wants to be famous. But soon the copycat killer Peter Foley contacts and stalks Helen and M.J. and Reuben give protection to her. Will they be capable to stop Foley before the next murder?
Copycat is a 1995 American psychological thriller directed by Jon Amiel and starring Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, William McNamara, Will Patton, John Rothman, J. E. Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., Will Patton and Shannon O’Hurley. The score was composed by Christopher Young.
About the Story
After giving a guest lecture on criminal psychology at a local university, Dr Helen Hudson (Weaver), a respected field expert on serial killers, is cornered in a lavatory by one of her previous subjects, Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick, Jr.), who kills a police officer and brutally attacks her. Helen becomes severely agoraphobic as a result, sealing herself inside an expensive hi-tech apartment, conducting her entire life from behind a computer screen and assisted by a friend, Andy (John Rothman).
When a new series of murders spreads fear and panic across her home city of San Francisco, Inspector M.J. Monahan (Hunter) and her partner Reuben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney) solicit Helen’s expertise. Initially reluctant, Helen soon finds herself drawn into the warped perpetrator’s game of wits. As the murders continue, Helen realizes that the elusive assailant draws inspiration from notorious serial killers, including Albert DeSalvo, The Hillside Strangler, David Berkowitz, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Ted Bundy. When the murderer begins contacting and even stalking Helen, she and M.J. realize that he is after them, and they enlist the aid of Cullum, who tells them what he knows about the killer.
Helen soon realizes that the Copycat Killer has been following the list of serial killers in the same order as she had presented them in her lecture at the university on the night of her attack, and the two work to figure out where and when he will strike next. Unfortunately, Reuben is later killed in an unrelated shooting incident at the police station, leaving only M.J. now heartbroken that she never got to tell Reuben she loved him to continue the search for the serial killer.
After Andy is killed in a manner reminiscent of Jeffrey Dahmer, M.J. deduces the killer to be Peter Foley (William McNamara). After leading a failed attempt to catch Foley at his house, M.J. discovers that he has kidnapped Helen and taken her back to the scene of Daryll Lee’s attempt at killing her—the restroom of the lecture hall. Once she gets there, M.J. finds Helen bound and gagged in the same manner that Cullum did before, but she is ambushed and shot by Foley, rendering her unconscious. As Foley prepares to kill M.J., Helen desperately attempts to save her by ruining Foley’s carefully replicated crime scene the only way she can—by attempting to hang herself.
Copycat (1995)
Directed by: Jon Amiel
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, William McNamara, Will Patton, John Rothman, J. E. Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., Will Patton, Shannon O’Hurley
Screenplay by: Ann Biderman, David Madsen
Production Design by: Jim Clay
Cinematography by: László Kovács
Film Editing by: Jim Clark
Costume Design by: Claudia Brown
Set Decoration by: Catherine Davis
Art Direction by: Chris Seagers
Music by: Christopher Young
MPAA Rating: R for violence and language.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 27, 1995
Hits: 285
