Though she’s not often thought of as a horror actor, let alone a scream queen, Carol Kane has been in some celebrated horror movies. She is iconic, though perhaps not also remembered, as the baby-sitter in When A Stranger Calls (1979), the film that launched a thousand homages and jokes based on, “Have you checked the children?” and “The call is coming from inside the house.” Kane seethes with an infantile malevolence in The Mafu Cage (1978) as Cissy, a woman who is obsessed with her sister (Lee Grant) and brutalizes primates. And as for her horror adjacent movies, She’s quirky, violent, frightening, and right in Scrooged (1988). But the film I want to focus on is a lesser known horror movie, Cindy Sherman’s genre-bending, neo-noir office horror comedy, Office Killer (1997).
In Office Killer, Carol Kane plays Dorine Douglas, a copy editor at Constant Consumer Magazine. She is not the victim of a stalker’s cruel game, though she has been victimized by her family and her co-workers. She does not display the terrifying rage that Cissy does in The Mafu Cage, though there is something definitely roiling beneath her studiously calm surface. Her co-workers regard her as mousy, strange, but a hard worker who is quiet and takes care of her disabled mother at home. The magazine’s publisher, Barbara Sukowa as a magnificently Ariana Huffington-ish Virginia, is downsizing and sends magazine executive Nora (Jeanne Tripplehorn) to announce the cuts. Workers are not being laid off completely, yet, but they have been moved to part time. Some of that part time is now at home. The employees are being trained on luggable laptops, email and fax machines. Unknowingly, Virginia is making it easier for murders to go unnoticed at the office.
At work, Dorine tries to fit in, but she doesn’t. She wears her hair in earlike and Björk-like little buns on top of her head. Initially mouse-like but, perhaps, in retrospect, cat-like. She can never quite apply her eyebrow pencil correctly. I love that it’s her skewed and flaring eyebrows and not smudged or over-applied lipstick that indicates something is wrong in the ‘ tradition of ill-applied makeup as a sign of instability among ladies. Instead she focuses on being meticulous, dependable and good at her work. She wants to focus on her edits and be left alone. But Dorine is mocked, badmouthed and dismissed by the office mean girl, Kim Poole (Molly Ringwald), resplendent in 1990s alternative-influenced office wear, and staff writer Gary Michaels (David Thornton), who has the perfect Nineties player hair. Kim and Gary are having a mean couple affair. One night when both Gary and Dorine are working late, Dorine asks Gary for help with her new computer and accidentally electrocutes him. After this accident, Dorine discovers a whole new path to personal and professional development and an improved, for her at least, social life. Kim suspects Dorine, but her disdain and nastiness about Dorine means that no one believes her. Dorine is defended by everyone in the office against Kim’s accusations. After 16 years at the magazine, Dorine is flourishing.
Dorine shares her home with her disabled mother (Alice Drummond) and memories of her father ( an excellently skeevy Eric Bogosian). As she tells the audience in voice over narration: “You may think that once dead people are dead that is the end of them. Not so. They leave memories, which are very much like dead people living inside of you.” Dorine doesn’t want to spend time with her dad or even her mom so much anymore, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t spend time with dead people. While they are messy physically, that is something that can be tidied up with air freshener, disinfectant spray and tape. The dead are less emotionally messy for Dorine now that she is ready to build a life for herself. Dorine is ready to be independent on her own terms and the dead do what she wants.
Dorine is unusual for a female villain–quiet, and meticulous about her work. And if you are on her side, she is an even more unusual antihero. She is not motivated by romantic jealousy or complex maternal feelings. She glimpses a better life for herself, one she has always wanted, and she has decided to make it happen. Sure, she has a lot of anger that she has had to repress to be a good daughter and get along with her co-workers, but what woman doesn’t? Kane doesn’t use the shouty, terrifying rage and violence that she has used in both straight horror (The Mafu Cage) and comedy (Scrooged). Instead, there is something increasingly clearly wrong with Dorine as she finds her new circumstances murderously and technologically liberating. In Office Killer, Dorine is confrontation averse and reclusive. She quietly and efficiently goes about the business of murder. She is committed to doing what it takes to get the life she wants.
The opening credits are gorgeous and gorgeously scored–using the printing process and the sounds of late 1990s office work. Office Killer is an eminently 1990s film not only in its cast, its fashions or its technology—luggable laptops, emails, fax machines, and wireless telephone handsets all play a vital role in Dorine’s plot. It reflects sensibilities, economic and technological realities, fashion, and even the kinds of genre films being made at the time. The downsizing that began in the 1980s is still actively happening in the offices of Constant Consumer Magazine. The 1990s were also a time when smaller independent studios and large studio imprints gave filmmakers the freedom to explore and experiment with genres. Office Killer has elements not only of black comedy and horror, but of classic noir, not only the shadows or the portrait of a seemingly good person going bad, but some of the bleakness of film noir. The film also has elements of 1950s and 1960s bad girl exploitation portraits of women gone bad. I love that the film uses the old film and television convention of a woman’s increasing imbalance revealed by her poor application of make-up. But in the end, when Dorine’s transformation is complete, her make-up, including her eyebrow application, is perfect.
Office Killer is photographer Cindy Sherman’s first film and, as far as I know, her only film. Sherman is a photographer and was most famous in 1997 for her “Untitled Film Still” series, comprising roughly 70 photographs taken between 1977 and 1980. In these photos, Sherman posed as a variety of different actresses in stills from fictional films. More recently Sherman has released a series where she poses as grand dames of film. I am not sure what film critics were expecting from Cindy Sherman’s first film, but from the reviews it wasn’t an office horror comedy. Given the harsh reviews it received in 1997, I can see why Sherman walked away from making movies, but I think it is unfortunate for the rest of us. I think its reputation suffered I think from not being arty enough for people who had come to see a Cindy Sherman film—despite the clear interest in genre film in her photographs—and a little too strange for everyone else. It was not quite horror enough for horror fans. It was too gruesome and broad for audiences who came for the comedy and noir elements. It was too dry and low key for the people who came for the comedy and exploitation elements. In some ways, I think Office Space was a little too early to find its audience. It predates both Office Space (1999) and American Psycho (2000), the film if not the book, but also kind of prefigures it. Office Killer doesn’t have the triumphant feel of 9 To 5 (1980), but gorier and more focused on Dorine’s reinvention than the transformation of a workplace. The film satirizes 1990s work practices and economic realities and plays with the forms of classic film. Office Killer might have done better if it were released later in the 1990s or early 2000s. For me, with my eyebrows strangely crawling around my forehead and my hair in earlike buns, Office Killer is a delight.
Carol Borden is an editor at and evil overlord of The Cultural Gutter, a website dedicated to thoughtful writing about disreputable art. Her writing is also found at Monstrous Industry. She’s written a bunch of short stories including Godzilla detective fiction, femme fatale mermaids, an adventurous translator/poet, and an x-ray tech having a bad day. You can find them here.
