10 Underappreciated 80s Thrillers You Must Watch
9. Looker
Looker is a tech-thriller written and directed by Michael Crichton and starring Albert Finney, Susan Dey and James Coburn. Finney plays a high-end plastic surgeon who has had several models come to him with very specific requests for surgery. Things like their nose being 0.2mm too narrow. When the models begin to die under suspicious circumstances he takes it upon himself to investigate and to protect one of his patients in the process. The root of the mystery concerns a shady company connected to the models named Digital Matrix who have been measuring their features to help them attain aesthetic perfection.
Looker is by no means the perfect movie but its premise is really interesting and more accurately prophetic in its prediction of media power over viewer behaviour than several other similar movies since. The final third gets quite far fetched with a number of overcooked action sequences but still remains a fast-paced and entertaining watch.
Albert Finney is the stand out in the movie and Crichton explores similar themes to those he introduced in Westworld. Overall it is a worthy, if slightly dated, watch.