10 Great Yuppie Horror Movies
6. Bright Lights, Big City
Jay MacInernay's novel was championed by his mentor, none other than the great Raymond Carver. It, like the script MacInernay wrote himself, is told in second person, following young urbanite Jamie Conway (itself an anagram for the author, who scripted) as he deals with a severe cocaine addiction, his mother's death and his super-model wife (Phoebe Cates) suddenly leaving him.
He spends his nights partying at high-end clubs with his coke-fiend friend Tad (Kiefer Sutherland) and days screwing up his job as a fact-checker at a New Yorker-esque magazine. But we haven't addressed the elephant in the room, yet:
It's Michael J. Fox - post-Back To The Future trying to rid himself of Marty McFly and be a serious actor rather than a typecast wunderkind. And frankly, he nails it. This underseen gem really gets in his head, with a brilliant supporting cast including William Hickey and an uncredited Jason Robards.
To call it a horror film might be a stretch unless you include nightmares about a coma baby and Reaganomics a nightmare unto itself, which isn't that far from reality. It's American Psycho in real-time.