Friday the 13th: The Series (TV Series) Double Exposure (1988) User Reviews

Picture this

[allexand · 8/10 · 29 October 2009]

A desperate newscaster uses the negatives from a cursed camera to create dopplegangers which he sends out to kill people. He then has the killer contact him in the middle of his newscast, giving him the perfect alibi while boosting his ratings. After Ryan witnesses one of the killings, the Curious Goods gang must figure out how he is able to seemingly be in two places at once...

"Double Exposure" is a really good episode. Sure, the curse may seem a little outrageous, but it is pretty well-written and moves at a good enough pace to keep you interested in what's going on. The special effects are easily the highlight of this episode. The creation of the dopplegangers is quite creepy looking.

There a few nitpicks I had with this episode. While one would think that each doppleganger is a separate being at one point one of them asks Winston Knight why he keeps destroying him, indicating that the doppleganger had memories of his past "lives." I couldn't help but feel that Catherine Disher, the woman who plays Ryan's doomed girlfriend, was not a very good choice as they didn't seem to have much chemistry. Jack is also subdued by Winston Knight a little too easily.

The final issue would be with a minor plot hole left by the ending. Even though we're told that the negative must be destroyed within a period of time or the real person disappears instead of the doppleganger, we never see the negative for Jack's doppleganger get destroyed. Since Winston created it with the intent to kill Micki and Ryan and frame Jack, I would think he would have probably hid it somewhere secret. After both Winstons die, the real Jack is fine, his doppleganger is gone and it's never explained how the negative was recovered.

"The Quilt of Hathor" would be a hard act to follow, but "Double Exposure" easily rises to the occasion and manages to continue the show's hot streak.

Where the Show Finally Started to Hit Its Stride

[Gislef · 9/10 · 19 September 2020]

"Double Exposure" gives us the first really imaginative antique. Winston uses it not just to kill people, but to set up his reputation as a crusading news anchor. There's also some variety in what the camera does: it just doesn't just kill people and hand over money, but creates something that then has to be used in a fairly innovative way. Winston has to put some thought into using the antique camera to further his career.

There are some awkward patches. The timing of this episode immediately after "The Quilt of Hathor" makes Ryan seem like somewhat of a cad, jumping from Laura to Cathy in record time. While Gary Frank is good as the plastic-faced news anchor, his overly-dramatic performance (laughing and clapping his hands to his cheeks) as he creates the doppelganger is kinda weird. It's a chemical doppelganger, dude, not a sext.

Also, one wonders at the level of research that says the negative must be destroyed in five hours. Not six, or four. But precisely five hours. And both Jack and Winston found that info. Later they gaslit Winston's knowledge by saying Lewis must have told him. Is there some five-hour association with Satan that I've missed, that he has 5 hours written into his contracts?

Catherine Disher is okay. She's no Carolyn Dunn, but then neither is Carolyn Dunn. Disher does what she can do as the "girlfriend of the week" to Ryan. It's an upstream swim, but she gives it her all and they do make a cute couple. Cathy seems more Ryan's type than Laura did.

There's a lot of cleverness going on here, like the initial career-enhancing scheme. And then Winston using the camera to make a doppelganger of Jack to get the camera back. This is the kind of cleverness we saw with later antiques.

Even Ryan picking up on the Jack doppelganger's slip about not breaking the antique is a little bit of cleverness.

There's a lot of little bits of cleverness like that. Like the secondary theme of photos, and Ryan mooning over the photo of him and Cathy. The televised images of Winston. And Gary Frank manages to convey just the right amount of plastic-faced swarminess as a news anchor. It helps that he looks a lot like William Atherton doing something similar in 'Die Hard' and the sequel.

Overall, I'd say "Double Exposure" is one of the best episodes of the season. It has some strong competition, but it also has a lot of weak competition. It's a prelude to the better episodes of season 2, when the show was really clicking on all cylinders.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?

Good episode

[mattkratz · 8/10 · 31 December 2019]

I liked this episode-about an anchorman using a cursed camera to create a duplicate of himself to be a "machete murderer" and have an air tight alibi (being on air) in the process. I loved the way the duplicates were created and were given a short lifespan and had to be destroyed-or else he would be. He used it to get high ratings. The showdown at the store at the end was classic, and it was overall a good episode.

*** out of *****

The Cursed Camera

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 31 March 2024]

The television anchor Winston Knight uses an ancient camera to take a picture of himself and develops the photography in a dark room. A doppelganger of Winston appears, receives some instructions, and leaves Winston. Ryan and his girlfriend Cathy Steiner are in a date, and Ryan leaves her at her apartment. He sees Winston's doppelganger killing a woman in the alley and recognizes Winston the serial-killer "The Machete Murderer". Ryan calls the police, but Detective Duncan does not trust him since Winston Knight was presenting the news at the television in the moment of the killing. Ryan goes with Cathy to visit Winston, and the Machete Murderer kills Cathy. Jack finds that Lewis sold the camera to KKHN Tv Station and Winston worked at KKHN. They also learn that if Winston does not destroy the negative in less than five hours to destroy the doppelganger, he will be destroyed. Now they want to retrieve the cursed camera.

"Double Exposure" is a slasher of "Friday the 13th: The Series". In this episode, Ryan has forgotten Laura and now is in love with Cathy Steiner, who is murdered by a serial-killer that uses a machete to murder his victims. But the murderer is a doppelganger of the famous television anchor Winston Knight. The problem is to prove that he is responsible for the deaths since he is live at television when the murders happen. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Dupla Exposição" ("Double Exposure")