Looker

Looker is a 1981 American science fiction film written and directed by Michael Crichton and starring Albert Finney, Susan Dey, and James Coburn. It follows a series of mysterious deaths plaguing the female models who have undergone cosmetic surgery from a renowned Los Angeles physician. The film is a suspense/science-fiction piece that comments upon and satirizes media, advertising, television's effects on the populace, and a ridiculous standard of beauty. Though sparse in visual effects, the film is the first commercial film to attempt to make a computer-generated, three-dimensional, solid-looking model of a whole human body. However, as with its predecessors Futureworld, Star Wars, and Alien, this was an example of "CGI representing CGI", and only depicted on CRT screens in the film, rather than being used as a special effect. The model had no skeletal or facial movements and was not a character. Looker was also the first film to create three-dimensional (3D) shading with a computer, months before the release of the better-known Tron. Plot Dr. Larry Roberts, a renowned Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, performs cosmetic procedures on a clientele mainly consisting of female television models. Lisa Convey, one of his patients, falls into a trance state in her apartment after being exposed to a flash of light, unaware of the presence of an unknown male assailant lurking in her closet. She falls from her balcony moments later in what is suspected by police to be a suicide. Lieutenant Masters questions Roberts at his office, where his secretary finds that several medical records—including Lisa's—have mysteriously vanished. After Masters departs, patient Cindy Fairmont visits for a final followup appointment, followed by Tina Cassidy. A disturbed Tina begs Roberts to return her to her pre-surgery appearance, claiming that the "perfect" models in the city are being murdered. After Tina departs, she leaves behind her purse, which contains a document from a corporation named Digital Matrix Inc. (DMI). When Roberts attempts to return the purse to Tina, he sees a flash of light in her apartment window, and she too falls to her death. Roberts sees a strange moustached man on her balcony, but he disappears.