FEBRUARY 26 & 27

No, she doesn’t star in all the parts, and yes, the images move. In artist Cindy Sherman’s first film, Office Killer, Carol Kane plays a mousy, 40ish copy editor at a magazine publishing house. Mistreated by her high-strung colleagues—vampish dragon lady Barbara Sukowa, helpful but ill-fated Jeanne Tripplehorn, and suspicious sexpot Molly Ringwald—lonely Dorine decides to do some downsizing of her own. The 80-minute comedic slasher flick won’t be mistaken for its less art-inspired brethren, but despite rising from the febrile brain of a notoriously solopsistic photographic talent, the film delivers movie as well as art goodies: suspense, thrills, and a macabre frisson. Still, Office Killer is all about heightened reality and deadened consciousness, where the unshowy visual dash in each frame and countless minuscule details reveal worlds of unsettling information. Save some grotesque twists for which, frankly, Sherman could easily provide the props, Office Killer’s story is standard stuff, but there’s freakish, evocative stylization—the strange, stilted speech; the drab, anonymous office; Kane’s eyebrows—lurking in every corner. Office Killer kicks off the Hirshhorn’s winter/spring run of onscreen indies, art documentaries, and children’s matinees at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden’s Ring Auditorium, 7th & Independence Ave. SW. FREE. (202) 357-2700. (Arion Berger)