The Office Bait Climax (Dressed to Kill) Dressed to Kill

Protagonist	Liz Blake
Mission	Bypass the institutions — use herself as bait inside the asymmetric trap.
Runtime	104m
Climax	beat 32 · 87m · 84% into film
Wind-down	beats 33–40 · 87m–104m · 17m long
Resolution type	validation

The climax

Liz returns from the bathroom to find Elliott's chair empty.^b32 She calls his name three times, lets out a nervous laugh, and Peter pounds on the window from outside — too late, separated by glass. The blonde appears behind her with the razor raised.^b32 The post-midpoint approach is at its absolute limit: Liz has nothing in her hand, no exit, no leverage. The "use yourself as bait" test reaches the moment where bait is what you actually are. The trap she set — body in the office, Peter at the window, the appointment book waiting to be lifted — has caught the killer at the cost of her own immediate position.

The wind-down differs because

Detective Betty Luce's bullet at b33 finishes what Liz's tools could not — institutional surveillance Liz did not know was in place arrives as the rescue she did not choose.^b33 The wig falls; the psychiatrist is the killer. Levy delivers the diagnosis,^b34 Marino confesses he conscripted her,^b35 Peter retreats to his computer.^b36 The shower nightmare at b37–b38 transposes Kate's elevator murder into Liz's body and wakes her screaming in Peter's guest bed.^{b39 b40} Diagnostic: the office tested whether the asymmetric approach could trap the killer (it did, at the cost of Liz's safety); the institution arrives with the rescue, the diagnosis processes the case, and the trauma persists into a surrogate-family arrangement. The 17-minute wind-down is unusually long because the film insists on showing what the case-resolution did not solve.

Why this is a validation climax

Liz's post-midpoint approach is built across the falling action: Peter's photographs identify the blonde as Elliott's last appointment;^b26 Peter scouts the office layout as a grieving patient;^b27 Liz fabricates the therapy session.^b29 By the time she undresses in front of Elliott^b31 the asymmetric trap is fully operationalized — body as bait, bathroom as Peter's window, arousal as the trigger. The climax tests an already-built configuration at maximum stakes; the test produces the killer's exposure. Validation, with the asterisk that the protagonist needed institutional backup to survive the bait she set — which is why the Plot Structure flags the better-tools-insufficient overtone, even though the mission (trap the killer) is met.