SPOILERS.
Men and women are different. Yes, I'm afraid it's true. Women like to talk about things, especially relationships. There are intrigues, exiles, confidantes, the sharing of secrets with best friends. Men like to do things. They compete for power, they define themselves by their actions, they are uncomfortable with self revelation or attempts at insight. That's why it's so neat when a man and a woman go out on a dinner date. They can both do what they enjoy doing. The woman can talk and the man can eat.
This is a woman's story -- all about secrets, victimization, and so forth. Sammi Davis, a name to conjure with, is a murderous blonde who offs her husbands on their wedding nights. Everyplace she goes, she seems to leave a string of corpses behind but nobody notices except Kelly Preston, whose brother Davis is about to marry. Kelly snoops and digs up evidence of Davis's past but of course no one believes her, especially not her family, so she begins sounding like someone who is a few clowns short of a circus. In the end everyone comes to their senses and realizes how right she was all along, of course, because this is a woman's fantasy. I don't think we ever find out what the prospective bride groom does for a living. (Working is behaving, not talking.) The ending turns into a routine slasher thing with Davis pursuing Preston through the house with a butcher knife. Preston hides in the attic. The potential victim must always hide from the murderer either in a dark attic or a dark cellar. That's from Section 12B-1 of the screenwriter's code.
The acting. Absolutely awful. Not one believable word is uttered on screen. It's barely a notch above what we find in skin flicks, or what I prefer to call "cinema erotique." (Sorry, I can't find the accents for those "e"s.) Sammi Davis is execrable, but then they all are, from the talent all the way on down to the lowest atmosphere person. John Agar, as the semi-senile "Gramps," is SO bad he's actually funny.
Kelly Preston is good-looking in an ordinary way. Sammi Davis, however, has a memorable face, a strangely vulpine set of features, big jaw, broad nose, crossed eyes. It's really too bad she can't act because her looks have character that her voice lacks.
I guess I won't go on about this. I sat through it fascinated because I needed to know if it was as shallow as it all seemed to be. It was like rubbernecking at a highway accident full of twisted metal and body parts. Sammi Davis is even given a ten-cent motive for all those killings. (We see several flashbacks leading up to this revelation.) Her mother, deserted by her father, slits her own wrists and dies on the bathroom floor, but not before telling Sammi -- "Don't ever let any man do to you what your father did to me."
If you think you might enjoy seeing a well-done version of this story, one that's better in every respect, and not just because of higher production values, see "Black Widow." It's a movie in which we never do find out why Theresa Russell kills all her mates, because such an explanation is impossible. Outside of comic books, anyway.
Men and women are different. Yes, I'm afraid it's true. Women like to talk about things, especially relationships. There are intrigues, exiles, confidantes, the sharing of secrets with best friends. Men like to do things. They compete for power, they define themselves by their actions, they are uncomfortable with self revelation or attempts at insight. That's why it's so neat when a man and a woman go out on a dinner date. They can both do what they enjoy doing. The woman can talk and the man can eat.
This is a woman's story -- all about secrets, victimization, and so forth. Sammi Davis, a name to conjure with, is a murderous blonde who offs her husbands on their wedding nights. Everyplace she goes, she seems to leave a string of corpses behind but nobody notices except Kelly Preston, whose brother Davis is about to marry. Kelly snoops and digs up evidence of Davis's past but of course no one believes her, especially not her family, so she begins sounding like someone who is a few clowns short of a circus. In the end everyone comes to their senses and realizes how right she was all along, of course, because this is a woman's fantasy. I don't think we ever find out what the prospective bride groom does for a living. (Working is behaving, not talking.) The ending turns into a routine slasher thing with Davis pursuing Preston through the house with a butcher knife. Preston hides in the attic. The potential victim must always hide from the murderer either in a dark attic or a dark cellar. That's from Section 12B-1 of the screenwriter's code.
The acting. Absolutely awful. Not one believable word is uttered on screen. It's barely a notch above what we find in skin flicks, or what I prefer to call "cinema erotique." (Sorry, I can't find the accents for those "e"s.) Sammi Davis is execrable, but then they all are, from the talent all the way on down to the lowest atmosphere person. John Agar, as the semi-senile "Gramps," is SO bad he's actually funny.
Kelly Preston is good-looking in an ordinary way. Sammi Davis, however, has a memorable face, a strangely vulpine set of features, big jaw, broad nose, crossed eyes. It's really too bad she can't act because her looks have character that her voice lacks.
I guess I won't go on about this. I sat through it fascinated because I needed to know if it was as shallow as it all seemed to be. It was like rubbernecking at a highway accident full of twisted metal and body parts. Sammi Davis is even given a ten-cent motive for all those killings. (We see several flashbacks leading up to this revelation.) Her mother, deserted by her father, slits her own wrists and dies on the bathroom floor, but not before telling Sammi -- "Don't ever let any man do to you what your father did to me."
If you think you might enjoy seeing a well-done version of this story, one that's better in every respect, and not just because of higher production values, see "Black Widow." It's a movie in which we never do find out why Theresa Russell kills all her mates, because such an explanation is impossible. Outside of comic books, anyway.