Don't know what I can say about this one
other than it's a complete utter mess that's hard to make sense of this oddity. It's like the curiosity of a car crash, as you simply can't take your eyes of the damage. Cult Director / writer Larry Cohen's "Wicked Stepmother" does look well produced (a budget over 2 million) until we get to some really cheap, kitschy special effects (fluoro lighting) that flooded the back-end of the feature. Technically its sound, up to that point. But this production while heavy-handed and campy, really had trouble with a lot going on behind the scenes namely with star billing actress Bette Davis, where she would eventually walk out of the presentation. Her character turned everything upside on the screen and also behind it. This left the filmmakers trying to fill in the gaps by reworking the story (witchcraft, the occult and game shows) and by the end product it truly shows it's made on the spot feel. Many random occurrences, incoherent story threads and bemusing performances. It wasn't as bad as I last remembered it and I remained entertained (always keep a look for movie references), but there's no doubting it's a chaotic shamble. Even if for the wrong reasons at least it was an amusing shamble. There's quite an interesting cast to boot as well; Colleen Camp goes about things in animated fashion, Barbara Carrera manipulative steams it up as Davis' replacement (yep that's right --- also lets not forget the smoking cat), David Rasche, Tom Bosley shows up as an open-minded detective, Richard Moll is diverting as a bumbling private eye and in minor, but key cameo roles are Evelyn Keyes and Seymor Cassel. Cohen regulars Laurene Landon and James Dixon also have small parts. Not particularly humorous (well laugh out loud) and the pacing makes it feel much longer than it actually is. Don't know if would have been much better, still would have been interesting see to how it was originally intended to be, but this silly comic outing remains a disjointed, witless comedy of mayhem and errors
Review of Wicked Stepmother
