Diabolique (1996)

If I should described this movie in one sentence - Watchable, but completely unnecessary. I decided to watch this remake, because original movie is one of my favorites. I expected a lot more. Let's concentrate on acting - in original movie Vera Clouzot was the one that bought me, her terrified look on face and tension through whole movie. In the other hand - Isabelle Adjani - very, very bad acting, not convincing at all. Sharon Stone - very good copy of Simone Signoret, but that's it - just a copy. When you are making a remake of a great movie I think you should make a few changes, to add some special touch to whole movie, but changes in this movie were complete fail. Especially the ending (someone was obviously disappointed that in original movie two women weren't such good friends after all), which became ridiculous farce.

Character uses another to kill third one. Then the used character (always the less vicious and the more emotional) discovered the ugly truth of being used to serve hidden purposes for the first character and its hidden associate. Sometimes that associate could be the murdered party, sometimes the deceived could be a man or a woman, and many times it's from that deceived one's point of view.Since (Double Indemnity - 1944) this very formula in the Noir or the crime movies is so popular. Although there are endless ways to recycle and create through this old story, but most of the products along the years aren't excellent or even unpredictable.Based on a French movie or not, (Diabolique) isn't original or that good. It's even not convincing at places and rather idiot at others !Since the whole thing is about killing the sick kind wife then why not to use less complicated ways? And if the husband is that sadistic deceitful why not to divorce him easily? And how oh how this husband brooked this amount of water for all of this time ? He must be Aquaman for god's sake !Just like the gratuitous nudity here, the need for a lesbian relationship between the 2 women seemed for pure commercial purposes more than a dramatic motive (as a sexual tension between the 2 leads to make the audience hungry for love scene !). Yet, it's more powerful to watch (Stone) rescues (Adjani) at the end because she lastly felt the bound between them as 2 aggrieved women, not a "loving couple" where in this case the rescue becomes ordinary deed ?!Some of the situations looked so forced; such as the compulsory bad launch. Some of characters' reactions were so horribly bad; (Adjani) outrageously smiling among the professors at the lunch's table while she's supposed to be so sad and confused because of her husband's disappearance ! The intentions of (Kathy Bates)'s character were vague. There was no need for the character of the boy who peeks at his teacher nude ! Plus I didn't hear about a commercial that took this long to be filmed (clearly the 2 camera guys were living in the school for more than a week !??).The performance was truly laughable from (Isabelle Adjani)'s side. Along with being strangely not pretty sight this time, she dumbly was astounded, absentminded, sad, or scared all by the same goggled eyes ! Though she gave me so-provocative-it's-attractive acting to an extent that made the movie worth watching for a second time just for that ! I can't blame (Palmentieri) since the script dealt with him as a prototype scumbag. (Sharon Stone) did some fair acting; I think she was the only winner here. With a sluggish pace, and a story got no depth (for instance why it's a school, not a hotel ? a hospital ? or a company ??) you've got to ask yourself eventually why they didn't call it (scare your wife to death)?!, but Ah.. that could've ruined it. However with that ending it deserves a title like (treat women well otherwise they'll kill you) although it fits this story right but that could've ruined it too !In fact the movie's finale makes it an explicit manifesto about how women, all the different kinds of women, CAN unite to kill one vile man and get away with it. So be aware of their anger because It's Woman Power baby ! A very sly notice : this movie came out one year after TV shows like Xena Warrior Princess (1995), and one year before another one : Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).. I'll leave it to your intelligence to figure out the connections and what it could say about America of the mid-90s. However, in its core, all what the movie wanted is being a thriller with a different frame this time, to end up as one which's between average and poor despite the glow of it, especially with grand music, well cinematography, and interesting direction. To sum it all up I must tell : while it's a thrilling mystery this movie made me fall asleep in front of it. Sorry… not that diabolic !

Occasionally only, I should make clear. So bloody awful that not for the first time do I wish there was a minus rating on IMDb. Picked this up in a remainder bin for a couple of dollars and figured I had loved the French original from the fifties so how bad could the remake be? Might be a curiosity item and the cast was pretty stellar - for one the magnificent and rarely misplaced Kathy Bates was in it.Was I in for a shock. Nothing, absolutely nothing, worked in this movie. The plot, the minescule amount that was there of it, was drivel. There was no character development AT ALL.Some awful special effects (get those white eyes on the corpse, folks)and a supposedly creepy atmosphere that makes one chortle every time the usually lovely Isabelle gapes in a mirror at herself. Doesn't everyone look in a mirror when they're frightened? I know it's the first thing I think of, as I climb out of bed after a nightmare - I look in a mirror to make myself feel better.More threads going nowhere than you could count in a ragged old sweater. The lesbian sub-plot that never quite makes it. And it should. It is a key element in this woeful adaptation. Sharon Stone mincing around in an oddly wired looking walk with trampy tight clothes and really high heels and the strangest lipstick that doesn't leave a mark on her frequently lit cigarettes (she's a school teacher in a private school, Catholic, yeah that's believable). And on and on. How does one get funding for such a travesty, thirty million dollars, I believe??? And the overacting of Chazz and Isabelle... I could write a book on that alone. There should be a law against this kind of thing. 1 out of 10 for what I don't know, only that there isn't a zero rating on IMDb. And as I said, we need these movies, just to make us appreciate even the mediocre ones.

That stunning genetic lottery winner known as Isabelle Adjani (in one of her best contemporary roles) stars as the push over trophy wife of a posh private school headmaster (played by that ever perfectly sinister Chazz Palmintery) and Sharon Stone plays a vixen of a teacher (and perhaps one-time lover of the headmaster) within the school who inspires Adjani's character to conspire to have her husband bumped off. Kathy Bates in the detective hot on their tails ones the allegedly crime has been committed and from here on, it is a game of Whodunit and where-is-the-body?! Brilliant performances by all the afore mentioned actors, if only the script were as solid as they are and were in this film.