Monday 9 January 2012

Single White Female 2: The Psycho (2005)

If you can't tell whether or not this belated sequel to Single White Female is going to be any good then I suggest that you head off quickly and get your bullshit detector working. The fact that it is subtitled "The Psycho" is the big clue. That's like providing viewing audiences with a movie titled "Jaws 2: The Shark". Lazy, dumb and simply signposting that everyone is in for a lesser rehash of the first movie. So nobody should be surprised to find that this sequel is just a lesser rehash of the first movie.

Everything is pretty much the same, but not as good. A woman gets upset after finding that her fella has cheated on her. She moves into a new apartment with a flatmate. The flatmate starts to grow closer and closer to the woman, even going so far as to emulate her physical appearance. Things turn deadly. There's even a scene in which the lead actress follows the psycho flatmate to a sex club and sees something she shouldn't. You may remember that scene, even that was in the original movie.

Of course, there are minor differences here and there but this film, for the most part, ticks all the boxes in the "how to make a sloppy, lazy and cynical cash-in of a sequel" checklist.

The script, written by Glenn Hobart, Andy Hurst and Ross Helford, is pretty lame. Gone is the subtlety and decent characterisation of the first film. Instead, we get everything spoonfed to us and a lead character we're supposed to care for because, well, she's the lead character. Never mind the fact that she's also quite dumb, weak and irritating.

The flat direction by Keith Samples seems unsurprising when you consider his wealth of TV work. It's just a shame that he couldn't try a bit harder to spin the weak material here into something a bit more entertaining. He decides to keep things relatively sanitised and sexless when the trashy premise cries out for some suitably trashy treatment to at least make it entertaining for . . . . . . . . . . . . fans of trash.

The cast? Brooke Burns is good to watch onscreen but I'd have to say that Kristen Miller didn't impress me at all. Neither did Allison Lange or Todd Babcock or anyone else in the movie, for that matter.

Simply put, no aspect of this movie, from the camerawork to the cast to the script to the soundtrack, made any good impression on me. Apart from Brooke Burns. Oh, and a final 10 minutes that had me laughing out loud when I assume that I was supposed to be tense. Avoid it.

3/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Single-White-Female-2-DVD/dp/B003JSRT0O





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