Scorned features Tweed as a woman married to a man who's trying to move up the corporate ladder (Dan McVicar), and in so doing, has her sleep with a potential client. When Andrew Stevens swoops in and gets the position her husband was supposed to receive, said husband does the most sensible thing in that situation and kills himself in his old office before he has to vacate it for Stevens. As if this isn't bad enough, Tweed discovers the company won't pay out his life insurance. At this point she has nothing to lose, so she takes on a fake identity as a high school tutor, and gets herself moved into Stevens's family's pool house, where she seduces him, his son, and his wife, while trying to make their lives hell as payback. Will Stevens find out what she's doing in time to stop her?
This is a classic of the Erotic Thriller genre for a reason. You have iconic images like the one above, it hits all the Erotic Thriller bingo card spots, but then you have Tweed turning in this chilling, yet sympathetic performance, a supporting performance from Kim Morgan Greene as Stevens's wife that was better than it had any business needing to be, and then Stevens as a director who understands what makes these movies work, and is able to deliver them at a higher level than most. It has some plot holes, which I won't discuss to avoid giving anything away, but they leave you thinking "why didn't they see that before?" There are also some stunt moments that look a little silly--though we won't put the blame on our man Cole S. McKay as stunt coordinator for that, I don't know if he had the freedom he'd have on a PM flick, because I don't remember a PM flick featuring two dummies falling down the stairs meant to represent two women falling down the stairs together. Overall though, as I said, this is a classic. If you haven't seen it before, or you haven't seen it in a while, definitely try to track down a copy and check it out!
With this movie Shannon Tweed moves into a tie with Kathleen Kinmont for third all-time among women at the DTVC with 10 films, one behind Julie Strain's 11, and way behind Cynthia Rothrock at 47. Obviously we'd like to get that number up, but when you go through her IMDb bio, a lot of the stuff she's done isn't available anywhere. The streaming world is still coming around to embracing the 90s Erotic Thriller, but also some of those films she made then had very limited releases, or only a cable TV release, and now they're possibly gone to us forever. Even this one, something considered a classic in the genre, isn't on any streamers and isn't easy to track down as a physical copy. It's a world that deserves to be seen, so hopefully as many of these movies can be made as available as possible. Back to this one, out of all of the films of hers we've covered so far, this is probably her best performance, and the film itself might be best of those too. She goes for it in every way, and gives us a femme fatale that we almost root for. Out of the ten, I think this is only the second Erotic Thriller of hers we've done, so I think as we get deeper in on this genre, it'll be fun to see more of these, because she's one of, if not the Queen of Erotic Thrillers, and a big part of why that genre was so popular in the 90s.
Another part of that was Andrew Stevens, who directed, produced, and starred in this. While the Queen of the Erotic Thriller could be up for debate (though Jon and I had it between Tweed and Joan Severance), it feels like Stevens is the King. In the We Kill for Love documentary, he talked about how he was transitioning from actor to producer, but understood that as an actor he still had enough of a name to get funding for a movie and sell it better to distributors. What that means, at least for me, is that as an actor he wanted Tweed and their other co-stars to have more of the spotlight, which helps make this a unique entry, because it's told from Tweed's standpoint, when most of these are told from the male lead's point of view. Also, Stevens and his DP, Christian Sebaldt, crafted some really inspired shots, like the one above that looks like something out of a De Palma film. He knew how to make an Erotic Thriller, and the genre wouldn't have been what it was without him, which really comes through in this one.
As I mentioned above, we do have another Hall of Famer in this, stunt coordinator Cole S. McKay, who does stunt coordinating on a lot of Erotic Thrillers. I don't know if I'd say it's his hallmark, but we do get someone thrown through a window. It is interesting that the film decided to go with the dummies falling down the stairs instead of hiring two stuntwomen to do it, and maybe it's safer that way, but beyond PM, I've seen stuntmen fall down the stairs in other Erotic Thrillers McKay was stunt coordinator on, so I wonder if it was a budget and safety thing here. Watching all of these in the 90s when they were new, I had no idea who Cole S. McKay was, but we do take for granted that stunts should look a certain way, without considering who's doing them and what kinds of risks are involved. It's fun now since I've been doing this site and I know who he is to go back and watch these, and admire his work in making it all look realistic--or not if he needs to go with dummies instead of actors.
Finally, what do we have here? A Red Sox cap? How do you not love that? Maybe if you're a Yankees fan, but I can at least appreciate a Yankees cap in the wild too (though to be fair, I didn't mention that Traci Lords's character was wearing an oversized Yankees shirt to bed in the Intent to Kill review--must've slipped my mind!). The team was pretty rough at that period, I couldn't have imagined them not only winning four World Series in the 2000s and 2010s, but also that the ownership group that brought those World Series would be so disliked by Red Sox fans after--me included--because they decided to stop spending and are now treating the team like "hey, aren't you happy we've won four?" Yes, it's been 30 years since that hat was shot in this movie, but it would only be a short 11 years between that and 2004, when the Red Sox broke the curse, which to me that 11 years felt much longer than the 20 years since. With baseball season starting, I'll still be rooting for my Red Sox, even if the owners don't care as much about spending to win as they used to.
And with that, let's wrap this up. This is not an easy find, but if you can find it, it's worth checking out. I believe there are some used VHS and DVDs out there, so as long as the dealers aren't gouging you'll be good. And keep an eye out for that podcast episode later this month!
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111093/
And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
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