Thy Neighbor's Wife (2001)

From my favorite movies..

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

What we have here is a dumbed down, (seemingly) made for TV, version of the nineties thriller 'The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'. The main reason I saw this, aside from the fact I seem to have something of a penchant for stupid and rather dull thrillers, is the fact that it stars Kari Wuhrer. Her name might not mean a lot to a lot of people, but she's about the closest thing we've got a B-movie queen nowadays (although she really does need to get a better agent!). As mentioned, the plot pretty much rips off The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, although this time there is a different reason for revenge and the unfortunate woman at the centre has a different affliction. Wuhrer plays a woman upset after her husband killed himself due to his work colleagues. She takes it upon herself to get revenge, killing a couple of them, before posing as a maid for another. She worms her way into the family through each of the different members, all the while plotting her sweet revenge.The thing that makes this film fun is the fact that it's completely ridiculous! The acting is terrible, and there are several sequences that are just far too convenient and/or don't make any sense at all! The film is directed by Jim Wynorski, who made Chopping Mall in 1986 before going to make a load of made for video crap, like this film. Some of the soft porn from his other films has made it into this one, and while we don't get to see much; there are plenty of breasts on display to keep things interesting. Kari Wuhrer gives by far the best performance and single handily makes the movie worth watching. She's always nice to look at, which cant really be said for the overall experience of watching this movie; but it is nice to see Re-Animator's Barbara Crampton on screen again. The plot is fairly standard stuff and although there is some attempt to build the characters, it is all a bit hard to care about. It doesn't take a genius to work out what will happen in the end, but there's plenty of laughs (for wrong reasons, mostly) on the way and while this is pretty crap, it's nice, gentle viewing and I did rather enjoy wasting time on it.

After seeing this movie listed, and then looking at the previous comments here, there was no way I was going to miss it. Everybody knows "Plan 9 from Outer Space," is the worst flick, ever, without a lot of argument. For me, another absolutely, fascinatingly awful one is the opus starring Bruce Jenner and the Village People, "Can't Stop the Music."Now, with this film, you have the perfect trio of absolutely, totally and wonderfully awful films, in three genres: science fiction, musical, and murder/drama.Early-on, I was fascinated how the vengeful lead blew-up the home (one story outside, two stories within, as another already pointed-out). That stove had to have emitted gas fumes, in just a few seconds, at a rate which had to revise at least a half-dozen basic laws of physics. And the explosion created upon the target's flipping a light switch was greater than the one Jack Hawkins, Bill Holden, and their crew of experts, spent all night arranging, with about a ton of ordnance, in blowing the bridge on the River Kwai.On to the bloodless stabbing, the placing the corpse in the freezer, replacing the frozen foods (all while the daughter operated the garage door opener) ---- and on, and on, and on.My only disagreement with some of the folks on this site is that -- like the fore-mentioned other two flicks -- this one is also SO AWFUL that it DOES rate moving the dial in reverse from "O" and back to a "10"!!------------------------------ Having entered the above comment April/07 -- I happened to notice this film being run again today (12/26/07) -- and couldn't miss the opportunity to view this bizarre story once more.In accordance with this site's policy, from here this would have to be considered in the **SPOILER** category -- although I don't think this flick evokes a feeling of suspense on anything near a Hitchcock level.What did intrigue me anew, and a point I can't imagine missing commenting upon previously, is some detail of the ending. When the mostly clueless husband, now widowed, looks through the box with the effects from his late spouse's office, he encounters the photo of the femme fatale with her husband; a quick call to her assistant reveals he was wife's predecessor, had committed suicide, and his wife had run amok in the office following. This guy was so low-key in performing this role, we can only guess this now provided him some clue as to recent household events. However, the villainess heard his call to the assistant on an extension (naturally!), and a few moments later, attacks him in the garage. The two of them move, in combat, outside into the rain by the family swimming pool. They duel -- like, say Jackie Chan taking-on Chuck Norris -- utilizing , NO KIDDING, a tire iron and fireplace poker, respectively. Each strikes successful blows, but there is later no real residual injury indicated on either.She is hurdled into the swimming pool, and appears to sink. He immediately dials 911 to report the incident. In the next scene, reference is made in dialog with the detective in-charge about the housekeeper's demise. This all could not have been more than a half-hour (in Beverly Hills!) since his call, probably less. The detective says something relating to the time span since she fell dead into the pool. Hubby/widower does indicate he had perhaps blacked-out for a bit, obviously indicating he could be 15 minutes off in his reckoning.Next, the cover is removed from the corpse at the pool's edge, revealing the prior domestic, slain and placed in the freezer by the current one weeks prior.The flick concludes with the villainess now driving happily on a highway to who-knows-where, hearing on the radio of the husband's arrest (he's identified as a prominent attorney, for Pete's sake!) and now also under suspicion for his wife's reason demise.Such silliness is wonderfully consistent with the rest of this offering. This anti-heroine deserves a sequel. And it should begin by showing a flashback, showing how, in a maximum of, say, 15 minutes she: extricated herself, drenched, from the pool (without husband/widower seeing her); then extricated the frozen corpse from the freezer and deposited it into the pool (again, without being seen/heard); and finally, got-the-hell out of there before the cops arrive - remember, this is Beverly Hills, far removed from any public transportation; got herself and her wardrobe together, obtained a nice vehicle, and managed to get onto the highway, all apparently by the next day or so. Thousands of films have produced many, many unbelievable occurrences. This climax could well be the most wonderfully outrageous of all-time.

This movie is a direct rip-off of "Scorned", which in turn was itself a direct rip-off of "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle"; they even hired an Andrew Stevens lookalike to play the husband. To give you an idea of its quality, I will elaborate on the "bloodless" murder a previous reviewer talked about, and tell you that it must also be the first stabbing in the history of cinema that is executed without a knife! Yes, I swear, play the scene frame-by-frame and you'll see that when Wuhrer is supposed to be stabbing the housemaid to death, she isn't actually holding anything! Maybe that explains the lack of blood. But that's not all; the dialogue that's used to show us how the family is in a constant state of crisis is forced, awkward and delivered at the most inappropriate moments. The script is totally by-the-numbers, with every plot point telegraphed in advance (the "evil woman" seduces the father and the son, makes friends with the daughter, causes health problems for the mother, etc.). Despite all that, the film IS ultimately worth seeing, for one reason alone: Kari Wuhrer. With her pretty face, voluptuous and supple figure, and insinuating voice, she manages the no-small-feat of being just as sexy when she is dressed as when she is naked. She certainly blows Shannon Tweed out of the water in any case. (*1/2)

The other reviews are quite on-the-money, so I won't go over the same material, other than to state that this movie has to be one of the clumsiest movies I've ever seen.Things that ought to have been simple to get right, but obviously weren't:1) The astonishingly well-endowed housekeeper undresses and gets in the shower. Ann (Kari) sneaks into the house, grabs a VERY large kitchen knife, and proceeds to stab the housekeeper to death with blow after blow with the knife. There is NO blood being spattered. She then wraps the body in a white sheet, and is carrying it through the house. Still no blood. At ALL. With the number of times the housekeeper was stabbed, you'd think she'd be draining like a sieve. But apparently she clots REALLY well.2) Ann manages to empty a full freezer of its contents, put the body in, and refill the freezer, all in the space of about 30 seconds while the daughter is trying to open the garage door. Although the freezer was full when opened, adding an adult womans body and then piling everything on top doesn't seem to add any mass to the freezer.3) Ann sneaks into her husbands bosses house, turns on the gas, and sets a light to spark when the switch is turned on. The boss is upstairs, but comes down. Comes down a very large staircase. When he turns on the light, the house is shown (exploding) from the outside. The house is clearly one story.4) Numerous interior shots of the families house also shows it to be two story. Numerous exterior shots of the house show it to be one story. Apparently it is MUCH larger on the inside than the outside.5) How many times can a person REALLY get hit full-force with a heavy piece of steel and not be killed? Apparently a LOT of times, because both the husband and Ann repeately give each other good solid blows with both a crowbar and a tire iron. Neither one ends up in the hospital. The husband DOES get a minor cut on his forehead, though.One wonders if the director or producers even watched this movie prior to releasing it.