Diabolique (1996)

Director:

Jeremiah S. Chechik

Writers (WGA):

Pierre Boileau (novel) and
Thomas Narcejac (novel) ...

Release Date:

22 March 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Thriller | Mystery

Tagline:

Two women. One man. The combination can be murder.

Plot:

The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed attempt to murder him...

Plot Keywords:

Pool | Rake | Alcohol | Female Detective | Morgue

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Sharon Stone	...	Nicole Horner
Isabelle Adjani	...	Mia Baran
Chazz Palminteri	...	Guy Baran
Kathy Bates	...	Det. Shirley Vogel
Spalding Gray	...	Simon Veatch
Shirley Knight	...	Edie Danziger
Allen Garfield	...	Leo Katzman
Adam Hann-Byrd	...	Erik Pretzer
Donal Logue	...	Video Photographer #1
Diana Bellamy	...	Ms. Vawze
Clea Lewis	...	Lisa Campos
J.J. Abrams	...	Video Photographer #2 (as Jeffrey Abrams)
O'Neal Compton	...	Irv Danziger
Bingo O'Malley	...	Gannon
Stephen Liska	...	PHP Officer

MPAA:

Rated R for violence/terror, sexuality and language.

Runtime:

107 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Iceland:16 | South Korea:18 | USA:R (certificate #34415) | Australia:M | Philippines:R-18 | Argentina:16 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 (video premiere) | Germany:16 (w) | Portugal:M/16 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Harmony, Pennsylvania, USA

Company:

ABC Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: The lines of text on the computer monitor reach the bottom of the screen start scrolling. In the close-up, the text is just starting to be written again.

Quotes:

Nicole: Killing him is a good thing. Like planting a tree.
Mia: Maybe there is a God.
Nicole: What are you talking about?
Mia: I haven't believed fot so long... So when the pool was empty I thought: maybe there is a God. And He knows what we did. And He's coming for us.
Nicole: It's not God, Honey. That's a lady detective with one breast.

Movie Connections:

References "Cagney & Lacey" (1982)

Soundtrack:

In The Arms Of Love

We need these movies...

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.