Good
performances can't reconcile with hackneyed clichés in THE EX, a
thriller that follows the tiresome "lover from hell" formula popularized
by FATAL ATTRACTION (1987).
Businessman
David Kenyon (Nick Mancuso) has been keeping a secret from his wife Molly
(Suzy Amis). He was married before, for three years, to the pretty but
psychotic Deidre (Yancy Butler). Molly only finds out when Deidre, just
released from a mental institution, pays an unannounced visit. Despite
her athletic and all-smiles exterior, Deidre is truly the ex-wife-from-hell.
As a teenager she murdered her own sister to dispose of the competition
for David's affection, and thinks nothing of maiming or killing anyone
who inconveniences her. Determined to lure David away, Deidre flirts enticingly
with her former husband, impersonates a child therapist to get close to
David and Molly's small son Michael (Hamish Tildesley), and even takes
an apartment across the street from the Kenyons, where she strips provocatively
in the window. Her constant intrusions finally do summon David for an angry
bout of the masochistic sex on which Deidre thrives. But when he still
won't leave Molly, Deidre tries to ruin David, with a high profile assault
allegation that turns David's friends and co-workers against him. Ultimately
Deidre kidnaps Michael from school, holding the boy hostage in a remote
cabin. When David and Molly come to the rescue, Deidre gives them both
a sound thrashing, until Michael uses the fire from a broken oil lantern
to set diabolical Deidre ablaze.
The
script is based on an inferior novel by John Lutz (whose Single White Female
inspired the 1992 roommate-from-hell thriller of the same name), who co-adapts
with veteran screenwriter-director Larry Cohen (THE STUFF, BLACK CAESAR,
the IT'S ALIVE series). One is tempted to credit Cohen's erratic talent
with strange, subversive twists for the more intriguing aspects of THE
EX, particularly when David starts looking just as sick and depraved as
Molly. When a prior domestic violence charge surfaces, David claims it
resulted from a plea-bargain with Deidre's attorneys. But could the repressed
husband be carrying out his own creepy brand of foreplay with his true
soul mate? Little Michael is stated to have problems controlling his anger.
Is psychosis in his genes? But the filmmakers drop that aspect and grimly
plod towards an over-the-top ending out of a horror-slasher pic, with Deidre
ludicrously igniting like the Hindenburg when the flames touch her.
Yancy
Butler is convincingly emasculating as the anti heroine, shifting from
sexy to murderously malevolent in a heartbeat. Suzy Amis had the thankless
job of playing the waif like victim in two tawdry "from hell" sagas in
about a year; her ONE GOOD TURN (the long-lost-army-buddy-from-hell) had
been released in 1996. Like that film, THE EX went directly to home video
in most of the United States. Its distributor subsequently released yet
another "from hell" called THE FIANCEE (figure that one out for yourself).
(Violence, profanity, nudity, adult situations, substance abuse.)