Fantastic!

Admirable film.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

If I should described this movie in one sentence - Watchable, but completely unnecessary. I decided to watch this remake, because original movie is one of my favorites. I expected a lot more. Let's concentrate on acting - in original movie Vera Clouzot was the one that bought me, her terrified look on face and tension through whole movie. In the other hand - Isabelle Adjani - very, very bad acting, not convincing at all. Sharon Stone - very good copy of Simone Signoret, but that's it - just a copy. When you are making a remake of a great movie I think you should make a few changes, to add some special touch to whole movie, but changes in this movie were complete fail. Especially the ending (someone was obviously disappointed that in original movie two women weren't such good friends after all), which became ridiculous farce.

The original here is one of the best thrillers, energetic in a way that distracts us from the revelation of the con.This is a lesser movie, but adds at least three clever ideas. If you are interested in narrative structure, you'll be interested in remakes of films and how they change. (I think these are changes to the original.)First, in true folding style, they added a film within the film. The film within is a recruiting film, but that hardly matters.Second, they changed the dynamic of the detective by making him a her. This allows for the third change but along the way the possibilities exist for the three types of women: the virgin, the whore and the shrew. It isn't played up well enough to matter, but its clear that someone's intuition was tuned.Third, there is a final twist that I think is quite different than the original's. It bonds the three women, already hinted in a lesbian tendency between the first two. But amazingly, the film didn't work well for me, probably because of pacing problems at various levels. Not that any level was off by the interplay of levels wasn't syncopated according to what engages. Its an intuitive process, I think, but quite rigid in its rules.Isabelle Adjani was cast perfectly, and introduced very skillfully. Beginnings are hard.This in its original incarnation was the first double con movie, I think. Adding a third was inevitable, I suppose.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Diabolique is set in Pennsylvania at the St. Anselm's boarding school for boys which is owned by Mia Baran (Isabelle Adjani), however her husband Guy (Chazz Palminteri) who runs the school treats her like dirt & cheats on her. Mia & a teacher named Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone) whom is one of Guy's many lovers devise a plan to kill him & make it look like an accident, the plan is to drown him & then throw him in the school pool where he will be found & to the police his death will seem like a simple drowning. However after a few days the body isn't found so Mia orders the dirty pool drained when Nicole 'accidently' drops her keys into it, once drained Guy's body is not there. Was Guy dead? Did someone find out there plan? Who knows...Directed by Jeremiah Chechik this is a remake of the black and white French film Les Diaboliques (1955) which itself was based on the novel 'Celle Qui N'Etait Plus' by Pierre Boileau & Thomas Narcejac & I thought was a fairly lazy & plodding mystery thriller with truly one of the worst twist endings ever. The humourless & slow moving script by Don Ross takes ages to do what the average episode of Columbo took about 10 minutes to, to show someone committing the so-called perfect murder. Then it switches to creepy thriller mode as the body vanishes from where the murderers left it & seemingly has come back to life before it all falls apart with one of the worst, most predictable & frankly unlikable twist endings ever. I can't continue my review any further without massive spoilers which will give away the ending so beware, anyway I hate the fact that Mia & Nicole suddenly turn into the heroes of the piece when they were just as bad as Guy since in the case of Mia she planned to kill him in cold blood & Nicole was prepared to trick Mia & ultimately kill her if the plan had succeeded. They were really unlikable character's to begin with so this horrible ending where they become the heroes by killing Guy which is basically exactly the same thing which they set out to do in the first place just grated my nerves. Also, if Mia was feeling so guilty why did she seem almost redeemed at the end? She still ended up killing Guy anyway so why the miraculous change of heart? Also, what about Nicole? She still was part of some scheme where someone was always going to die, be it either Mia or Guy. The ending is just so misjudged, it makes no sense with the rest of the context of the film, it's horribly acted & it's utterly predictable. In fact I guessed how this would end within 30 minutes & I was absolutely right in just about every detail. A really horrible film with an even worse ending, one to avoid.Director Chechik has made some really, really awful films & after this mess & his subsequent big screen adaptation of The Avengers (1998) which is considered one of the worst films ever made Hollywood thankfully hasn't let him anywhere near a film camera since. This guy should be directing traffic rather than films. This is blandly shot in dull autumnal colours which give it forgettable look. I also have to mention the acting, especially by the two female leads Stone & Adjani who are simply terrible. I hated their character's, I hated their acting & thought they were two of the worst performances by leading actors in a Hollywood flick I've ever seen. In the UK this is rated '18' meaning no-one under that age can watch it, I have no idea why as there's no violence worth mentioning, no nudity or sex & it's devoid of any action or excitement.Technically the film is alright but it's flat, dull & blandly filmed. There's no real style here & it's not a film I will remember in any way apart from that terrible ending. As I've said I think the acting by the two leads is simply awful.Diaboliques is a slow moving, utterly predictable thriller with a horrible ending that didn't do anything for me. One to avoid. This probably would have worked better as a 30 minute Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode or maybe even as an obscure black and white French film from the 50's...

OK, so I just adore this little flop of a movie. The look, the acting (especialy Stone, Bates and Knight) and the screenplay all converge toward a distinctly campy second degree, sometimes close to comedy. Make it black comedy.Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Clouzot fan; Le Corbeau is one of my all time favorite, and his original Diaboliques, based on Boileau and Narcejac short story, ranks prominently in my list, too. And frankly, I was quite ambivalent about it being remade. And then I heard of the casting (Stone/Adjani), which is a once in a lifetime kinda thing and the choice of giving direction to then newcomer Jeremiah Chechick, still fresh from his well received debut Benny and Joon.So I told to myself, "Hey, could be worse". But I wasn't entirely convinced. Of course, I didn't know then that Don Roos had penned the laced in acid screenplay with the tongue firmly in cheek.Stone's Nicole: "You're dead, this is heaven and I'm the Vigin Mary. Can you swallow?" This is one of my favorite line, ever. That Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe homage with Shirley Knight is also priceless.To appreciate this movie, I think you must be a camp addict, or a gay, or both. One way or the other, the audience for this kind of sophisticated junk seems to be timid, or easily convinced to doubt of its own tastes. Maybe that's why Basic Instinct 2, a very similar outing, flopped. Too bad.