good back-story, and good acting

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

you may be able to watch the entire movie throughout, without questioning the storyline. I do like her in most performances, so stuck it out.The one problem is Perry king, not sure what age he was at the time of this film (indeed, he seems ageless since 1985). At any rate, if the sociopath Gold character had pursued him, and he was, a bit younger and more handsome, it may have been believable.Basically Gold portrays an artist, who gets what she wants at any cost. She changes identity with a college student, befriend her wealthy roommate (Shawnee Smith) and eventually sets her sights on her roommate's father (King).The film has some nice winter sets in New England, but the storyline a bit hard to swallow. Tracey Gold gives a decent performance. 6/10.

Tracey Gold makes for a good psycho by killing people and stealing their identities. She does a good job of fooling people into thinking shes a sweetheart, well except for the people she killed, but they are dead so who cares right? then she seduces her roommates dad, first by unbuttoning her blouse, painting his picture and cutting off his ponytail. the dad wasn't hot or anything, but he was loaded and the roommate was mad. she was all leave my dad alone. wah wah wah really for a movie this unrealistic , it was quite an enjoyable story. the moral of the story is : If you kill a violin student and steal her idenity, make sure you play the violin. And when you keep her body in a suitcase make sure to bring some lysol.....

(Some Spoilers) Leaving her future husband Quinn Harris,Don Harvey, cold and with his $5,000.00 wedding ring on the eve of their wedding day Barbara Richards, Tracy Gold, takes off to the Chicago airport to start a new life without him. Spotting music student Brianne Dwyer, Mirellie Enos, at the airport the psychotic Barbara strikes up a conversation with her. Finding out that she's going to New Hampshire to attend collage Barbara then follows her into the ladies washroom where after murdering her stuffs her body into her suitcase and then takes on her identity. At Wynton collage in NH Barbara, now known as Brianne Dwyer, gets to meet her new room-mate Jeanelle Polk, Shawnee Smith, and finds out that her dad, a widower, is the famous art critic as well as art connoisseur Russell Polk, Perry King. Russell ends up getting manipulated by Brianne when he comes to see his daughter with her using his and her mutual interest of the arts to get romantically involved with him.Before you know it Russell falls head over heels for Brainne who's as young as his daughter and at the same time is too reality challenged to see what the evil Brianne/Barbara is really up to, this leads to a bloody confrontation between Brianne and Jeanelle at the conclusion of the movie. Even by then when it's all too obvious of what Brianne is and what she'planning to do still the doltish and naive Russell doesn't seem to have a clue about her intentions until almost the end of the film. Having murdered both her parents in a house fire that she set at their home in Indio Calif. Barbara went on to murder a string of young girls, and then taking over their identities, for six years in over ten states before we were even introduced to her at the start of the film. The movie makes no sense at all with Barbara being able to get away with murder since she's so ridicules and stupid in the crimes that she commits that she should have been caught long before the movie even began. After murdering Brianne at the airport what does Barbara do; stuffs her body into a suitcase and take it with her to NH. Why didn't anyone notice the smell of the decomposing body and alert the police airport or collage authorities? Brainne then takes the body, in the suitcase, with her to Jeanelle's dorm-room for at least two or three days which should have stunk up the place so badly that the collage authorities, as well as the local police, should have been alerted. Later Branni dumps the body in a construction site on the collage campus. It lays there for something like five months with nobody working on the site noticing or smelling it! Barbara later does get to meet, unexpectedly, her estranged and outraged husband Quinn who tracked her down to Wynton Collage, only to be murdered by her later, when he saw a photo of one of her painting that she gave him in a local Chicago newspaper giving him her new name and where to find her. Only sweet and caring Jeanelle got the drop on the evil Barbara/Brainne and what her intentions were. Her dad, and even the collage staff, didn't seem to have any idea at all about Barbara masquerading around as Brianne even when the real Brianne's mom Evelyn Dawyer, Lynne Van Dam, came to visit her daughter and realized she was missing and that Barbara may well have had something to do with it. The movie ended when Jeanelle, sick and tired of seeing her not to bright dad falling all over the sick and dangerous Barbara, confronted her at her fathers mansion. Jeanelle become engaged with Barbara in a vicious cat fight where Barbara tried to murder Jeanelle with a pair of scissors. Riussell even then was too brainless to realize what a lowlife and snake in the grass his new, and secret, love Barbara really was and it was only after he took a nasty bite, that almost ripped one of his fingers out, from her that finally convince him.The ending made the movie even more off-the-wall that it already was with Barbara again tricking some dope, a cop this time, into letting her hands be freed while she was being taken to the county jail to be booked for murder. This gave you the impression that there's going to be a "Face of Evil II" released in the near future.

I was drawn into this movie and probably enjoyed it more than it deserved. It is hard to be objective when you're watching a eerily accurate depiction of one of your former girlfriends. The writing, acting and direction were superb. The three main characters - Tracey Gold (the psycho artist), Perry King (the gullible dad), and Shawnee Smith (the prescient daughter and roommate) played their roles with intensity and realism. It is interesting that Tracey Gold's character bares some resemblance to the real life singer/actress Madonna (minus the violence) noting that director Mary Lambert also directed several Madonna videos. This movie has a great plot with some nice turns and an especially, creepy and Hannibal-like ending. Woman as predator is always unnerving and counter intuitive but it reinforces the truth that all people are capable of doing the nastiest things to get what they want. Fortunately most of us are not intelligent and resourceful enough to pull off the level of deception portrayed in this movie.