It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

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

Yeah, this is a late entry in that psycho-thriller sub-genre of the early 1990s, and the second you discover that the film sat on the shelf for two years before release you know it's going to be a stinker. When actress Jessica Lange herself described it in less than complimentary terms the instinct is to hurl it onto the fire and get as far away as possible.Nevertheless, I sat through this in its entirety, glutton for punishment as I am. And it's a weak thriller for sure, in which the thrills are non-existent and the plot is even more laboured than Gwyneth Paltrow's character. Basically, she meets and falls for the perfect guy, falls pregnant and marries him, only to discover that her new mother-in-law holds more than a few dark secrets and is already obsessed with the unborn child.The feel of the movie has more in common with a lukewarm TV movie of the era than a theatrical film and indeed there's very little of interest here. Most of the film relies on acting from a very average Paltrow to get by, and her protagonist is hardly a sympathetic one. Lange is better, channelling some of the energy of the grand old matriarch psychos (think Joan Crawford in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?), but her performance alone does not a good film make.

Jackson Baring (Johnathon Schaech) brings his girlfriend Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) home to meet his mother Martha (Jessica Lange). They're a couple of New Yorkers and Martha is alone in the big family estate. She wants his son to be home and she has a devious plan. Soon after the visit, Helen finds herself pregnant. Jackson proposes to her and they have a wedding back at the family estate. After a masked intruder terrorizes Helen, they decide to leave NYC and go back to the horse farm to help his mother fix it up.This starts off too slowly. It's a lot of fake interaction that telegraphs where the movie is inevitably going. It is both predictable and boring. It improves slightly after the very long setup and the couple starts living with the mother. Jessica Lange deteriorates into a caricature. The husband is a ridiculous fool. The last 15 minutes is badly written. It's begging to end with a bang, but the movie ends with a whimper. It's really silly to end it in that way. It's simply a weak effort from writer/director Jonathan Darby.

Unbelievably bad. Writer/director Jonathan Darby concocts a ridiculous southern fried horror tale. Jessica Lange, channeling both Blanche Dubois AND Baby Jane Hudson, runs a horse farm and is visited by son Johnathon Schaech and new bride Gwyneth Paltrow. Oedipal mayhem ensues. Lange, unable to let Schaech go, terrorizes Paltrow. By the time Paltrow winds up in bed giving birth the film reaches a frenzied level of camp. It's always a curiosity how good actors end up in such dreck. It's a wonder if Lange, Schaech and Paltrow read the script, a half-baked amalgamation of Tennessee Williams and Tobe Hooper. While the supporting cast is populated with the dependable Hal Holbrook, Nina Foch, and Debi Mazer, they bring very little to the film. Foch is used merely to explain the motives of the deranged Lange. Lange's performance takes it's place next to Faye Dunaway's Joan Crawford in the pantheon of American Kabuki.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie the first time I saw it ten years ago. The film reminded me of some of my favorite Hitchcock flicks, namely Shadow of a Doubt and Notorious. The story builds slowly and generates just enough paranoia of impending danger to keep the audience interested. By the time everything comes together, the audience has an emotional investment in the main character and experiences genuine anxiety at her ordeal. This is so refreshingly different from the movies that slice and dice cardboard characters in an attempt to generate suspense.After seeing how poorly people have reacted to this film, I revisited it to see if my memory served me correctly. My assessment remains the same. Jessica Lange gives a stellar performance as the homicidal control freak. Gwyneth Paltrow is easy to empathize with as the paranoid daughter-in-law. Nina Foch is hysterical as the cheerful old lady who knows all the family secrets. I have met each of these characters in the real world. The only reason I would hesitate to call this a masterpiece is because there is no Hitchcock cameo. Still, this is a worthy imitation of the master's work.