This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Best movie ever!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

When an annoyingly controlling and stupid woman comes home with her husband from vacation, they discover her father (Lionel Stander) married to a somewhat disagreeable woman (Bette Davis). However, the daughter is so disagreeable and annoying, the viewer will likely tend to enjoy how miserable she is with the new step-mother. However, soon after this the old lady disappears--in the guise of sexy Barbara Carrera. What's next? Who cares?!"Wicked Stepmother" is a truly god-awful film. Sadly, it was also Bette Davis' last film and I sure would have liked to have seen this great actress go out on a high note...not this turkey!Whether or not the story is true that Davis walked off the set and refused to return because the script was THAT bad, I am very inclined to believe it because the film is horribly written. Part of this could be because the 'clever filmmakers' decided to use what little footage they had of Davis and then re-write the film around that in order to hide her disappearance from the script. But considering how clumsy and stupid it all is, I think they did a lousy job in hiding it!! Clearly the writers they employed were about 6 to 7 years-old!The film itself is in many ways reminiscent of a film made for the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. After all, the script is clearly something little kids might like and adults with at least a 70 IQ would hate. Oddly, however, it's really NOT a great film for kid because there are many, many sexual references and sexual situations you wouldn't want your kids to see. Overall, a terrible film...one of the worst of Davis' otherwise wonderful career. I should note that late in life, Davis appeared in quite a few questionable roles--roles other famous actresses probably would have refused. She claimed she needed the money...but badly enough to appear in crap like this film, "Murder With Mirrors" and "Bunny O'Hare"?! Ironically, her arch-rival, Joan Crawford, did exactly the same--appearing in tons of terrible movies late in life ("Trog" is the most egregious example).

I got a kick out of this movie. It is a campy comedy satire. These other reviews are out of line. They are inappropriately trying to compare Mad Magazine to Shakespeare. Mad Magazine is enjoyably humorous entertainment but is in a completely different category than Shakespeare. This movie is cute and funny like one of Leslie Nielson's comedies. It is a low budget film but has a campy appeal and a lot of cute humor. This film also has a notable cast. It not only has Bette Davis, but it also has the glamorous Barbara Carrera (of James Bond film fame and costarred with JR Ewing on Dallas) and Evelyn Keyes (Scarlett O'Hara's sister Sue Ellen on Gone with the Wind) and Tom Bosley. These reviewers seem to think Bette was blindsided by some evil director. Bette read the script before she decided to do the movie. She had plenty of experience on how to turn down films. She was emaciated from cancer and at extreme age and hampered by lingering problems from strokes. It was quite obvious that she was dying from cancer. Her film options were limited at this point. She knew this when she accepted the role but her expectations were also unrealistic.She loved acting in films and this was the only offer she had at the time. She was a great actress and had been treated as Hollywood Royalty. But Bette didn't understand that you can't walk into Motel 6 and expect to find the Waldorf. She was accustomed to great directors, great producers, professional crews and high budget productions and set herself up for disappointment by expecting the same levels of professionalism from low budget productions. Thus, when her expectations were not met, she left the production which placed undue hardship on them since she had not completed filming her role. Our reviewers are also forgetting that you can't compare a low budget campy film to a production like Jezebel. These are unrealistic expectations and unfair to the movie.Her expectations of the highest levels of professionalism in film had always created the potential for conflict and disappointment for her during her career when film productions which did not measure up to those standards which included her expectations of the attitudes and behaviors of other members of the cast, crews, directors, producers, etc. Bette was offended by unprofessionalism. However, like the reviewers who made hateful comments about this movie, she had similar unrealistic expectations.I'm glad the director was able to salvage Bette's performance by reworking the movie. I'm sure it would have been much better in quality if he had a better budget and didn't have to work around Bette's unfinished filming. There was room for improvement, but I still enjoyed it. It was cute and it gave us an opportunity to see some of Bette's final scenes of acting. It was a window into the latter moments of her life.There is some bad acting in this film by Colleen Camp who played the daughter. Her acting was grossly overdone with downright absurd hand gestures and bizarre, loud, obnoxious overacting. It reminded me of Jim Carey's bizarre physical antics, gestures and facial expressions with nonsensical overacting. Colleen was the one who ruined this movie and her bad acting looks deliberate. If you watch closely, you can see how she went out of her way to overpower and ruin the scenes and lines for other actors. Watch what she does while other actors are trying to say their lines. She purposely tries to ruin the scene and drown out the other actors. No one could be that bad by accident with the exception of Richard Moll (also in this movie). If the two of them had been recast, it would have been an immense improvement. Just about anyone could have done better. That is my only complaint with the director, that he did not fire Camp and Moll. But at least Moll did not try to deliberately destroy the scenes of other actors like Colleen. He only ruined his own scenes, which could easily be edited out.As for the writer... he couldn't make up his mind whether Priscilla and Miranda were the same person or two separate entities. It kept changing back and forth and you have to wonder if there was any sobriety while he was writing that dialogue. This could have easily been fixed. In fact, with a little creative editing, these dialogue errors as well as Colleen and Molls bad acting could be edited, cleaned up and trimmed down to reduce the damage they did. A little creative editing and CGI effects could fix all of the problems and then re-release it.As long as you don't have unrealistic expectations and understand this is a low budget satire which had to salvage the movie from a partial, incomplete filming of her role, it is actually an entertaining movie. "Low Budget" is often misused as a dirty word in movies but it is not the fault of the director or cast that they were unable to obtain better funding. It does not mean it is a bad movie. It only refers to what they were able to afford in sets, actors and equipment where the story might be quite good.This is a cute movie which is no worse than Chevy Chase's movie "Modern Problems" or Goldie Hawn's movies or John Ritter's movies or Tom Hanks in "The Money Pit," etc. Those were all satires which did not have high budgets. Comedies rarely get high budgets. So, if you like campy satires and don't have an HUA problem, you might enjoy this cute and campy film. I know I did.

For starters, I am not familiar with Bete Davis. But I would prefer her to stick with the shootings, because she suited the role she was intended for and acts really good. "Wicked stepmother" is funnier than most of silly comedy/horror, is quite fast and has funny but effective special effects. This bad-review-bombing isn't deserved by this little flick that doesn't even for one minute take itself seriously! But I suppose this is because of Bete Davis fame who finally didn't get on with the production people - which resulted in the silly plot change. I would sure like it most with Bete Davis (Miranda) starring (I also love the cat!), having no Priscilla in it - but then again: it's good as is. B-movie/stupid horror/thriller-comedy fans, sit down and GIVE IT A WATCH because it is worth it. And don't forget the beer!

This film wasn't THAT bad. I actually enjoyed it! Sure replacing Bette Davis with Barbara Carrera and THEN having them share the same body was not the smartest decision ever made in Hollywood, but it sure beats Ed Wood's solution to replacing Bela Lugosi in "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Also, it does get rather silly in the scenes toward the end. But there are some very clever scenes too, like the one involving the photograph of Lionel Stander's horrible first wife. The photograph is of Bette's rival, Joan Crawford. Colleen Camp, Tom Bosley, David Rasche, Seymour Cassel, Evelyn Keyes (!), Lionel Stander and even Barbara Carrera did wonderful in their roles. And Richard Moll was very funny in his small, but memorable, role as the inspector. But the true star of this movie is Bette Davis. She is wonderfully evil in the role of Miranda. She is so good at being bad. And even though it was not her best movie, she still is wonderful to watch. I think Larry Cohen did a fine job with this, considering all the trouble it ran into. Overall, Wicked Stepmother is an okay movie.** 1/2 out of ****