Diabolique (1996 film)

Plot summary

The wife and mistress (Adjani and Stone) of a cruel school master (Palminteri) collaborate in a carefully planned and executed attempt to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The strain starts to tell on the two women as a retired police investigator (Bates) who is looking into the disappearance on a whim begins to think that they know more than they are telling, and further complications arise when their victim is seen, apparently alive and well by several of the school's pupils. The majority of this plot follows the original. It turns out the mistress and husband are trying to scare the rich wife with the bad heart enough to give her a heart attack so they can inherit her money. This ruse climaxes with the husband rising out of the bathtub and the wife collapsing when she sees him. However, unlike in the original, the mistress has developed feelings for the wife. After this scare, she can see that the wife did not actually die but is just unconscious. She helps the wife up and together they try to leave the school grounds. The husband finds out and angrily chases after his wife to kill her with his bare hands. As he is struggling with her, she gouges his eye out with a crucifix she bought earlier. Then he corners her at the pool and pins her down and starts choking her. The mistress shows up with a gardening rake and slams it into his face and knocks him out. She kicks his unconscious body into the pool. As they turn to leave, he rises out of the pool and pulls them both into the pool with him. However, they both proceed to hold him under water until he drowns. As they are getting out of the pool, the retired police investigator from earlier shows up. She has figured out what the husband was up to and sympathizes with the wife. She punches the wife in the face and gives her a black eye to make it easier to plead self defense before calling for back-up. Then the wife tells the mistress she wants nothing to do with her and leaves her in tears.

Cast

Critical

The movie was compared unfavorably to the original movie, and received overall negative reviews. It currently holds a 'rotten' 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 26 reviews. Stone was nominated for a Razzie Award for "Worst New Star" (as the new "serious" Sharon Stone) for this film and Last Dance, where she lost to Pamela Anderson for Barb Wire.

Box office

The movie was a box office bomb, grossing far below its $45 million budget.