. 

In the early 90s there was a glut of movies about people inadvertently inviting psychopaths into their lives and homes. Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Unlawful Entry, Malice, Pacific Heights, Sleeping with the Enemy, Fear, Sliver, Consenting Adults and even Shallow Grave and Cape Fear all centred on this idea to some extent or another.

This was a great time for movie fans, in amongst the classics like Silence of the Lambs, A Few Good Men, Jurassic Park, Unforgiven and Thelma & Louise, there we all of these captivating but undemanding domestic thrillers where for little less than the price of two pints of beer (£2.40) you could get a ticket that would guarantee a great evening of entertainment and something to talk about on the way home. Frankly it is a surprise that modern Hollywood has taken so long to dip back into this pot but here we are with what I suspect will be the start of several remakes these films (they’ve already done Basic Instinct) to pop up on our small and big screens.

Arguably the greatest of these schlocky potboilers; the most celebrated, the most theatrically overblown and the most talked about was 1992’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Rebecca De Mornay with a steeliness to rival Zoolander and glare to shame Paddington, hammed it up as Peyton Flanders – a woman out for revenge on the young mother she holds responsible for ruining her life. 

It’s not the 1990s any more though and so this new version has a very different feel. I’m not sure I’d describe it as more realistic but it certainly aims to make its lead characters more layered. Certainly the combatting women are not as black and white in terms of their motivations as there were in the original. The performances from Maika Monroe and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are both genuine, especially from the latter who is affected by depression perhaps more than she is by psychotic obsession. 

I’m not sure this is what this narrative demanded though. At its heart this is a melodrama and steering away from that actuality weakens it rather than makes it stronger. The Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain film Mother’s Instinct showed last year that ramping things up in this kind of story can still land, and they should have had the courage to do this here too. As it is it just feels toned down. 

A younger audience hardened to buying a cinema ticket that’s now the equivalent price to four pints might go for this but that’s not me. It kept me diverted and, as stated, there were parts I admired but movies like this are never going to rule the world. 

Let’s see what they do with Single White Female.