There must be something inherently sexy about an insane babe. Like Angelina Jolie in that chick version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. You never know if she’s gonna stick her tongue down a guy’s throat, or part his hair with a frying pan. But since she’s a looker, it’s STILL an appealing risk somehow. Go figure. Well, hence comes The Stepdaughter (2000, 92 minutes), which also moseys along the line between animal attraction and criminal insanity.
Susan (Andrea Roth) ventilates an urban cowboy with an icepick after luring him into a motel room with her seriously hot bod. She then steals the fella’s gig at a horse ranch run by none other than Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) who now looks as though he SWALLOWED the 25th century. It takes dern-near forever to find out WHY she’s done any of this, as she mostly just spends her nights talking crazy talk to a baby doll and having psycho-chick flashbacks. And after her reasons are revealed, they’re certainly twisted and worthwhile, but the rest of the flick is simply frittered away and deeply anti-climatic. In short, all frying pan and no tongue.
Notables: Two breasts. Five corpses. Gratuitous game of charades. One bottomless pit. Bath-tub electrocution.
Quotables: Susan fends off a handsy ranch hand, "It’s not that I don’t like sex, I just like to choose who I have it with." And while trying to kill the lovely Lisa Dean Ryan, she exclaims, "When I first found Conner Ranch, I thought of burning it down, but I’ve grown since my days at Carson. I’ve learned things, like anger management, now!"
Time codes: Cowboy sent chasing "Ghostriders In The Sky" (5:50). An ode to Psycho (52:20).
Final thought: It’s the little thriller that thought it could, thought it could, but never did. Plus, everyone knows chicks this crazy CAN’T keep their clothes on the entire flick. Major faux pas.