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STUDIO: Columbia Tristar Home Video
MSRP: $24.96
RATED: R
RUNNING TIME: 91 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: Trailers
The Pitch
“Psycho girl gradually begins to takes over her roommate’s life and starts murdering people…again!”
The Humans
Kristen Miller, Allison Lange, Todd Babcock and Brooke Burns
The Nutshell
Holly Parker is fighting tooth and nail with her roommate Jan over a promotion at her advertising firm. Jan pulls out all the stops to nail the promotion, which means she gets Holly’s boyfriend drunk and nails him. Feeling betrayed Holly vows revenge before moving out of the apartment. Holly conveniently discovers an apartment listing in the want ads looking for a professional single white female to help share an apartment.
God bless you Stephanie Portnoy
The girl who placed the ad, Tess, seems normal at first if a little shy. She’s much nicer than Jan was though so Holly thinks nothing of it. At least until Tess starts becoming a little too nice and clingy. Before you know it Tess is trying to get intimate with Holly and proclaiming undying love and affection to her. Naturally Holly is too tense to pick up on how disturbing the relationship has become and allows Tess to mess up her life even more before she finally wises up and has to convince the rest of the world how crazy Tess really is.
The Package
Single White Female 2 – The Psycho is part of a new wave of direct to video sequel cash-ins. Its release is to be followed by Hollow Man 2, an American Pie spinoff, Urban Legends 3 and about a dozen Wild Things sequels. As such, the only special feature the disc has is trailers for its direct to video brethren. The selling point for all these sequels seems to be lots and lots of gratuitous nudity. It’s just crazy enough to work. The film itself is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen with an English 5.1 Dolby Digital audio mix.
The Lowdown
These cash-in sequels seem to be a win-win combination for the movie studios. Simply reuse the exact same story from the original, slap a “2” on the title and profit. Porno parodies of movies show more originality than this sequel. The film follows the exact same plot progression as the original and makes sure to hit every single plot point including the psycho roommate dying her hair and stealing her friend’s identity. The film is so unwilling to deviate from the original that they cast a cop who looks identical to the one in the first film. It’s amazing that the filmmakers showed such dedication to copying that they couldn’t even change the look of a minor character.
Direct to video films have significantly less shame than their theatrical counterparts and make sure to cater to the home video market. Single White Female 2 does this by throwing in a large number of scantily clad women. A quarter of the film is women in their underwear. To sweeten the deal, the filmmakers also added a sleazy sex club, girl on girl action and erotic asphyxiation.
This sequel finally delivers on what test audiences wanted from the original – girl on girl action.
Allison Lange copies Jennifer Jason Leigh’s original performance for the most part. The film attempts to give the character a background with an angel of mercy plot point but quickly drops it, only resurrecting it at the end to try and give the film a meaning. Kristen Miller anchors the leading role and does a decent job at being both angry and sympathetic towards Tess. The film is sort of a USA High reunion, featuring both Miller and James Madio in a supporting role. This will be a treat for all two people who watched the show.
Single White Female 2 is the very definition of an unnecessary sequel. It doesn’t reuse any of the characters from the previous film, making it more of a remake than a sequel. Was the original Single White Female enough of a box office smash and popular enough to warrant a direct to video sequel thirteen years later? Are the filmmakers hoping that no one remembers the plot of the original enough to notice how lazy the sequel is? If they’re hoping to bring in a new generation of fans to create a Single White Female franchise, they’d be better off just re-releasing the original and slapping a “2” on the end instead of re-filming it like they did with this movie. They could save even more money that way.