I was very surprised to learn that this made-for-TV movie was based on a novel. I would have expected the script to have been written by, well, some hack. But when you actually watch it, you learn pretty quickly that this is not just another psychopathic killer thriller.
Believe it or not, it can be said with a straight face that BAD STEPMOTHER is quite a bit like Herman Melville's MOBY DICK. Not only do both have the name of the antagonist in their title, but in both cases the antagonist is more or less a background character who is never fully developed.
Verity Hawking (Sofia Vassilieva) is no Captain Ahab, but when we first meet her she is still profoundly flawed. She is a spoiled heiress looking to cash in on her family's fortune, and at first she sees the murder of her divorced father as an opportunity to do just that.
Not that Verity was herself responsible for her father's death, of course. Even supposing she had wanted to do so, somebody has beaten her to the punch. And Verity's confrontation with this somebody is what puts her on the path to moral reform. Because sometimes the best way to find redemption is by defeating an even worse version of yourself.
That's where Verity's father's killer comes in. Louise Hawking (Kristy Swanson) is just as greedy and opportunistic as her stepdaughter; but, unlike Verity, she does not hesitate to cross ANY line to get what she wants. Looking almost hag-like behind a thin spackle of "old-woman" makeup, Swanson is terrifying as the homicidal gold-digger, contributing a chillingly modulated performance that easily could have become cartoonish. Rarely has there been such a loathsome woman in a low-budget film. As a hip dude from the 1970s might put it, Louise is a mother of a mother!
Louise is precisely what Verity could have become if she hadn't been fortunate enough to be born into money and if she had no moral compass. And in rejecting that path, Verity proves she is worthy of the family fortune. When Louise falls to her death at the end, Verity's shameful past dies with her.
Believe it or not, it can be said with a straight face that BAD STEPMOTHER is quite a bit like Herman Melville's MOBY DICK. Not only do both have the name of the antagonist in their title, but in both cases the antagonist is more or less a background character who is never fully developed.
Verity Hawking (Sofia Vassilieva) is no Captain Ahab, but when we first meet her she is still profoundly flawed. She is a spoiled heiress looking to cash in on her family's fortune, and at first she sees the murder of her divorced father as an opportunity to do just that.
Not that Verity was herself responsible for her father's death, of course. Even supposing she had wanted to do so, somebody has beaten her to the punch. And Verity's confrontation with this somebody is what puts her on the path to moral reform. Because sometimes the best way to find redemption is by defeating an even worse version of yourself.
That's where Verity's father's killer comes in. Louise Hawking (Kristy Swanson) is just as greedy and opportunistic as her stepdaughter; but, unlike Verity, she does not hesitate to cross ANY line to get what she wants. Looking almost hag-like behind a thin spackle of "old-woman" makeup, Swanson is terrifying as the homicidal gold-digger, contributing a chillingly modulated performance that easily could have become cartoonish. Rarely has there been such a loathsome woman in a low-budget film. As a hip dude from the 1970s might put it, Louise is a mother of a mother!
Louise is precisely what Verity could have become if she hadn't been fortunate enough to be born into money and if she had no moral compass. And in rejecting that path, Verity proves she is worthy of the family fortune. When Louise falls to her death at the end, Verity's shameful past dies with her.