Snapdragon

Spoilers:

Snapdragon (1993) is an erotic thriller staring Steven Bauer as a police psychiatrist, Chelsea Field as his detective main squeeze, and Pamela Anderson as the villain. Field is promoted to a homicide investigation from vice, and is sure she has a serial killer on her hands. She asks Bauer to do a psychiatric profile for her. His best friend, also a shrink, introduces him to an amnesia patient, Pamela Anderson. Bauer becomes obsessed with the murders, and hooked on helping Anderson.

The murders are peculiar enough. Men who seemingly have nothing in common are fucked, their throats slit, and a black scarf place over their eyes. A Chinese symbol is found on a mirror in the room, and there are no fingerprints. They suspect an oriental woman, except that they find blonde pubic hair on all of the victims. Long after we know beyond all reasonable doubt that Anderson is the killer, Bauer figures out that she has multiple personality disorder, and is actually the killer. Then, in a flash of screenwriting genius, it is not multiple personality disorder at all, but ... (wait for it) ... the dread surprise evil twin.

And, still giddy over the clever twist of cliches, Field shoots the wrong twin at the end, and the guilty girl goes free, clearly to leave room for a sequel.

As if all of this weren't enough, Pamela Anderson gave the most nearly competent performance in the film. Bauer and Field were especially bad.

Assume that bad acting with a little nudity in this genre would normally merit around our C- level, then deduct one half letter each for multiple personality disorder, a surprise evil twin and a sequel-friendly ending, then add half a letter for lack of an evil dwarf, and this is a D-.

NUDITY REPORT

Pamela Anderson shows her robo hooters to good advantage more than once, and her buns in a thong.

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The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 3.5/10

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a D-.