Tanz der Hexen

As you probably know, Bette Davis walked off of "Wicked Stepmother" after just a week of filming, leaving writer/director Larry Cohen scrambling to rewrite his script and get the movie completed. While the end results make sense (sort of), what is really amazing is that Cohen not only managed to sell the completed movie to a major Hollywood studio, he made enough on the sale to make a profit. The movie simply isn't good, which is probably why the Hollywood studio barely released it to theaters. In her footage, Bette Davis not only looks and sounds extremely ill, she doesn't seem to give a darn about this project. The other actors come across somewhat better, but even they aren't able to generate laughs at any point in the movie. The screenplay they are stuck with simply isn't funny at all. The heavily rewritted screenplay also (perhaps inevitably) feels like Cohen is making things up as he goes along. It also doesn't help that the special effects are mostly pretty cheesy, even for an 1980s film. In short, the movie is a low point for Davis, Cohen, studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and everybody else involved with it.

Probably had Bette Davis been in better health and actually finished the film as planned Wicked Stepmother might have been a reasonably good black comedy about the occult. As it was with her walking out of the film for reasons of health I suspect we get both an incoherent story and only about 15 minutes of Bette Davis.

As it was she could have and should have took her final cinema curtain call with the wonderful Whales Of August. It's not as bad a valedictory as Cuban Rebel Girl with her old fellow Warner Brothers player Errol Flynn, but it's still a mess. And Bette looked positively terrible in her scenes.

Detective Tom Bosley is on the trail of a witch who ingratiates herself in a family, loots it and then does something to them for her amusement. In the case Bosley is on they're turned into puppetoons and are found in a shoe box.

His quarry has moved on to another family and vacationing Colleen Camp and David Rasche come home and find that her father Lionel Stander is now married again to Bette Davis. Things start happening to all of them even their son Shawn Donohue as the witch switches back and forth from Davis to Barbara Carrera with Stander not noticing or figuring how lucky can an old guy get. Camp sees her family being torn away from her and she's not taking it lying down.

Not only is this Bette Davis's farewell to the big screen, but also Evelyn Keyes who plays the owner of a shop on the occult who gives lessons in magic. Both Camp and Bosley get a crash course.

Wicked Stepmother is funny in spots and the climax is nicely done, but maybe if some insurmountable problems hadn't occurred we might have seen a better film.

For starters, I am not familiar with Bete Davis. But I would prefer her to stick with the shootings, because she suited the role she was intended for and acts really good.

"Wicked stepmother" is funnier than most of silly comedy/horror, is quite fast and has funny but effective special effects.

This bad-review-bombing isn't deserved by this little flick that doesn't even for one minute take itself seriously! But I suppose this is because of Bete Davis fame who finally didn't get on with the production people - which resulted in the silly plot change.

I would sure like it most with Bete Davis (Miranda) starring (I also love the cat!), having no Priscilla in it - but then again: it's good as is.

B-movie/stupid horror/thriller-comedy fans, sit down and GIVE IT A WATCH because it is worth it. And don't forget the beer!

This film wasn't THAT bad. I actually enjoyed it! Sure replacing Bette Davis with Barbara Carrera and THEN having them share the same body was not the smartest decision ever made in Hollywood, but it sure beats Ed Wood's solution to replacing Bela Lugosi in "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Also, it does get rather silly in the scenes toward the end. But there are some very clever scenes too, like the one involving the photograph of Lionel Stander's horrible first wife. The photograph is of Bette's rival, Joan Crawford. Colleen Camp, Tom Bosley, David Rasche, Seymour Cassel, Evelyn Keyes (!), Lionel Stander and even Barbara Carrera did wonderful in their roles. And Richard Moll was very funny in his small, but memorable, role as the inspector. But the true star of this movie is Bette Davis. She is wonderfully evil in the role of Miranda. She is so good at being bad. And even though it was not her best movie, she still is wonderful to watch. I think Larry Cohen did a fine job with this, considering all the trouble it ran into. Overall, Wicked Stepmother is an okay movie.

** 1/2 out of ****

When an annoyingly controlling and stupid woman comes home with her husband from vacation, they discover her father (Lionel Stander) married to a somewhat disagreeable woman (Bette Davis). However, the daughter is so disagreeable and annoying, the viewer will likely tend to enjoy how miserable she is with the new step-mother. However, soon after this the old lady disappears--in the guise of sexy Barbara Carrera. What's next? Who cares?!

"Wicked Stepmother" is a truly god-awful film. Sadly, it was also Bette Davis' last film and I sure would have liked to have seen this great actress go out on a high note...not this turkey!

Whether or not the story is true that Davis walked off the set and refused to return because the script was THAT bad, I am very inclined to believe it because the film is horribly written. Part of this could be because the 'clever filmmakers' decided to use what little footage they had of Davis and then re-write the film around that in order to hide her disappearance from the script. But considering how clumsy and stupid it all is, I think they did a lousy job in hiding it!! Clearly the writers they employed were about 6 to 7 years-old!

The film itself is in many ways reminiscent of a film made for the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. After all, the script is clearly something little kids might like and adults with at least a 70 IQ would hate. Oddly, however, it's really NOT a great film for kid because there are many, many sexual references and sexual situations you wouldn't want your kids to see. Overall, a terrible film...one of the worst of Davis' otherwise wonderful career.

I should note that late in life, Davis appeared in quite a few questionable roles--roles other famous actresses probably would have refused. She claimed she needed the money...but badly enough to appear in crap like this film, "Murder With Mirrors" and "Bunny O'Hare"?! Ironically, her arch-rival, Joan Crawford, did exactly the same--appearing in tons of terrible movies late in life ("Trog" is the most egregious example).