Dans le piège de ma belle-mère

Do you ever watch a film that's actually quite close to being good, but just can't quite stick the landing when it needs to? 'Killer in Law' is no classic. The plot of a relative who starts out as merely overbearing, but ends up with more sinister motives is nothing new, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be bad. It depends on the execution. Here, a grandmother joins her son and his wife and daughter after an extended period, er, 'in an institution' shall we say? Of course they welcome her at first, but soon things take a darker turn.

And in this outing, some of the actors are actually quite good. The leading lady is very watchable and can easily handle the role. Plus the little girl who plays the daughter is decent enough for her age. Sometimes when youngsters are placed centre stage they're either bad actors or simply annoying. Here, she's neither. However, whereas they're good the husband seems to be more like a male model who's trying his hand at acting and the older lady who plays the grandmother uses every ham-fisted overacting technique ever. Although, perhaps I shouldn't rag on the cast too much. The script doesn't give them much to work with and the people behind the camera could probably have tweaked the script to higher standards.

During the opening there's so much exposition they might as well have just done one long 'text crawl;' in fact people almost SPEAK in exposition to tell the audience the general set-up for what's to come. The strange thing about the script is that most of it actually works. It's like every ten lines of dialogue a child was allowed to add one line before handing writing duties back to the grown-ups. This gives the dialogue a really uneven feel to it.

When it comes to the story, there's nothing you won't really see coming. Anyone not a major member of the cast is effectively there for a 'bodycount' (which isn't very high - and don't expect any major gore or ingenious kills or make-up effects). What you have here is a very bog-standard affair that would have felt outdated back in the eighties.

The first death with Granny killing ******* was so over the top and ridiculous, that it set the tone of the movie for me, and therefore ruined it. I am kind of over clueless relatives that force the demon relatives on the relatives that resist. Given the history, does it even make sense that Tom would let Grandma around his daughter? You'd think not.

This grandma was so much stronger than the young lady are you kidding me ! She was so strong no one could touch her ! Extremely poor acting , just wow ! Seriously ! Every single time I hope the people that are getting killed off are getting paid well !

This week's wacko is an insane woman who lost her young daughter and went mad. Years later she wants her grand daughter for herself. She reconnects with her estranged son and starts to help look after her grand daughter. Her clueless daughter in law is occupied with starting her business and is grateful for the assistance.

The actress Nana Visitor who plays grandma is pretty good and one efficient killer. Great idea having older lady psychos. Brings to mind Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in those 60s horror movies.

The house is pretty by the way.

Worth a watch.

Diabolical acting, Ridiculous plot. Absolutely terrible film .