I saw that 'Diabolique' was showing on a cable movie channel, and I had heard great things about it, and so I was prepared to be impressed and intrigued, and to improve my 'cultural literacy' in the process.

Instead, what I got was a draggy, lifeless 'film noir' remake with Sharon Stone and Chazz Palmintieri. The frustrating thing about the movie was that it was JUST GOOD ENOUGH and kept JUST ENOUGH of the elements of the original plot to make me hope that things would improve somehow. So I kept watching it. But it never did.

I am not Sharon Stone's biggest fan, but I acknowledge that she gave a compelling performance in "Casino", and that very few actresses past or present could have played her role better. (Joan Crawford or Betty Davis, maybe). And she's a black hole of bitterness and anger here -somehow sexually inviting and repellent at the same time. That doesn't make for comfortable viewing. There's the same problem with the lesbian undercurrents between the wife and the mistress - it ought to be titillating or erotic, but it's just stale and nasty. And Chazz Palmintieri is a great character actor( see 'The Usual Suspects' or "Bullets Over Broadway"),but the character he plays is such a flat-out son-of-a-bitch that you really don't want to watch him.

But the real the problem with the film is that they were going for dread and suspense, but the pacing and rhythms of each of the individual scenes was way off - empty and interminable. So the viewer wound up feeling dread and BOREDOM instead. That doesn't make for 'recommended film viewing'.

I still hope to seek out the original one of these days, so at least the remake didn't spoil anything. And some one else might like this version just fine on its own merits, depending on how big a Stone fan they are (it is really her movie - her character drives the events in the plot).

I found it a pretty interesting film all the way through but the ending was so unsatisfying that it just about ruined the entire thing for me. Justice wasn't served here: only radical feminism which says it okay to murder your lousy husband.

Here, too, is yet one more example of Christian-bashing. Isabelle Adjani plays a nun who quits because she has no faith anymore. She, Sharon Stone and Chazz Palminteri all run a Catholic boys school and bash Christianity themselves. Other teachers at the school are also shown in a bad light. There is not one positive Christian in the Christian school! Well, that's way too much bias for me. Imagine doing this to another religion or race and getting away with it?

This was a re-make of a 1955 French film, which had to be better than this monstrosity. I am glad to see so many reviewers here agree, even if for different reasons.

Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri) is the dean of an old school inherited by his wife, the teacher Mia Baran (Isabelle Adjani) that has heart disease. Guy is an abusive husband and has a love affair with his mistress Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone),who is a school teacher in the same school. One day, Nicole and Mia plot a scheme to murder Guy and Mia spikes his whiskey and he faints. Then Nicole and Mia drown him in the bathtub and dump his body in the swimming school. Then Nicole dumps her keys in the swimming pool expecting that the school janitor finds him when he drains the pool. However there is no body in the pool and Nicole and Mia believe that someone knows the truth. When the snoopy retired Detective Shirley Vogel (Kathy Bates) investigates the disappearance, Mia freaks out and is near to destroy their alibi. What might have happened to the body of Guy Baran?

"Diabolique" is a poor and unnecessary American remake of a 1955 French classic directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The director Jeremiah S. Chechik succeeds not only in destroying the story and the atmosphere of the original film with clichés and a boring slow pace, but also in wasting a great cast with names such as Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri and Kathy Bates. Isabelle Adjani, for example, looks like a moron and not a fragile wife. The conclusion is a mess. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Diabolique"