SCORNED (2013)

Studio:       Anchor Bay
Director:    Mark Jones
Writer:       Mark Jones, Sadie Katz
Producer:  Charles Ison, Lance Thompson, Martin Sprock
Stars:     Billy Zane, AnnaLynne McCord, Viva Bianca

Review Score:

---

Summary:

When an affair is revealed between her boyfriend and her best friend, a disturbed woman exacts revenge against them both.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Sadie holds her boyfriend Kevin captive while reading text messages between he and her best friend Jennifer. Sadie begins torturing Kevin for having an affair behind her back.

28 Hours Earlier – Sadie tells Jennifer about an upcoming weekend getaway at a secluded home where she expects Kevin to propose to her. Jennifer unenthusiastically points out that they have only been dating for less than six months.

Sadie and Kevin begin their romantic weekend together. Sadie finds text messages on Kevin’s phone indicating that he planned to break up with her that weekend to be with Jennifer. Sadie knocks Kevin unconscious, restrains him, and starts torturing him when he comes to.

Using Kevin’s phone, Sadie lures Jennifer to the house with the promise of a romantic weekend and takes her prisoner as well. Over the course of the evening, Sadie breaks Kevin’s legs, blinds him, crushes Jennifer’s hand in a vice, and shocks both captives with electricity. Meanwhile, a prisoner escapes from a prison nearby.

While pulling out one of Jennifer’s teeth, Sadie reveals that the reason she was institutionalized as a child was because she drowned her sister because she was jealous over a puppy that loved her sister more than Sadie. Sadie escorts Jennifer to a boat at gunpoint. Jennifer briefly escapes, but Sadie tracks her down. While driving back to the house, Jennifer reveals that she has secretly been in love with Sadie. The two girls kiss before Jennifer jumps out of the car.

Sadie goes after Jennifer and seemingly strangles her. Back at the car, two police officers stop Sadie to warn her about the escaped convict. Jennifer comes from the shadows asking for help, but a passing truck runs her over. Sadie leaves the scene while the officers rush to Jennifer’s body.

Sadie finds the convict hitchhiking and offers him a ride. She seduces the convict and then kills him after having sex in order to use him as her alibi.

Sadie returns to the house. After a protracted confrontation and struggle with Kevin, Sadie kills him. She then calls the police after staging the scene to look like a rape and homicide at the hands of the escaped convict. In an epilogue scene, Sadie notices her new boyfriend surreptitiously engaging a waitress with whom he is having an affair.

---

Review:

Hell hath no fury like the movie “Scorned.”  That unoriginal groaner was the planned opening for this review when it was presumed that the film would be a destined-for-obscurity “Fatal Attraction” clone with an attractive cast and little else.  It may still be destined for obscurity, but surprisingly, “Scorned” is an entertainingly trashy mix of soapy Lifetime drama and sleazy Cinemax sexiness in service of a guilty pleasure revenge thriller with B-movie appeal.

The story is a shovel into concrete when it comes to breaking new ground.  AnnaLynne McCord is a pill-popping head case named Sadie whose sultry ways make it easy for men to overlook frequent flashes of wild-eyed mania.  Mental illness mixed with jealousy finally boils over when a tryst is revealed between new boyfriend Kevin and lifelong best friend Jennifer.  Emotionally snapped, Sadie takes both betrayers captive and walks her two prisoners through squirming recreations of torture scenes ranging all the way from “Misery” to Abu Ghraib.  There may be nothing novel in that basic setup, but it is the execution in the acting that makes “Scorned” worth watching.

90 minutes makes it a lean affair, no pun intended, with only the three primary actors on hand for the majority of it.  Anyone other than AnnaLynne McCord and Billy Zane carrying the lead roles and “Scorned” would be a far more arduous viewing experience.  Zane and McCord are actors who have both turned in better work in better movies, but what they show about their talent here is a knowledge for how much investment they need to put into a film of this caliber.

They don’t play their parts as camp, and they don’t play them as strictly serious either.  The duo elevates some otherwise mill grist material with full-bodied performances and a thick streak of just enough exaggerated loopiness to let casting agents know they are not dimwits oblivious to the film’s surreal tone.  McCord and Zane are keenly aware that they are not remaking “Gone with the Wind,” yet they are also not half-assing their efforts and appear to enjoy the gaudy sides to their characters.

Also clearly having a good time are co-writers Sadie Katz and Mark Jones, who also directs.  The major plot development involves a face-tattooed escapee from a conveniently nearby prison whose involvement in the main storyline takes an unexpected turn.  Side scenes moving him closer to the house on the hill where the torture takes place are one sore thumb after another.  And yet, the outrageousness is strangely dismissible as somehow in keeping with the baffling lunacy of everything else going on in the film.  You can almost see Katz and Jones squealing with glee as they commit their mildly insane plot to paper, undoubtedly daring each other to actually make the crazy movie they are envisioning.

They make it to the finish line, although there are stretches where even those turning blind eyes towards holes and hamminess can see a sputtering engine low on gas.  Yanking teeth and breaking legs of the same two people for an hour and a half covers a limited amount of distance.  “Scorned” smells the staleness ripening and offers distractions in the form of a chili-making next-door neighbor and the aforementioned travelogue of a hitchhiking convict.  It smells of desperation to fill out the runtime unnecessarily and to break up the main narrative, probably because that is indeed the only reason for being.

“Scorned” is simply one of those movies where knowing what is in store going in makes all the difference in ultimate entertainment value.  It may not have the big screen classiness of an Adrian Lyne sex thriller, but what it lacks in polished charm, “Scorned” makes up for with entertaining moments from two stars stamping stereotyped characters and recycled story beats with unique imprints of colorful personality.

Review Score:  65

---