Single White Female 2: The Psycho? Is that the title?

Did I miss something? In the original Single White Female, did Jennifer Jason Leigh not play a psycho? Or maybe there was a Single White Female 1.5 in which all the pretty roommates did nothing but drink tea and give each other perms.

I digress.

Basically, naming this entirely pedestrian direct-to-video rehash Single White Female 2: The Psycho is like calling a movie Hellraiser 9: The Guy With Pins In His Head. Plus, it's just plain old redundant because ... what single white female isn't a psycho? (Bwaha, just kiddin'.)

Less a sequel than a really, really stupid remake, Single White Female 2: The Psycho (hereafter known as SWF2:ThPs) feels like a lazy high school student's rendition of what went down in the original flick. 1992's Single White Female may have born on the wave of the Fatal Attraction rip-offs, but it was actually a damn fine little thriller, thanks to the dark directorial touches of Barbet Schroeder, Don Roos' creepily sensual adapted screenplay, and some excellent work by Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

SWF2:ThPs feels like a bunch of really pretty women re-enacting their favorite moments of Single White Female, only they weren't exactly bright enough to include the dark sexual subtext, the crafty dialogue, or the impressive acting performances. Basically, just strip Single White Female down to its most superficial ingredients, and that's what you get here: a DTV yawner with several attractive women, a tinkertoy plot construction that moves from A to B to C with all the energy of a muddy mop, and a screenplay cobbled together from only the most rote and familiar cable-flick concepts imaginable.

For those who've never seen Single White Female and those who cannot read between the lines of a movie title like Single White Female 2: The Psycho, here is an elaborate and well-researched plot synopsis:

Psycho. Roommate. (End synopsis.)

Feel free to throw a "hot" in front of the "psycho roommate" description if you like, but it won't change the fact that a normal woman moves in with a (hot) psycho who becomes fixated on her new roomie, wears her clothes, hangs out at S&M bars, and eventually kills some people.

The fact that it apparently took three separate screenwriters to pen a drop-dead obvious retread of an already well-known film is simply amazing. For the record, the trio responsible for buying a copy of Don Roos' SWF screenplay and for plagiarizing the holy snot out of it are:

Andy Hurst, writer of Wild Things 2, Vampires: The Turning, Wild Things: Diamonds in the Rough, and the Wesley Snipes opus The Marksman.

Ross Helford, from the pen of whom came Sniper 3, Alien Lockdown, and both of those Wild Things DTV-quels.

J.S. Cardone, who worked on all of the above flicks, as well as a bunch more you've never seen.

I can just see Andy, Ross, and J.S. sitting down with the Single White Female DVD, a few bags of Frito's, and a clicker with an oft-used pause button. Call this thing a sequel if you want, but I know a flimsy little Xerox-job when I hear one. Not even fun in a 'guilty pleasure' sort of way, SWF2 is a dry, dreary, and entirely dusty piece of cable-flick jiggle-tease ... and no, there's not even any nudity, which makes NO sense to me at all.

The DVD

Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1), as if the flick were actually destined for a theatrical release anywhere outside Malaysia or Guam. Picture quality's not too awful, all things considered, but you'd have to watch the movie to find that out for yourself.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1.

Extras: Just a few trailers for Single White Female, Wild Things: Diamonds in the Rough, The Deal, and Murder at the Presidio.

Final Thoughts

I've got no problem with goofball DTV schlock-flicks, nor do I dislike the knuckleheads who slap this sort of stuff together ... but if you work for a company that happens to own the rights to the "Single White Female" title, you could probably put a little more effort into the projects. It wouldn't take a whole lot of extra money to churn out a DTV sequel that's surprisingly witty or unexpectedly exciting. So while I acknowledge that the DTV sequels are here to stay, I must politely insist that they stop being this terrible.