A modern day Cinderella tale. In this one, a Ph.D. candidate loses her mother, a pediatrician, in what is thought of as a tragic accident. Soon, her father, also a physician, meets a woman (Linda Evans) with an interesting daughter. They marry and the fun begins.Evans and her daughter Melinda are thieves. The twist comes when Evans actually falls in love with the doctor and tells her daughter that she is calling off their plans. When the husband is killed by Evans' daughter, mother wants to send her away but this brat has other plans-killing her mother and blaming the Ph.D candidate!The plot twists here are excellent. The movie moves at a fast pace and is a joy to watch on the screen. The psychological trapping at the end is a delight for the viewer as well.

I thought I was watching Days of our Lives or one of the other afternoon soap operas. When the camera panned the evil stepsister from the toes up, I knew my patience would be tried, but after I surfed and found no Columbo episodes on, I tried to lock in to this 'mystery' where any chance of playing detective was spoiled when little Miss Evil woke Joanie from a deep slumber to urge her to up the dosage. Now it became strictly a thriller, with the requisite scene of plucky young woman entering the killer's house, without police backup as the plot turned out. I could almost hear Mary Roberts Rinehart typing the script.Little inconsistencies: On that occasion the killer, who is in the clear according to the police, calls the law to protect herself. Yet when she spots a burglar in her house later, she confronts the invader herself. Oh, some mental midget will tell us she could not call the law because she knew the crook was into her supply of digoxin and she would be found out, but that is a crock. Her whole modus was thinking she had everyone wrapped around her finger.Then there are all the scenes when the heroine looks from the window of the guest house and sees what is going on in her father's house, AFTER turning on a light in her room. Try to gaze out the window into the dark when there is a bright light burning behind you. You will see nothing.Another experiment I must try is looking at another car thru the side mirror of mine. In the scene where Ms. Evil drove Dad to work, she appears to get back in a car with right hand drive. My co-watcher says this because we see the scene in the side mirror of the heroine's car, but even in a mirror right is right and left is left.The actress who played the stepsister was awful. The black widow spider is supposed to have some charm to attract the victims; this one set off waves telling one and all to run the other way. Except for her cat fights with the heroine, it was impossible to believe in her. Tuesday Weld set the standard for these type parts in Pretty Poison; this particular actress is Thursday, and she has far to go.As the climax neared in the operating room, I had this horrible thought that I had seen the film before for I predicted that the needle held water, not poison. Seeing the villain trying to seduce the prison doctor as the screen faded, I was hoping this was not a set up for a sequel.

This movie is brutal,disturbing, and certain scenes almost completely unwatchable. As television movies go, many are bad and most are not as good as motion pictures but this was a movie that really left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope it wasn't based on a true story, though I do not remember seeing that it was(they usually say). If it wasn't-what was the point of the movie? It was so unnecessarily brutal and drainingly hard to watch to the point where you're exhausted by the end of the movie.While the ending was good "payback" the villainess in this, was so repulsive, nothing in the world could have been enough. At least, in many movies like this, there's some intrigue to go along with the bitterness but in this I saw nothing. The villainess was so disgusting it gave you a headache just to watch her for more then five minutes(for some reason I did watch the whole thing) and by the end your so thankful the movie's over you want to hug the television set.In other words-not good. I love Rena Sofer though(she can get better scripts) and Linda Evans is always fun to watch. Too much violence though and not ENOUGH payback at the end especially with the ambiguous last 30 seconds. Just another bad TV movie.

I just recently watched this movie on USA, and I have to say it is great, Bridgette Wilson did an excellent performence. Everyone should check thier TV guide's for this movie.