Reviews (5)

Before Basic Instinct
Before Basic Instinct, there was "Scissors". Released in 1991, this obscure thriller stars Sharon Stone as the victimized patient of a crazed therapist who drives her to murder. Slight similarities to "Basic Instinct" which was not too far off have been detected. The choice of weapon in Instinct was an icepick, in this film it is a pair of scissors as the title suggests. Sharon Stone delivers a good performance, eventhough she is in a bad film with very little popularity. Everyone's heard of Basic Instinct but who's ever heard of Scissors ? Sharon plays a weak, traumatized woman whose past was painful. Her father abused her sexually and her mother killed him with a pair of scissors right in front of her eyes. The hard-up young woman seeks counseling with a therapist who turns out to be the real murderer in a vein similar to Hannibal Lecter only without the cannibalism. The mood is intense and dark and Sharon Stone has several "Mad Scenes" including one in which after murder, a black bird reminds her vocally of the deed. Sometimes, the film is hard to follow as several characters act as if they are the real brains behind the evil. In the end, Sharon Stone finally gets the guts to confront the therapist and locks him up in a building for good. As the movie ends, a variation on the duet from the opera Lakme plays and Sharon Stone rides off in a cab with the only man who truly cared for her. Ok. So this no Basic Instinct. This movie falls short on a lot of things. Basic Instinct launched Sharon Stone's career and made her famous. This movie was experimental and Sharon Stone had not yet achieved the status of star. In its own way it's still a good thriller. It can be said that this movie is for specialized interests. It's a film for fans of Miss Stone who don't mind what character she plays and in what kind of movie. For thriller fans, however bad the thriller can be or however hackneyed. An early 90's film, it really attests to its time. At one point, Stone looks like Madonna. The eerie and shocking feel of the movie was very typical of the 90's. The 90's would see other such thrillers involving crazed murderers such as Silence Of The Lambs, Misery, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, and Sleeping With The Enemy. Add this lesser known film to the rest and you have yourself a collection of good thrillers from the 90's.

she's better off with an icepick.
i don't own this movie, i just happened to see it on tv. so i looked it up on here to see when it was made...1991, just a year before "basic instinct." it's amazing what a budget will do.

actually though, it's more than that. cuz "scissors" is pretty bad all around. the script is weird and ridiculous, the direction is a grotesque ape of hitchcock, and the acting - including sharon stone's - is amazingly cliched and superficial even given the material. it's bad enough to be funny, but that usually isn't enough to make me sit through a movie. which i did. it was just so whacked that i actually did want to see what happened next. so really, what am i complaining about, i don't know. i guess that's just the way you talk about this kind of film. i don't know the director but i'm no hard-core film student, so he's probably all famous and respected and i look [stupid], but whatever, all i know is that "scissors" is not a "good" movie in any traditional non-ironic sense. meaning that i think most people watching this would laugh when they were supposed to scream or something.

there are a few odd parallels with "basic instinct." rather than butchering her boyfriend for kicks during sex with an icepick stashed in the sheets, stone fends off a would-be rapist in the elevator by stabbing him with a pair of scissors she has in her purse. in both films the motif of the icepick/scissors reappears obsessively, and appears to be connected with some deep-seated sexual psychopathy on the part of stone's characters - albeit in completely different ways. "instinct's" catherine trammel is a willfully homicidal and utterly liberated bisexual "risk addict," cold, calculating, in complete control of herself and her environment; "scissor's" angela anderson is more of a victim figure, a 26-year-old virgin, confused, out-of-control, constantly manipulated by those around her. catherine wins by sheer diabolical ingenuity; angela scrapes through as if by default.

the plot of "scissors" is like a bizarre arbitrary hotch-pot of about a hundred thousand different films noir. like, of course she restores creepy old dolls as a living/hobby/whatever, and of course there's a wheelchair-bound creepy artist guy and a shifty two-faced father-figure shrink with unconventional ideas about therapy. cinematographically it looks like an inferior product of "the shining" era 80's - offhand i definitely would've guessed it was pre-"total recall." then again, i saw it on tv. the parts where the dolls talk to her are hilarious, then annoying, then hilarious again. not to mention ironic, cuz all the actors are very wooden and out of place. all in all, a very weird movie. if you just like to look at sharon stone you might enjoy it...otherwise go get some other crazy scissors-murder movie - there are plenty to choose from.

It's just alright...
The plot is a laugh-riot. Sharon is real pretty. Sharon makes the film toleratably...if it was cast with any other lead it would be Just Another Bad Late Night Movie.
Don't bother buying this flick...it's on cable often enough.

Psychological suspense drama
This was a great vehicle for Sharon Stone and she plays the part of the disturbed heroine to perfection. Ronnie Cox was chilling as the villain and Michele Phillips convincingly sleazy as the cheating wife. Steve Railsback, playing a dual role as the good guy and the bad twin,turned in his usual good performance with his "bad guy" personna excelling as usual. A good suspenseful story that will have you biting your nails - but sweet revenge in the end.

Not bad.
If you like Sharon Stone and eery movies, you may want to give this one a try. It's not a superb movie, but it's worth watching. ... Read more