She-Devil (1989) (Blu-ray Review)

She-Devil (1989) (Blu-ray Review)
Directed By: Susan Seidelman
Starring: Meryl Streep, Ed Begley Jr., Roseanne Barr
Rated: R/Region A/1:85/1080p/Number of Discs 1
Available from Olive Film

Ruth is a wife and mother who tries to please her husband, even though she is fat. But when her husband falls into an affair with a certain romance novelist, Ruth goes berserk and demands revenge. First she embarrasses her husband when his parents come over to dinner. Then when he leaves her for good, Ruth comes up with a list of everything that belongs to her husband then the revenge is to destroy all of it. Because, she’s a She Devil!

She-Devil is an odd one to really group into a genre, as it sort of mixes things up. I suppose you could call it a horror movie in some ways, but when you have Roseanne Barr in your film you know you also have a comedy on your hands as well. I first came across this movie as a random rental as a kid and I was looking forward to this release from Olive Films, because I really wanted to visit them film again after all these years. It turns out to be a mixed bag, but there is more positives than negatives. The drama starts when Ruth (Barr) finds out her husband is having an affair. He takes his affair to the next level, leaving her and the family behind, so Ruth decides to show him just how awful things can get and she sets forth to basically take the man down at anyway possible. There is your typical late 80s/early 90s fluff, but the film is still worthy of watching and entertaining regardless. Maybe not a film for everyone, but it makes a good pop-corn flick if nothing else.

A dark comedy doesn’t work without the right characters and no matter if it comes from Barr or Meryl Streep, who is playing the mistress of this whole thing, you have memorable characters. This is very much in the same class as other such dark comedies as Death Becomes Her. Maybe it doesn’t go THAT far, but if you dig that, I think you will find enough here to dig this. Another thing to keep in mind is that this movie came out during the time when you could say that Roseanne was at her comedic peak. She is the main character and such you will be seeing here and she does do a fine job of pushing this one over the hump it needs to get over to journey into the “worth seeing” department of the world. Olive does a great job giving us the film in the best way you have ever seen it and if you liked this one before, a release like this can make you love it. I, however, liked it overall, but I didn’t love it.

Extras

– Original Theatrical Trailer

Quality of Transfer: 86%