Wicked Stepmother

1989
PG-13
1h 30m

IMDb RATING

4.0/10

2.4K

YOUR RATING

Bette Davis and Barbara Carrera in Wicked Stepmother (1989)

Play trailer1:33

1 Video

69 Photos

Comedy Fantasy

A mother-and-daughter pair of witches wreaks havoc on a suburban family.A mother-and-daughter pair of witches wreaks havoc on a suburban family.A mother-and-daughter pair of witches wreaks havoc on a suburban family.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

4.0/10

2.4K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination

Trivia
In the scene where Jenny talks to Steve about how much she misses her mother, we see two pictures of Jenny's deceased mother in her room. Both pictures are of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis' on- and off-screen rival.

Goofs
Man pretending to be gardener mutilates hedge with electric chainsaw while soundtrack is of gasoline chainsaw.

Quotes
Jenny Fisher: Priscilla, come quick!
Jenny Fisher: Hey!
[Priscilla enters. Jenny throws a bucket of water on her]
Priscilla: I'm melting, I'm melting!
[She laughs]
Priscilla: It didn't work, did it, Dorothy? This is reality, not MGM!

Alternate versions
The version of this film that airs on cable TV edits out much of the scene involving Priscilla and Steve fooling around, including all of the references to Priscilla going back into cat form. This version implies that the two did sleep together.

Connections
Featured in Bette Davis: Größer als das Leben (2017)

User reviews41

Review

Featured review

Davis' swan song

I have a feeling there are two groups-- those who rate this a good example of Bette's acting late in her career (and her willingness to still act at all); and those who find the film so abysmal as to be an embarrassment that mars the Davis legacy.

From what I have read, she was quite ill during filming. It probably became too much of a toll for her, but she labored on because she still wanted to act and my guess is she needed the money for her mounting medical bills. Then, there were creative differences over the script and how the project was being filmed. So she walked off.

WICKED STEPMOTHER had a rather small budget of $2.5 million. But it only made $43,000 at the box office. So by all accounts, it was a huge bomb and not the type of movie swan song befitting a legend of Davis' magnitude.