Before Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone would star in a little film called Scissors, a psychological thriller that almost seems forgotten to time at this point but one that is mildly entertaining and worth a glance for those that enjoy what Stone does.

Stone plays Angela Anderson, a woman who is sexually repressed due to some trauma in her past, still a virgin in her mid-20s and a woman who is nearly raped in the elevator of her building before stabbing her attacker with a pair of scissors she had just purchased. This leads to Angela meeting her neighbours, twin brothers of which one is paralyzed and more than creepy while the other shows both an interesting her well-being as well as sexually. The audience also comes to see her apartment which is filled with all manner of strange-looking dolls, many of which are disturbing in various ways but provide Angela with comfort. Her therapist tries to help her move past the incident which proves to be harder than it should, due to both an unwilling patient and past trauma which she is unable to call up. Eventually, after multiple therapy sessions, hanging out with the guy she may or may not be falling for and avoiding his skeevy brother, she winds up trapped in an apartment looking to be interviewed for a job and driven mad over the last act of the movie.

One has to agree that this film is both interesting and somewhat sad as Angela is only looked upon as an object of desire, something to be used until finally that indeed happens, though not in the way one might expect. Her descent into madness is carefully constructed by her tormentor and at first, the audience is left wondering who it might be, though with a bit of thought, one might guess before the big reveal. Stone herself does a good job, sometimes shining brighter than the material as it is only the last third of the film that really lets her stretch that acting muscle. The first two-thirds of the movie is slowly paced and almost seems disconnected from the last, like the makers of this tried to piece two different stories together. While this might be classified as a thriller, there are not a lot of thrills to be found as it turns out to be more dramatic than anything else. The best part of it all is the very last scene where Stone looks back at her captor, Angela getting the last laugh so to speak, a perfect closing shot to an otherwise okay picture.

Also starring Ronny Cox, Michelle Phillips and Steve Railsback, Scissors does not lack for talent, it simply needed some genuine suspense and possibly even a scare or two to really push it into that territory called greatness.

2.5 out of 5