DVD- While She Was Out

*Spoiler Alert*
This is more of public service announcement than a review. This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen. Literally, and that's saying something since I've seen thousands of films and worked on numerous very low-budget, so bad it went straight to Europe and never came back films. Even those were better than this film. Admittedly, I have a low tolerance for characters that behave beyond stupidly. Prior to watching this, my pick for the worst movie would have been, The Strangers, starring Liv Tyler. That movie was based on a true story, and being a former film maker I know that "creative license", as we call it in the industry, often distorts the story. However, the characters in The Strangers are just stupid. If they had even a fraction of an ounce of common sense then they would never have been killed. Seriously! I could have survived in that movie, because I have common sense, at least most of the time.

That being said, after watching While She Was Out, starring Kim Basinger, it is truly the worst film ever made. The write-up on the box tells you it's about a young woman, who is in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnesses a murder then fights for her life as the murderer comes after her. To save anyone the misfortune of ever subjecting themselves to this ghastly film, I will summarize for you. The movie starts out with an angry man, who is obviously having a bad day. He comes home to an unclean house filled with clutter, and after tripping over things yells at his wife (Kim Basinger) about the mess, since she is home all day doing nothing. We first see Kim's character as this mousy, frail woman who cringes and appears afraid of her aggressive husband. She whines responses to him and then takes trays up to their children before leaving to go shopping. As she is driving down the road, she decides to talk on her cell phone and look at the floor while driving. She freaks out when she almost hits another car stopped in front of her and then proceeds to do the same things again!!!! Luckily the phone dies. We discover it is Christmas time as she enters a mall parking lot. She is one of those who must have a close parking space and goes around in circles getting frustrated when she can't find one. IT'S A MALL AT CHRISTMAS! So what does our brilliant housewife do, she stops, rolls down the window and motions for the mall security to come over, at which time she asks him, "where can I park?" Rolling his eyes he tells her there are spaces at the end of the lot. She proceeds to go and park there. On her walk to the mall she writes a note,saying "shame on you" and leaves it on the windshield of a dilapidated car taking up two spaces. Once in the mall she wanders around aimlessly and then finally purchases (what seems like an afterthought) a few rolls of wrapping paper with all the money she has. She then walks back through the now almost deserted parking lot, noticing that the dilapidated car no longer has a note on it. She continues to her SUV which is parked at a median (grassy divider separating the parking lot from the road, approximately 6" higher than the parking lot- note any car could go over this) She gets in her vehicle and the dilapidated car pulls up to her rear bumper, in theory blocking her in (did I mention she is driving an SUV and the only thing in front of her is a 6" curb). Several teenage hoodlums get out of the car, yelling at her. Our brilliant lady gets out of her car and says "you have me blocked in" Really? Seriously? Who would do that? They know they have her blocked in, duh. Okay anyways, they surround her and start pushing her around and trying to scare her until the mall security guard walks up and ask if there is a problem. At this point one of the teenage hoodlums takes out a gun and shoots him in the head. After what seems like an eternity of her screaming, she gets in her SUV jumps the curb and takes off. Did I mention she was at a mall, in a city.... meaning lots of streets, buildings, etc? Does she try to elude them by turning up and down various streets? No, she gets on a straight, lonely deserted road (there aren't even curves on this road) and she is shocked when they catch up to her. She then pulls into a deserted construction site and impales her SUV on pipes sticking out of the back of a truck. She then gets out and hearing them right behind her, goes to the back of the SUV and pulls out a little red toolbox. She takes out a wrench and tries to wedge her hand under the hood (that won't raise more than a few inches because of the pipes) to restart the engine, as they are coming to get her. We then get 45 minutes of her being chased around first at the deserted site and then in the woods. She is so clever, that when they are arguing amongst themselves and not following her, she huddles close by and doesn't make a sound then as soon as they get quiet to look for her, she starts to runs around, bumping into things, making noise. Gee why do they keep finding her? Duh!!! There are four of them, they accidentally kill one and she manages to kill two more. Then when there is just the one guy left, she decides, in the woods, to go up to him and try to have sex with him!!! What? Exactly what I yelled at the TV. After making out with him she does get the gun and shoot him. Cut to her back at the pinned SUV which she manages to start and back away from the truck & poles (yeah, that's believable) and she drives to the entrance of her neighborhood and abandons the SUV to walk down the street to her house with her rolls of gift wrap. Once inside, her husband calls out over his shoulder, did she buy him anything. She walks up to him says no and shoots him. Then the credits roll. Yes it took them two hours to get to that point. I still can't believe I watched the whole thing, but I kept hoping it would get better or she would get killed by her stupidity. Alas it was just a waste. So if you like suspense movies and you see it at the video store and think "that might be interesting", just walk away.