Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Mia Baran (Isabelle Adjani) suffers from a heart condition and from her abusive husband Guy (Chazz Palminteri). He's the dean of a private boys school. Mia befriends his mistress Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone). Mia sedates him. She and Nicole together drown him in the bathtub. They dump his body in the school's dirty outdoor pool. The plan is for the body to be found after the pool is drained but it isn't there. Mia goes to the police to check on a John Doe body. Former police detective Shirley Vogel (Kathy Bates) takes an interest. She helps Mia look for her presumed runaway husband without having to file a missing person report. She quickly suspects something is amiss.It is almost unfair to this movie. A remake of such a classic comes with an automatic first strike. This needs to bring something new to justify a remake. These are great actresses with terrific material. This should work but it has no tension. There is a paranoid aspect to this story which gets diffused. The director seems more interested in adding broad thriller visual moves and music cues. I don't want to be too harsh but this remake is completely unnecessary.

If I should described this movie in one sentence - Watchable, but completely unnecessary. I decided to watch this remake, because original movie is one of my favorites. I expected a lot more. Let's concentrate on acting - in original movie Vera Clouzot was the one that bought me, her terrified look on face and tension through whole movie. In the other hand - Isabelle Adjani - very, very bad acting, not convincing at all. Sharon Stone - very good copy of Simone Signoret, but that's it - just a copy. When you are making a remake of a great movie I think you should make a few changes, to add some special touch to whole movie, but changes in this movie were complete fail. Especially the ending (someone was obviously disappointed that in original movie two women weren't such good friends after all), which became ridiculous farce.

Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri) is the dean of an old school inherited by his wife, the teacher Mia Baran (Isabelle Adjani) that has heart disease. Guy is an abusive husband and has a love affair with his mistress Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone), who is a school teacher in the same school. One day, Nicole and Mia plot a scheme to murder Guy and Mia spikes his whiskey and he faints. Then Nicole and Mia drown him in the bathtub and dump his body in the swimming school. Then Nicole dumps her keys in the swimming pool expecting that the school janitor finds him when he drains the pool. However there is no body in the pool and Nicole and Mia believe that someone knows the truth. When the snoopy retired Detective Shirley Vogel (Kathy Bates) investigates the disappearance, Mia freaks out and is near to destroy their alibi. What might have happened to the body of Guy Baran?"Diabolique" is a poor and unnecessary American remake of a 1955 French classic directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The director Jeremiah S. Chechik succeeds not only in destroying the story and the atmosphere of the original film with clichés and a boring slow pace, but also in wasting a great cast with names such as Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri and Kathy Bates. Isabelle Adjani, for example, looks like a moron and not a fragile wife. The conclusion is a mess. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Diabolique"

That stunning genetic lottery winner known as Isabelle Adjani (in one of her best contemporary roles) stars as the push over trophy wife of a posh private school headmaster (played by that ever perfectly sinister Chazz Palmintery) and Sharon Stone plays a vixen of a teacher (and perhaps one-time lover of the headmaster) within the school who inspires Adjani's character to conspire to have her husband bumped off. Kathy Bates in the detective hot on their tails ones the allegedly crime has been committed and from here on, it is a game of Whodunit and where-is-the-body?! Brilliant performances by all the afore mentioned actors, if only the script were as solid as they are and were in this film.