MBunge I try not to spoil things in a review unless the movie is so unbelievably horrid that I want to be sure no one feels there's any reason at all to watch it. Lying in Wait isn't THAT bad, but it's awful close.Babee Gordon (Thomas Newton) is the 20something son of a deceased TV actress. Yes, his mother actually named him Babee. Yes, people in the film comment on his name. No, the film never explains why he hasn't changed his name or just tells everyone to call him Rick or something. Babee's only real friend is his companion since childhood, the now-teenaged El (Vanessa Gordon). Yes, her name is actually El and not Elle. Are you already starting to get a sense of how terrible this film is? Babee is a wannabe painter who's been living in his mom's house on his mom's money. El is one of those drama queens whose seeming innocence masks real emotional problems. She's been carrying a torch for Babee since they were kids, but he shows absolutely no feelings for her…which I'll get into more later in the review.Anyway, a new married couple moves in next door to Babee. Keith and Vera Miller (Rutger Hauer and Virginia Madsen) are rich, middle aged and very screwed up. Keith is a thrill seeker and the kind of guy who thinks he's deeply committed to his wife, even though he has sex with other women. Vera is a lonely, emotionally dependent woman who immediately latches onto Babee. When he sees Keith having sex with Lois (Shannon Whirry), Babee gets drawn into the Millers' twisted relationship.Then a car accident puts Keith into a persistent vegetative state and Babee becomes caretaker to both Keith and the vulnerable Vera. He ends up having sex with Vera and talking with Keith, who apparently is just faking his brain damage but will only let Babee in on the secret. As the story unfolds, Keith winds up killing a couple of people, even though he's motionless in a wheelchair. Babee covers up for Keith, even when a police detective (Tony Bill) starts snooping around.I won't spoil the story's twist, but if you've got half a brain, you'll figure it out about an hour before the movie reveals it. That's because it's the only possible explanation for Babee's behavior. This is the single most obvious, telegraphed and unavoidable twist I've ever seen in any film. The only genuinely good thing about Lying in Wait is that it demonstrates quite clearly the difference between people who can't act and people who can but are just giving a poor performance. Thomas Newton and Vanessa Gordon can't act. They give performances straight out of a high school play. They were both fairly young when they made this film, so they may have gotten better. But Newton is boring when he's supposed to be the young hero of the story and he's just as boring when he's revealed to be something else. Gordon's acting is closer to a 40 year old man pretending to be a young girl than an actual young girl. Now, Rutger Hauer and Virginia Madsen also give awful performances in this film, but they suck in a way where you can tell they could be good in other circumstances. Hauer is very animated and carries a sense of menace even as a human vegetable. Madsen's Vera seems genuinely troubled and unhappy. The problem is their characters say and do such stupid things in the story that neither of them can really be believable. They're like musicians doing a pretty good job playing a really lame song. You don't enjoy the song but you can recognize the talent of the players.One other striking thing about Lying in Wait is that Babee Gordon is clearly gay. He is a deep in the closet, self-deceiving, what used to be called latent homosexual. But not only do none of the characters in the movie realize it, the guy who wrote and directed the movie doesn't appear to have realized it! I don't know if Thomas Newton is gay and a bad actor or straight and a bad actor, but he has zero sexual chemistry with either Vanessa Gordon or Virginia Madsen. When you can't have sexual chemistry with Virginia Madsen, there's something massively wrong. The movie tries to say that Babee grew up with El and just doesn't feel that way about her, but she's a hot, young thing and she's constantly throwing herself at Babee and he's never uncomfortable. He's just annoyed with it. Newton never shows and the movie never acknowledges the natural, physical reactions and impulses that arise out of that situation. And Babee's seduction/being seduced by Vera is even worse. Again, there's zero sexual chemistry and the story never bothers to justify in any way the supposed attraction between this older woman and younger man. If you just cut out about 45 seconds of lame sex scenes between Babee and Vera, you would swear this was a story about a middle aged woman with a bad marriage befriending the unhappy and artistic gay boy next door. In fact, while I was waiting for the film to reveal it's big twist, I was also waiting for it to reveal that Babee was was homosexual. It never does.In addition to being bad, Lying in Wait is also a big tease. It's rated R for Strong Sexual Content…but that content is a single brief nude scene with Shannon Whirry and a shot of Virginia Madsen's thong. That's it. If you're making a crappy sex thriller, especially one so cheap the DVD doesn't even have a menu screen, you can at least fill it with plenty of sex.

vchimpanzee Six months after Babee Gordon's mother Sue died, Mr. Horn recommends he sell the house because the trust fund is running out and Babee doesn't seem capable of making a living, though he does like to paint. Sue was a wealthy and reclusive actress who apparently had a popular TV series. She was also a talented artist, though it's not clear if she made any money other than from her acting career. Babee was a prop man's poodle, though Sue acted like it was hers, and what she did when her son was born was unbelievably cruel. We never learn about Babee's father.Keith and Vera are Babee's new neighbors. Vera flirts with Babee, and Keith seems to enjoy spending time with Babee's pretty, perky and selfish aspiring dancer girlfriend El. At a party, Keith wants to fix Babee up with Lois--which makes no sense because Keith wants her too. Lois didn't care for Sue's TV series. Keith and Vera are obviously not happy in their marriage, but Keith is unwilling to get a divorce.Keith enjoys living on the edge (no, I won't make a 'Smallville' joke here). He makes his living gambling, having become discouraged working in the film industry. Apparently he's very good at it, because he has a nice house. He doesn't believe in insurance, but his wife does. She has a life insurance policy which will pay her well if Keith dies. Fortunately, she also seems to have health insurance which covers Keith.George wants to exhibit Babee's art work at the Fletcher Gallery. Apparently Babee inherited his mother's talent.Several murders and attempted murders take place, and the person we believe committed the murders has a perfect alibi.The ending made no sense--at first. The movie was progressing in a certain way, and it seemed like the writers defied logic to rush the movie to its conclusion when they ran out of time. Or did they? Rutger Hauer does a fine job here. At the horse track, Keith's passion is clear. And there's another dimension to Hauer's performance which I don't want to give away.I thought Shannon Whirry was Elizabeth Berkley at first, but she's too good an actress--deliciously evil is a good way to describe her performance. And she's quite pretty.Ian Buchanan also had a nasty side, also reminiscent of the campy soaps such as 'Dallas' and 'Dynasty'.In my opinion, most of the leading actors did a good job. I'm not sure, though, about Vanessa Dorman, who narrated the movie at times.This is not a movie for kids. The characters seem to have no morals, except possibly Babee, El, and the detective. And even Babee wasn't that moral.I didn't like most of the music (not counting background music, which I don't really recall). For example, there is the alternative rock 'Black Sleep' used with the closing credits, which is a style so many people enjoy these days. But Keith did play the accordion several times, and for me that was enjoyable. This is certainly not the high-quality production that a series like 'Desperate Housewives' is, but at times it achieves at least some of the campy feeling. There are some good moments.

j_skillin While it is surely not for every taste, I highly recommend "Lying in Wait" to anyone who enjoys an off-beat thriller, with a talented cast and some surprising plot twists. Fans of Virginia Madsen will relish her fine performance here, another in her gallery of memorable femmes fatales ("Gotham," "Hot Spot," et al). Miss Madsen's seductive dance at the beach, with thundering surf as a backdrop, is one of those transcendent moments she often delivers -- even in her more mediocre films.But "Lying in Wait" is not a mediocre film. On the contrary, it is more art film than conventional thriller. The young neighbors (wonderfully portrayed by Vanessa Dorman and Thomas Newton) intrigue us with their innocent eccentricity. The story unfolds in dream-like fashion. It demands of us a "willing suspension of disbelief," but what psychological thriller does not?Finally, those who complain about murky photography are missing the point. "Lying in Wait" is best viewed as a waking dream and we must not expect to see everything clearly when we are dreaming. I believe the director and cinematographer were quite deliberate in taking this heavily stylized approach. (You can find this same kind of high-contrast photography and lighting in the film noir classics of the 1940s; the only difference being that most of those were shot in b&w.)

CrzyMuthaRugger This is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Now I have seen a lot of movies, some were B movies some were great Academy Award movies, but nothing that I have ever seen prepared me for the journey that I refer to as Lying in Wait. I have never seen worse acting, not even in my old high school acting classes. Pathetic. If you can seen one movie this year, heck, if you can see 1,000,000 movies this year make sure YOU DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. Regrets are all that follows. Regrets of lost time and missed opportunities.