The Ex (1996)

David Kenyon (Nick Mancuso) is happy. He’s got everything a man needs: A successful job, a beautiful wife, and a child. What his wife, Molly (Suzy Amis), doesn’t know is that David was married before. His ex, Deidre (Yancy Butler), has found him, and she’s out to ruin his life, and she won’t stop until everyone he loves has turned on him and he’s either dead or has no other option but to go back to her.

Deidre was psychologically abusive. She made him do this - sexual things - that messed with his head. Worse yet, she murdered his girlfriend and manipulated him into rebounding with her, and in his weakened, out-of-his-mind state, coupled with liberal drug use, he spent years with her in a toxic situation. He left her and never told anyone about that chapter of his life, ashamed of what he’d lived through and who he was at that time.

Throughout the 1990s, there were a million of these movies, where a crazy woman has her eyes on some man, and she’ll do whatever it takes to win that man over. And should he refuse, well, she’ll just kill him. A movie like Fatal Attraction comes real close to being something of a slasher movie, just replace Michael Myers with a spurned Glenn Close. But these studio flicks add just the right amount of class to the production that no one would ever confuse it for a slasher flick, or even a horror movie; it’s an erotic thriller! The Ex decides to tear down that wall between genres, so you’re left with this amazing piece of self-aware exploitation that takes a movie like The Crush and sees it through to its next logical evolution.

Yancy Butler as the villainess is a brilliant piece of casting. She does not rein it in at all. She goes big with it, even from the opening moments, in which she stalks David’s new wife, and then chases her car, on foot, like the T-1000. She understood the assignment given to her and went big, gloriously big, in a theatrical performance that perfectly combines big laughs and sheer terror. In an odd way, her performance reminds me of Gina Gershon’s in Showgirls, where she’s so confident in the character she’s embodying, she decides to go all-in and have as much fun with it as possible.

Nick Mancuso, too, gives a hell of a performance as a man losing his sanity. He thought he had it all figured out, but now that he’s faced with a past he can never escape, his grasp on reality begins to slip. He starts falling back into bad habits. And this is perhaps one of the few movies I’ve seen where smoking doesn’t look cool. Each cigarette David grabs looks like it’s the one thing keeping him alive in that moment.

Most movies are a mix of good and bad. Hopefully, the good outweighs the bad, and there’s a happy compromise between what works and what doesn’t. What works brilliantly about The Ex is that when it’s bad, it’s so bad that it’s good, so you’re almost left with equal parts that are good. It’s an odd narrative that is both legitimately well-told in its quieter moments and so deliriously unrestrained in its madness during its shocking moments. This kind of tonal whiplash is Larry Cohen’s bread and butter, and Mark L. Lester is a director who doesn’t shy away from allowing a film to revel in its excesses. Try to imagine a Lifetime movie, written by the guy who wrote Maniac Cop, based on a novel from the guy who wrote Single White Female, and directed by the guy who directed Class of 1999, and you might have some idea of what you’re in for.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
The Ex refuses to be cast aside and comes back for the audience, decades later, in a brand-new Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. The film and supplements are printed onto a single disc, housed in a standard case, with a removable slip cover containing identical artwork contained on previous releases.

For its Blu-ray release, Kino Lorber has presented The Ex in 1080p high definition from a new HD master approved by director Mark L. Lester. I’m not sure what source was used for this transfer, whether they went to the film’s original camera negative or used an interpositive, but the result looks damn good. Shots look nice and sharp, with a healthy amount of organic film grain throughout the presentation. Colors pop, too. Most of the film’s color palette is drab, shot in Vancouver, to maximize the cold, December mood, replete with actors’ breaths clearly visible. But the occasional use of color, like a flickering flame, the blue of the water, or a red piece of clothing worn by Deidre, stands out even more.

The one audio option on this disc is a 2.0 stereo option, encoded in DTS-HD MA. And while it’s nothing to write home about, being scant on atmospherics or even more obvious effects, it does the job well. This is a talky, moody picture, so priority is given to dialogue and the dramatic score by Paul Zaza. Everything in the mix is prioritized well, without overpowering any element, crystal clear in realization. This being a stereo mix, this will be a front-end of the soundstage presentation only, which is perfect considering how much of it feels like a satirized version of a 1990s made-for-TV movie.

There are just the two features on this disc: An interview with Yancy Butler and an interview with Nick Mancuso. The pair of interviews provides some insight into their method of acting, working on this picture, and peers a bit into the production history. Buter, as predicted, had a terrific time bringing Deidre to life, while Mancuso brings a sort of classically trained seriousness to his role.

• Playing Certifiable (HD 11:47) - Interview with Yancy Butler
• Keeping Secrets (HD 11:19) - Interview with Nick Mancuso
• Trailers

The Ex is a blast, through and through. It’s a wonderful time. It’s a rare breed of film that shines a light on a genre’s many tropes, without being a parody. It simply understands how close the “woman gone mad” stories are to a slasher picture, so Lester and Cohen decide to bridge the gap a bit. The resulting film is maniacally, gleefully unhinged. Kino Lorber’s release of The Ex on Blu-ray looks and sounds great, with a couple of good interviews on the supplements. The Ex is Recommended.