By 1991, Sharon Stone was still a year away from becoming the Queen of Cinematic Leg Crossing in Basic Instinct, but she was already sharpening her chops—and, fittingly, her scissors—in this fever dream of a psychological thriller directed by Frank De Felitta. Scissors is part Hitchcock homage, part soap opera meltdown, part surreal stage play, and somehow also a raven horror show. It’s not a “good” movie in the traditional sense, but it’s the sort of strange beast that sticks in your brain like a rusted pair of blades lodged in drywall. And against all odds, it’s—dare I say—entertaining.
Sharon Stone vs. Her Own Brain (and a Red-Bearded Weirdo)
Stone plays Angela Anderson, a sexually repressed woman whose main hobbies include buying large scissors and bottling up enough trauma to power a dozen psychiatric journals. On her way home from buying her shiny new pair, she’s attacked in an elevator by a red-bearded creep who looks like Santa’s degenerate cousin. Angela stabs him with her scissors (as one does), and things only spiral from there.
The movie sets Angela up as both victim and mystery. Is she losing her mind, or is she trapped in an elaborate scheme cooked up by sadists with way too much free time? The answer is both, which makes the film both predictable and ridiculous. But Stone throws herself into the performance, walking the fine line between fragility and simmering rage. She sells it—even when she’s forced to act opposite a raven that screams “Angela killed him!” in a performance better than half the human cast.
Double Trouble: One Actor, Two Brothers, Infinite Weirdness
Enter Alex and Cole Morgan, twin brothers played by Steve Railsback. Alex is a soap opera star with a perfect smile; Cole is an embittered artist in a wheelchair, dripping malice from every pore. They’re Angela’s neighbors, because of course she lives next to twin brothers who are both obsessed with her. If this were Friends, they’d be the quirky guys across the hall. In Scissors, one of them might be a stalker, and the other might just be playing the long con.
Railsback, bless him, goes full soap-opera-camp. As Alex, he flirts with Angela like he’s auditioning for General Hospital. As Cole, he seethes and schemes from his wheelchair until—plot twist!—he doesn’t need it after all. Somewhere, an acting coach is either very proud or very embarrassed.
The Apartment From Hell
The real star of Scissors isn’t Stone, Railsback, or even the raven—it’s the damn apartment Angela finds herself lured into. Imagine a surreal art installation curated by Freud on meth. The place is stocked with exhibits dedicated to Angela’s fractured psyche: mannequins, mirrors, crime-scene setups, and the corpse of her red-bearded attacker propped up like an especially bad piece of IKEA décor.
She can’t escape. Every attempt is thwarted. She even tries tying a note to the raven’s leg and sending it into an air vent, which is both ingenious and completely absurd. It’s like watching MacGyver guest-star in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The apartment is less a setting than a metaphorical funhouse—claustrophobic, surreal, and entirely designed to break Angela’s already fragile mind. It works, for both her and us.
The Therapist From Hell
Ronny Cox shows up as Dr. Stephan Carter, Angela’s psychiatrist, who turns out to be the red-bearded attacker all along. This isn’t a spoiler—it’s practically tattooed on his forehead from the first scene. He uses hypnotherapy to dredge up Angela’s childhood trauma: the memory of her mother murdering her abusive red-bearded stepdad, Billy, with—you guessed it—scissors. Freud would’ve called this overkill.
Carter’s grand plan? Frame Angela for murder while using her schizophrenia and trauma as cover. He also ropes in his wife Ann (Michelle Phillips), who’s sleeping with the apartment’s actual owner. When Ann walks into the madhouse, Carter’s plan unravels faster than the movie’s credibility. By the climax, Angela simply walks out the door he carelessly left open, leaving Carter and Ann trapped inside. She strolls away with a smile, while he pounds scissors against the window in a fit of impotent rage. It’s poetic justice—or, at least, poetic nonsense.
Why It Weirdly Works
On the surface, Scissors is a mess: part erotic thriller, part psychological horror, part soap opera, and part avian vent delivery system. But that’s exactly why it’s fascinating. It leans so hard into melodrama that it loops back into entertainment.
Sharon Stone gives it far more than it deserves. You can see her testing out the icy vulnerability she’d later perfect in Basic Instinct. She makes Angela both pitiable and dangerous, especially when that vengeful smile creeps across her face in the final shot.
The raven deserves its own award for commitment. It’s not easy to out-act a cast of humans, but that bird steals scenes like it’s auditioning for The Birds II: Apartment Complex Boogaloo.
And the apartment—oh, the apartment—is a set designer’s fever dream. Every room is a new psychosexual tableau, somewhere between Eyes Wide Shut and a Spirit Halloween clearance sale.
Dark Humor Highlights
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Angela buys scissors at the start. By the end, her entire life is cut to pieces. Subtle.
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The raven constantly caws “Angela killed him!”—basically acting as the film’s Greek chorus, but feathered and shrill.
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Cole spends half the film glaring from a wheelchair, only to leap out like it’s the most shocking Scooby-Doo reveal ever.
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Dr. Carter’s disguise is literally just a red beard. Somewhere, Clark Kent is nodding in approval.
Final Verdict
Scissors is not a great movie, but it’s a great bad movie. It’s absurd, overstuffed, and often laughable—but never boring. Sharon Stone elevates the material just by existing in it, while the rest of the cast chews scenery like it’s their last meal. The film flirts with camp but delivers just enough atmosphere to keep you hooked.
If Fatal Attraction and Puppet Master had a baby and raised it in an art therapy installation, the result might look like Scissors.
