Entertainment
Katee Sackhoff’s R-Rated Mystery Thriller Manipulates Ex-Lovers To Do Her Bidding
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Getting together with old friends is either a hit or miss kind of scenario. Sometimes, you pick up right where you left off without missing a beat, and it feels like the good old days before life sent you on wildly different paths. Or, if you’re trapped in the kind of plot that Sexy Evil Genius is laying out, it’s the worst kind of reunion. For one thing, you’re not getting together with an old friend. Instead, you’re meeting a group of people who all used to date your most significant ex, and it starts to feel like you’re about to fall into a trap.
The trap, however, has no clear exit. You’re sitting there, dumbfounded, talking to two people you’ve never met before, but still share something in common with. The lover in question shows up fashionably late with her new partner, her defense attorney who successfully got her off murder charges after she (allegedly) poisoned her boyfriend, allowing her to serve time at an institute for the criminally insane.
That’s the kind of fun that Sexy Evil Genius is going for, and in some cases, the humor lands. Overall, it’s an enjoyable watch, especially if you’re a fan of Seth Green or Katee Sackhoff. The film’s limited setting, however, leaves a lot to the imagination, and we don’t get much variation outside of the occasional flashback sequences.
A Table For Five
Sexy Evil Genius kicks off with a salesman named Zachary Newman (Seth Green) sitting down at a bar, seemingly waiting to be stood up on another date. There, he connects with a perfect stranger named Miranda Prague (Michelle Trachtenberg). After talking for a while, they realize they have one thing in common: they both used to date Nikki Franklyn (Katee Sackhoff), the one who got away, and who left an unfillable void in both of their lives. After reconnecting with Nikki through the occasional phone call, Miranda is aware of Nikki’s most recent exploits, namely how she was locked up for murdering her most recent boyfriend.
Zach and Miranda also realize that Nikki, who’s been known to pull elaborate pranks on the people she loves, probably set the evening up this way. Shortly after, another ex-lover, Marvin (Harold Perrineau), shows up, and we get more of the same background on Nikki through their conversations. Nikki, as the stories suggest, is an absolute psychopath who knows how to read the room and use it to her advantage.
For example, Marvin is really into jazz music, and this appreciation was the foundation of his long-term relationship with Nikki, who seemed to know every deep cut, major player, and genre idiosyncrasy, as if she studied jazz her whole life, impressing the professional musician. We learn through Miranda, though, that Nikki actually hates jazz and thinks it’s kitschy, ripping Marvin’s heart in half more than any breakup ever could.
When Nikki does arrive to meet her ex-lovers, she’s in the company of Bert Mayfaire (William Baldwin), her defense attorney from her murder case, who she then announces is now her fiancé.
With no clear motive for the meetup, the stakes eventually become clear when Nikki heads to the bathroom with Miranda to hint at her vague plans for “revenge,” handing her a gun “just in case,” while Bert explains to Zachary and Marvin that she’s legitimately insane and belongs behind bars, but he’s so attracted to her that he lied under oath and bribed multiple doctors and officials to get her sentence reduced. In Nikki’s mind, she’s 100 percent lucid and totally in control, only faking insanity to get out of prison. According to Bert, she’s almost always out of control, but knows how to rein it in when it matters.
A Low-Budget Bottle Thriller
While the mystery in Sexy Evil Genius is pretty basic on its face, it has a lot of fun with the premise by constantly subverting expectations. Every single person who has dated Nikki feels two ways about her: she’s an evil genius and expert-level manipulator, and she’s completely insane. The level of hyperspecificity she conjures while messing with her old flings feels almost superhuman. Her memory recall for even the most mundane details is baffling. Her cracks also show from time to time, demonstrating just how much of a loose cannon she can be if pushed hard enough.
The real fun comes from trying to figure out what her motives actually are. Is she going to murder all of her past lovers in public to prove some kind of point? Or is she trying to get out of her new relationship, subtly dropping hints to the few people who think they know her, hoping they’ll take out Bert on her behalf? There’s no real way to know until you know, but I can assure it doesn’t play out the way you’d expect.
Sexy Evil Genius is one of those low-budget bottle stories that doesn’t come around too often, but feels like a well-kept secret. Its premise is absurd enough to keep you hooked, but the tension from not knowing, even when you think you’ve figured it out, is what keeps driving things forward. As the mystery unfolds, you’ll get a few solid laughs, mostly stemming from Seth Green’s ability to play things as awkwardly as possible on command. But the real staying power comes from Katee Sackhoff’s performance, as she constantly walks the line between charming, manipulative, and completely unhinged.
As of this writing, you can stream Sexy Evil Genius for free on Tubi.