In the frantic opening scene of "Dolores Claiborne" — released 30 years ago — a violent scuffle unfolds just offscreen at the top of a staircase, before an elderly woman topples backward from a wheelchair and careens down a flight of stairs, where she lands with an audible crunch of balusters and bones. Moments later, a frantic housekeeper rifles through the kitchen drawers, then returns to raise a heavy marble rolling pin over the disheveled and bloodied figure, who is by all appearances pleading for her life.
This was not merely a murderous rampage. It was the spectacle of the lethally unhinged b***h—and it was exactly what audiences were primed to expect. A slew of thrillers in the early 1990s—"Basic Instinct," "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle," "Final Analysis," "Single White Female," "Disclosure," among others—all centered on the conceit of the libidinous, deranged b***h who spirals into homicidal mayhem. This was a decade, after all, when unruly women both onscreen and in the public eye were routinely relegated to the malign category of the “b***h,” where their downfall and humiliation could be gleefully savored.
