Description

Blackly comic, perversely erotic, and thoroughly unpredictable, the genre-bending story of psychological games, Cleopatra's Second Husband begins innocently enough with a hen-pecked husband Robert (Paul Hipp) and his ovulation-obsessed wife, Hallie, (Bitty Schram) leaving on a trip to the country to relax and get pregnant. On a friend's recommendation they hire the sexy young couple Zack (Boyd Kestner) and Sophie (Radha Mitchell) to housesit. When Robert and Hallie return home, they find their fish dead, their house a mess and their kinky house guests unwilling to leave. What begins as a house-sitter from hell story soon turns into a psychological game of cat and mouse. The events that unfold "recalls the Harold Pinter-Joseph Losey classic 'The Servant' in its look at an insidious power shift between unsavory men in a household." (Daily Variety)

Cast

Paul Hipp
Radha Mitchell
Boyd Kestner
Bitty Schram
Alexis Arquette

Festivals

Featured at the Los Angeles Independent, Seattle, Montreal World, Hamptons, Sao Paulo, Chicago Underground and Bangkok Film Festivals.

Winner; Best First Feature Cinequest Film Festival
Winner; Worldfest Houston

Production Credits & Notes

"Jon Reiss' debut feature is a harrowing yet delicious and often wickedly funny study of power and submission. What begins as a dark romantic comedy . . . soon morphs into a nightmarish psychological horror film. Like Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby", Cleopatra's Second Husband begins peacefully enough . . . we're left with one of the most unusual power struggles in cinema history." -- Filmmaker Magazine

Cleopatra's Second Husband,' a diabolically clever psychological suspense movie, arrives today, just now getting an L.A. theatrical release after scattered bookings elsewhere. It marks an assured and daring dramatic feature debut for writer-director Jon Reiss, whose documentary on the rave scene, "Better Living Through Circuitry," received wide acclaim. (Reiss worked on both movies at the same time, and he finished work on this 1998 L.A. Independent Film Festival entry a few weeks ahead of completing photography on "Circuitry.")

KEVIN THOMAS, Los Angeles Times

Written & Directed by Jon Reiss
 
Producers
Jill Goldman
David Scott Rubin
Jacqui de la Fontaine
Jon Reiss
 
Executive Producers
Peter Getty
Linda Stewart
Claire Best
 
Co-Producers
Mark B. Lasser
Chris Beckman
 
Director of Photography Matt Faw
 
Production Design
John Di Minico
Thomas Thurnauer
 
Music By Cary Berger
 
Editor Toby Yates
 
Costume Designer Scott Freeman
 
Casting by Lindsay D. Chag
 
1st Assistant Director George Bamber
 
Sound Mixer B.J. Lehn
 
Featuring Songs by:
Francoise Hardy
Valerie Lemercier
Stereo Total
The Zoobombs
Takako Minekawa
The Aluminum Group
Milky
Extra Fancy
The Virgin Whore Complex