Director Karen Arthur previously made the admirably perverse Mafu Cage/My Sister, My Love (1979). Here when it comes to the arrangement of the storefront mannequins she aims for a sophisticated, suggestively fetishistic look. In many respects, Lady Beware is not unakin to The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), which had a similarly provocative and fetishistic look (as well as a plot that involved the heroine being targeted by a killer). And like The Eyes of Laura Mars, the kinky look here proves to be a promise that far exceeds any potential delivery and Lady Beware disappointingly pans out to be nothing more than a routine psycho film. The plot is one that we have seen played out through these abovementioned films – psycho stalker becomes fixated on a single woman, woman eventually stands up for herself after the police have shrugged their shoulders etc etc.

Diane Lane – who was once touted as a major new star in the 1970s/early 80s before becoming an Academy Award-nominated actress for Unfaithful (2002) – is rather bland. However Michael Woods portrays the psycho with an admirable sleaziness that is a marked change from the neurotic, clean-shaven psychos that usually inhabit these pieces.

Despite being written and directed by women and having cursory feminist leanings in the eventual theme of a woman standing up for herself, Lady Beware still has an underlying nastiness – it buys into the conservative subtext that inhabit many psycho-thrillers – from Psycho (1960) through Halloween (1978) and Dressed to Kill (1980) to indeed The Eyes of Laura Mars – where a woman who exhibits or acts in any way sexually provocative is seen to be stirring up and inviting psychopathically disturbed trouble. In the end it is only the mildly kinky window-dressings themselves that display any imagination – however an unintentionally hilarious sexual fantasy dream involving Diane Lane tumbling with mannequins leaves even that in doubt.