At contrast to say Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction or Alicia Silverstone in The Crush who are painted as just disturbed and evil with no redeeming qualities, Devil in the Flesh seems to relish the bad girl defiance the teenage girl embodies (something added to even further by the casting of Marilyn Manson’s then girlfriend Rose McGowan), although eventually it does censure her actions as unbalanced. It gives the feel of a script that trod a more traditional path being handed to a director who wanted to fire it up and get audiences to identify with the character. In the central role McGowan is particularly well cast. She does the one-liners with conviction – there’s a particularly amusing “Hasta la vista, Bebe” as she disposes of the aunt’s dog – rather than campiness. Rather than any cliche villainy, it is a part where she really convinces she is working out something personal and of being someone who has learned to use her body to get what she wants at too young an age.

The film is also quite well directed. One particularly liked the great opening shot, a pan in ultra-slow motion around to face McGowan as the house erupts in flames behind her and she walks away in triumph, a shot that shows it was most certainly her that lit the flames even though nothing is said.

The lesser sequel was Devil in the Flesh 2 (2000) where Rose McGowan was replaced by Jodi Lynn O’Keefe who etched the part with far less subtlety.