Dean Parisot, who won a live-action short Oscar, made his feature directorial debut with this black comedy from a producer team that included
Barry Levinson and
Lawrence Kasdan. A philandering stepdad is the victim of vengeful Mrs. Lever (
Catherine O'Hara), who sends her sons out to scare him to death. Cobra helicopter pilots Dorian (
Luke Wilson) and Angus (
Jake Busey) accomplish this by strafing the forest at night as the stepdad runs in terror. No one knows that pregnant Burger-Matic cashier Sally (
Drew Barrymore) was the stepdad's mistress. However, since Burger-Matic and Cobra headsets share the same radio frequency, the notion surfaces that maybe Burger-Matic workers overheard something; Angus suggests that Dorian take a job at the fast-food joint in order to determine just who knows what. Once on the job, however, the situation gets twisted after Dorian falls hard for Sally. The chain-smoking Mrs. Jackson (
Shelley Duvall), Sally's trailer-trash mother, turns up, as does her redneck father, Red (Lanny Flaherty). In an inside film reference, Angus mentions the classic "Lamb to the Slaughter" episode of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide