The Temp

Peter Derns is an executive at a cookie company whose position is under pressure and whose marriage is falling apart. Relief arrives in the form of Kris Bolin, a temporary assistant who is efficient, ambitious and quick to make herself useful. Her interventions at the office appear to work in Peter's favor, but colleagues and rivals begin to suffer a series of deadly accidents, and Peter starts to suspect that the woman helping his career is the one causing the damage.

The film was directed by Tom Holland, whose earlier features include Fright Night and Child's Play and whose later work includes Thinner; Kevin Falls wrote the screenplay. Timothy Hutton plays Peter Derns, with Lara Flynn Boyle as Kris Bolin, alongside Dwight Schultz, Oliver Platt, Steven Weber and Colleen Flynn.

Released by Paramount in February 1993, the thriller runs 97 minutes and was made for about 15 million dollars, against which its worldwide gross of roughly 6 million dollars represents a sharp shortfall. Reception was weak across the board: on IMDb the rating stands at 5.3 from around 3,900 votes, while on TMDB it averages 4.8 from 71 votes. A critics' score of 4.4 from 22 reviews places professional opinion below even the modest audience figures.