The Praying Mantis 2001

Paul Canova, a middle-aged university history professor, is married to Vera, a beautiful Russian émigré. Paul’s first wife and their young son died under odd circumstances, and an insurance company launches a secret investigation into Vera’s possible role in those deaths. Nevertheless, Canova seems content with his second marriage and has taken out a large life insurance policy designating Vera as beneficiary.

Then Vera accuses Canova’s long-time secretary, Gertrude, of theft, and insists that Paul fire Gertrude. The secretary maintains her innocence and later commits suicide. Paul now needs a secretary, and his teaching assistant, Christian Magny, recommends one of his own students, Beatrice Manceau, Christiane Hörbiger. While on the job, Beatrice has a brief affair with Canova but she soon ends it after Christian proposes to her.

Now married to Christian, Beatrice (who boasts of her powerful olfactory sense) smells another woman’s perfume on her husband. She begins suspecting that he is secretly meeting with someone in their apartment while she is working with the professor. She hires private detectives who install a covert listening device that records all the conversations in the apartment when she is away. She finds out from the recorded tapes that Vera and Christian aren’t just lovers but they are also plotting to murder Canova for his life insurance. As part of the plan Beatrice would also have to die. Beatrice places the incriminating tape in a safe deposit box and intends to use it as leverage against the adulterous plotters. She allows the murderers to proceed almost as planned, only to lure them into a clever trap and exact her own cruel revenge.