The inspiration behind My Best Friend’s Secret is three thriller films: Fatal Attraction (1987), Pacific Heights (1990), and Single White Female (1992). The premise for all three is to be careful of who you invite into your life.
Pacific Heights and Single White Female centre around sharing your property with nightmare tenants – one who you literally can’t evict in Pacific Heights, another intent on killing you in Single White Female, based on John Lutz’s novel, SWF Seeks Same. Single White Female opens with Allison Jones advertising for a flatmate. She unwittingly rents an apartment room to Hedra Carlson, whose strange patterns of behaviour begin when Allison reconciles with her ex-boyfriend, including adopting Hedra Allison’s physical traits and seducing her boyfriend as her.
Pacific Height‘s screenwriter, Daniel Pyne, was inspired to write the film based on his own experience of renting an apartment to a tenant that he could not evict. A couple, Drake Goodman and Patty Palmer purchase a 19th-century house in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighbourhood in San Francisco. They rent out part of their dream house to afford the renovations. Unfortunately, one of their tenants, Carter Hayes, has nefarious plans of his own. Hayes, who drives an expensive 1977 Porsche 911 and carries large amounts of cash on his person, persuades the couple to waive the credit check in exchange for a list of references and an upfront payment of the first six months’ rent by wire transfer, which never materialises. However, Hayes has already moved in and locked himself in the apartment before it becomes transparent that there is no money forthcoming.
The psychological thriller Fatal Attraction involves Dan Callagher’s decision to have a one-night-stand, in spite of being married, with a professional city woman, Alex. Dan gets more than he bargained for. She sets out to ruin his marriage, seeking to have him all to herself and as Dan finds out as Alex threatens his family in this moral thriller, “it’s all about consequences”.
My personal experiences of advertising a room in my property also inspired My Best Friend’s Secret. My tenant seemed perfect. He was so quiet and unassuming that I never knew whether he was in his room – exactly like Riley Harrison in My Best Friend’s Secret. My tenant eventually locked himself in his room, not even going to work. When I finally got access to his room, I discovered all the walls covered in martial arts weapons, from nunchakus to shurikens and swords. Eventually, his sister came and collected him, as he was having a mental breakdown.