(There are Spoilers) Meeting young Philadelphia collage student Dorothy Carlsson, Sean Young, at that city's municipal buildings marriage license bureau Jonathan Corliss, Matt Dillon, finds the office closed for lunch. Jonathan then talks the madly in love with him Dorothy into going up on the roof to see the sights until the office opens. Chit-chatting with Dorothy about their forthcoming marriage and what her authoritative father copper tycoon Thor Carlsson, Max Von Sydow,would do to her when he found about about it. Jonathan suddenly grabs a shocked Dorothy by her legs and shoves her off the roof and to her death below. Quickly leaving the building Jonathan drops a letter in the mailbox written by Dorothy that's supposed to be a suicide note that he had earlier tricked her into writing.
We later learn that Dorothy was made pregnant by Jonathan and the thought of him marrying her with her father cutting Dorothy out of her sizable inheritance was not in his plans. This drove him to murder her in order to keep Mr. Carlsson from finding out about it which he did anyway. What we also learn in what's in Jonathan's sick and devious plans is to go to step two and get to know and romance Dortohy's twin sister Ellen, also played by Sean Young. In this way Jonathan can have her replace the deceased Dorothy as his very rich and future wife.
Hitch-hiking to New York City where Ellen works as a volunteer at Castel House, a Covenant House-like shelter for the homeless, Jonathan is picked up Jay Faraday,Adam Horovitz, who we later find out he murdered and stole his identity. In no time at all Jonathan works his way into Ellen's heart getting a job at Castle House and working together with her driving around the drug and crime infested streets of mid-town Manhattan. The two volunteer workers pick up and give hope as well as finding a home for discarded homeless and drug-addicted youths. Unknown to Jonathan Ellen never believed that her sister Dorothy killed herself and with her going out on her own to solve Dorothy's death it will lead to uncovering who her real killer is; Ellen's future husband Jonathan, now known as Jay Faraday, Corliss!
Unlike in the original "A Kiss Before Dying" in the updated version Jonathan and Ellen do get married and her finding out about him being her sister's murderer she discovers on her own. Not with the help of the ex-cop and now private investigator Dan Corelli, James Russo, whom she hired. Ellen as well as her father Thor are far more naive about her boyfriend/husband in this version of the movie then in he original with all the clues about Jonathan right in front of them. The most obvious being that Jonathan was using an assumed and stolen, from one of his murder victims, name which by not being able to find that very simple fact out was by far the biggest blunder that Thor Cralsson made in the movie. Were earlier told that Mr. Carlsson was so protective of his daughters that he had anyone who dated them investigated from head to toe. So why couldn't he find out that his future son-in-law was not only an impostor but possibly, with him assuming the name of a missing person, a murderer as well!
The ending is by far the best part of the movie far better then the ending of the 1956 version. Even though overall it was not as good as the 1956 original Jonathan gets it a lot worse here in the form of a runaway diesel locomotive; where in the 1956 film he was only done in by an 18 wheeler.
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