Adventures In Cleaning Out The DVR: Stolen Daughter (dir by Jason Bourque)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished watching Lost Boy earlier today, I realized that it was time to rewatch and review Stolen Daughter. Stolen Daughter originally had its Lifetime premiere on July 26th. I watched it and, if I remember correctly, I had a lot of fun live-tweeting it. So, why hadn’t I reviewed Stolen Daughter up until this point? The final week of July was not an easy one for me. The world seemed angry (this was the same week that Cecil the Lion was killed in Zimbawe), I was dreading the idea of getting older, and — briefly — I was too overwhelmed by all the angst to write. It happens.

But anyway, enough about me and my obsessive personality! Let’s talk about Stolen Daughter!

As Stolen Daughter opens, Martha Dixel (Rachel Hayward) is on the verge of being released from prison. After shooting the drunk driver who killed both her husband and her daughter, Martha was convicted of manslaughter. She’s been both a model inmate and psychiatric patient and, now that she’s been paroled, she has no intention of ever returning to prison. However, the world is not quite ready to accept Martha’s freedom. As she leaves prison, she is greeted by people protesting her release. Then, after dealing with all that, Martha is struck by a van.

As a result of getting hit by that van, a dazed Martha now believes that both her husband and her daughter are still alive. After the driver gets out to check on her, Martha steals his van. After driving around for a while, Martha thinks that she sees her daughter at a local playground. Drawing a gun, Martha kidnaps her “daughter” and, after tossing her into the van, drives off to meet up with her “husband.”

Of course, the teenage girl who Martha had kidnapped is not her daughter. Instead, her name is Sarah Wilkins (Sarah Dugdale) and she is the daughter of Stacy Wilkins (Andrea Roth). Stacy happens to be a police detective and, as soon as she learns that her daughter has been kidnapped, Stacy demands to be put on the case.

However, Stacy has demons of her own. She had been on psychiatric leave after being involved in a hostage situation that led to the hostage being killed in front of her and has only recently returned to active duty. As a result, the condescending detective who has been put in charge of the case — a real prick named Barker (Josh Byer, who has appeared in several other films directed by Stolen Daughter‘s director, Jason Bourque) — refuses to let Stacy anywhere near the investigation.

And so, working on her own, Stacy tries to track down her daughter. Meanwhile, Sarah has to figure out how to keep the increasingly unstable Martha from snapping even further.

There are literally hundreds of Lifetime films that center around kidnapped daughters but what sets Stolen Daughter apart is that Martha is a much more complex character than we traditionally expect to find in these movies. When we first meet Martha, it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for her. Even after she gets hit by that van and kidnaps Sarah, the film makes it clear that Martha is not in control of what she’s doing. As the film progresses, Martha becomes more and more unstable and we start to realize just how dangerous she actually is. Even though she’s frightening by the end of Stolen Daughter, you still can’t help but feel for her.

Sarah Dugdale’s had a pretty busy year on both the Lifetime and SyFy networks. Not only has she had to deal with a Sorority Murder but she also found herself trapped in The Hollow and was one of the Sugarbabies. She did a good job in those movies and she does a good job here as well. Finally, Andrea Roth totally kicks ass in the role of Stacy. Check out the scene where she beats up a guy while searching for daughter. I am so totally going to learn how to do that!

Stolen Daughter was directed by Jason Bourque, who has been responsible for some of the more entertaining movies to show up on both Lifetime and the SyFy network over the past two years. Along with writing my favorite SyFy film, End of the World, he also directed a film, called Black Fly, that I think everyone should see.

One good thing about Lifetime is that they reshow all of their movies like a hundred times. So, keep an eye out for Stolen Daughter.

Dark Carnival: NIGHTMARE ALLEY (20th Century Fox, 1947)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Swashbuckling matinee idol Tyrone Power was cast against type as a self-centered con artist who gets his comeuppance in 1947’s offbeat noir NIGHTMARE ALLEY. Power and director Edmund Goulding teamed the previous year for the hit THE RAZOR’S EDGE, and the star desperately wanted his next movie to be based on the dark novel by William Lindsay Gresham. Studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck didn’t like the idea, but since Power was 20th Century-Fox’s biggest star, he agreed to greenlight the film. Turned out Zanuck’s instincts were right: audiences rejected the handsome Power in the role of a heel, and although he received good reviews for his performance, NIGHTMARE ALLEY bombed at the box office. Today it’s regarded as one of the genre’s best, its unique backdrop and theme setting it apart from other noirs of the era.

Stan Carlisle (Power), the type of guy who could talk a cat off a fish wagon (as my grandmother used to say) loves everything…

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Netflix Halloween Hangover : “Kristy”

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Trash Film Guru

Next (and last) in our little “Netflix Halloween Hangover” mini-round-up we have 2014’s Kristy, a flick that, like Bound For Vengeance, plays upon the “damsel in distress” theme, but unlike it, does so more from the traditional angle of trying to prevent something bad from happening rather than showing us nothing but events that play out well after most of the shit’s already hit the fan (also, like that film, it was added to the Netflix streaming queue with scant hours to go before Halloween itself was over, so I think I can be forgiven for getting this review in a bit “late,” as it were). Care to guess if I liked this one any better?

Anchored by a very strong lead performance from Haley Bennett and the taut, suspenseful direction of Oliver Blackburn, Kristy is an almost unbearably tense affair that, admittedly, takes some time to…

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Netflix Halloween Hangover : “Bound To Vengeance”

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Trash Film Guru

I guess it’s fair to say that this review and the next are coming to you as an act of “digital housekeeping,” if you will, in that I meant to include them as part of my “Netflix Halloween 2015” round-up, but sadly ran out of time. So, in the spirit of “better late than never,” I present to you a (very) short addendum to last month’s over-arching theme that we’ll call “Netflix Halloween Hangover” simply because, hey, it’s a Sunday evening and I can’t really think of any snappier title than that. My apologies.

First under the microscope we have 2015’s Bound For Vengeance, which was also released in various overseas territories under the decidedly uninspired (if understandable) title of Reversal, a flick that bills itself as turning the tables on classic “rape/revenge” horror “thrillers” but that really does nothing of the sort because, well — when you…

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Review: Ash vs. Evil Dead Season 1 Episode 3 “Books From Beyond”

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The adventures of Ash Williams, humanity’s only hope, continued last night on Starz. The third episode of Ash Vs. Evil Dead found Ash going to an occult book store and essentially screwing things up and getting at least one person killed.

That’s not really a big shock. That’s pretty much what Ash Williams does. He’s been fighting the Evil Dead for longer than I’ve been alive and he still doesn’t quite seem to know what he’s doing. I mean, let’s be honest — if Ash would stop reading aloud from that book, the entire world would have been saved a lot of trouble. Really, we should all hate Ash but how can you hate Bruce Campbell?

It’s undeniably true that for many of us, Ash and Bruce Campbell pretty much are interchangeable. That’s a bit unfair to Bruce, who seems to be a much more intelligent person than Ash and I also assume that Bruce is probably less likely to indulge in as much casual racism as Ash. That said, I have a feeling that if I ever meet Groovy Bruce in person, I will be disappointed to discover that he actually has two hands.

And really, Bruce-as-Ash is the main appeal of a show like Ash vs. Evil Dead. Don’t get me wrong. I think Dana DeLorenzo is great as Kelly and Ray Santiago has his moments as Pablo. So does Jill Maries Jones, even if the character of Detective Jones feels a bit underwritten. Lucy Lawless was in last night’s episode, playing the mysterious Ruby Knowby and I can’t wait until she and Bruce actually get to share some scenes together because I think the Ruby/Ash confrontation is going to be amazing.

But, ultimately, we’re all watching for Bruce-as-Ash. There’s a reason why Ash gets his name in the title.

As for last night’s episode, Ash took his copy of The Necronomicon to Books from Beyond, so he could get the store’s owner, Lionel Hawkins (Kelson Henderson), to read from it and hopefully find a way to send the Deadites back to Hell. There was something really endearing about how excited Lionel was to see The Necronomicon and discover that he hadn’t been wasting his life. Of course, unfortunately, Lionel ended up getting killed but not before he got the best line of the night: “The book is harmless except when wielded by someone very evil or very stupid.”

Ash’s bright idea, of course, was to summon another demon that would presumably then defeat the Deadites. (Somehow, Ash got it into his head that this was actually Pablo’s idea.) From the minute the demon showed up and Lionel warned Ash not to break the circle, I knew that Ash was going to break the circle.

As a result of Ash being Ash, Lionel was killed. Fortunately, Kelly was there to somehow vanquish the demon by hitting it over the head with The Necronomicon. Also there was Detective Fisher, who was still investigating her partner’s mysterious death. Ash ended up handcuffing her to a shelf and apparently forgot about her. Either that or Ash seriously didn’t realize that Lionel would come back as a Deadite and that the handcuffed Fisher would apparently have no way to escape him.

So, will Fisher escape? Things didn’t look good for her at the end of last night’s episode but I have a feeling Lucy Lawless will show up and save her.

As for Ash — well, as he put it last night: “At heart, I’m an alone wolf.”

You certainly are, Ash. You certainly are.

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Lost Boy (dir by Tara Miele)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After watching River Raft Nightmare, it was time to finish watching Lost Boy. I say finish because, if I am remembering correctly, I actually watched the first hour when Lost Boy had its Lifetime premiere on July 25th. However, after 60 minutes, I turned over to SyFy and I watched Lavalantula. At the time, I probably said, “I’ll finish watching this on the DVR.” And it only took me 3 months to get around to it!

Lost Boy opens with every parent’s worst nightmare. Six year-old Mitchell Harris is flying a kite in the park when he’s abducted. Eleven years later, Mitchell is still missing but his mother, Laura (Virginia Madsen), is convinced that he’s still out there. She continues to put up flyers and, every time the police call to ask her to identify another body, Laura fears that it will turn out to be her son.

In the 11 years since Mitchell vanished, Laura has become a successful and influential advocate for missing persons but it’s come at the cost of her family. She is separated from her husband, Greg (Mark Valley). When Greg’s new girlfriend, Amanda (Carly Pope), gets pregnant, Greg asks Laura to finalize the divorce. Laura is hesitant, not wanting to end their marriage while Mitchell might still be out there and looking for them. For his part, Greg seems to have moved on and accepted that his son his dead. Meanwhile, Mitchell’s twin sister, Summer (Sosie Bacon), deals with her guilt and anger by rebelling.

(It wouldn’t be a Lifetime movie without a rebellious teenage daughter.)

One night, a 17 year-old boy (Matthew Fahey) emerges from the shadows and stares at one of Laura’s flyers. Soon, the boy shows up at the high school, watching Summer. And then, one night, the boy suddenly appears at Laura’s front door. When Laura sees him, she is immediately convinced that Mitchell has returned home.

But has he? Both Greg and Amanda are suspicious of “Mitchell.” For one thing, Mitchell doesn’t seem to have many clear memories of his family. As well, he refuses to tell anyone who kidnapped him or where he’s been. He encourages Summer and his younger brother, Jonathan (Jacob Buster), to do dangerous things and then threatens to hurt them if they tell on him. Though Mitchell makes a big show of having nightmares about his ordeal, he’s actually awake while he’s tossing and turning.

Perhaps most damning of all, when Mitchell, Greg, and Jonathan take a DNA test, Mitchell switches his DNA with Jonathan’s and again threatens to kill Jonathan…

So, yes, it’s pretty obvious that Mitchell is not who he says he is. However, whenever anyone points out how strangely he’s acting, Laura makes excuses for him. She’s so happy to have her son back that she’s willing to overlook all of the inconsistencies in his story. Or, at the very least, she is until she finds out that Mitchell has been threatening Jonathan. But, by that point, Greg is convinced that Mitchell is his son and now, suddenly, he’s the one who is making excuses for him…

I liked Lost Boy, even if it did ultimately get somewhat predictable. Moodily shot and featuring an excellent lead performance from Virginia Madsen, Lost Boy made me wonder what I would do if I ever found myself in a similar situation. Hopefully, I won’t ever have to find out.

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: River Raft Nightmare (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there! As I write this, I am couch-bound with what I’m pretty sure is a sprained toe. With that in mind, I’ve decided to continue my efforts to clean out the DVR. I just finished watching River Raft Nightmare, which premiered on Lifetime on September 5th. That was Labor Day weekend and, like a lot of people, I was too busy hanging out with my family to watch a movie about a mother and daughter navigating rapids while being menaced by three criminals.

River Raft Nightmare, which was directed by the amazingly prolific (and, by B-movie fans, beloved) Fred Olen Ray, tells the story of Sharon (Brigid Brannagh) and her teenage daughter, Cassie (Leah Bateman). They are looking forward to spending a nice relaxing weekend trying not to drown while river rafting. The only things they have to worry about are the possibilities of Cassie going into diabetic shock, a sudden wilderness fire breaking out, and maybe running into three criminals who are searching for some stolen money that has been hidden somewhere in the wilderness.

True, it’s easy to imagine that one of those things could happen. After all, all vacations have their obstacles. And maybe you could even see two of those things happening because, sometimes, it’s just a mistake to leave the house. But who would have guessed that all three of those things would end up happening!? That’s right — Sharon and Cassie have to deal with fire, diabetic shock, and criminals!

The head criminal is named Frank. He’s played by Ivan Sergei. From the minute he showed up, I thought he looked familiar and then, about an hour into the movie, I realized that he previously played the psycho boyfriend in another Lifetime mainstay, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? Incidentally, that movie also featured Ivan Sergei nearly drowning in a river. Maybe Ivan should stay away from the water from now on…

Frank continually assures Sharon and Cassie that he’s not going to kill them and that he just wants to find his money. However, Cassie has already seen Frank kill a man. That’s one reason why River Raft Nightmare was originally called Eyewitness, Personally, I think River Raft Nightmare is a better title. Eyewitness is a bit generic but River Raft Nightmare — hey, it’s got the word nightmare in it! You can’t go wrong with that.

River Raft Nightmare is a thoroughly predictable film. You will not be taken by surprise. But, with that in mind, it’s enjoyable enough. One thing that I appreciate about Fred Olen Ray is that he is a director who is almost totally lacking in pretension. A Fred Olen Ray film doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t. River Raft Nightmare is a low-budget B-movie and it’s totally content with being a low-budget B-movie and you really have to admire that. Add to that, I always love movies about moms and daughters bonding while kicking ass and Ivan Sergei was hot even when he was killing people.

(By the way, Fred, if you’re reading this, I’ve got an idea for a film called Red River Nightmare….)

One funny thing about the DVR is that it really does work as a time machine. When you watch something that you recorded two months ago, it’s like stepping back in the past and sometimes, you’re shocked to discover what you had forgotten about. In the case of River Raft Nightmare, I was shocked to be reminded that — for a few weeks — Lifetime experimented with having Erin Foley pop up during the commercial breaks and attempt to be snarky. A typical Erin Foley comment would be something like: “So, they’re being hunted by killers but their makeup and hair are still perfect.” (To which those of us at home would say, “No shit, haven’t you ever watched one of these movies before? We all got over that a long time ago…”) Having been reminded of its existence, all I can say is that I’m glad Lifetime ended that experiment. No offense to Erin Foley but nothing she said ever came close to topping what the live tweeters were saying on twitter.

Seriously, Lifetime, those of us watching provide more than enough snark without it being necessary for you to bring in a “ringer.”

Sorry, Erin Foley, you were not necessary…

What Lisa Watched Last Night #145: The Preacher’s Sin (dir by Michelle Mower)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime film, The Preacher’s Sin!

Why Was I Watching It?

What else was I going to watch? The Democratic debate? Not likely…

Seriously, though, everyone knows how much I love Lifetime! Plus, the title of the film promised a sinning preacher and Lifetime has a pretty good track record when it comes to sinning preachers.

What Was It About?

Evan Tanning (JR Bourne) is a successful and popular preacher. He has his own radio show, where he gives advice on how to raise a family. Much like Will Ferrell in A Deadly Adoption, he is popular on the book tour circuit. As the movie opens, he has just signed a contract with Bill Traggert (Bill Lake) and his show is about be nationally syndicated. Sure, Bill might be a little bit sleazy but it looks like everything’s perfect in Evan’s life…

Except, of course, it isn’t. Evan has just discovered that he has an illegitimate son (Demi Oliver) and, once Bill finds out, Evan finds himself being blackmailed. Add to that, Evan is the legal guardian of his niece Jamie (Allie Gonino), a rebellious teenager who has recently been arrested for driving drunk. When Jamie gets arrested a second time, Evan struggles to try to figure out how to deal with her.

What Evan doesn’t realize is that Jamie was set up by Bill’s evil daughter, Tinsley (Stephanie La Rochelle). When Tinsley escalates her bullying of Jamie, Evan is forced to take a stand and confront his past.

What Worked

The film was well-acted and it definitely had an intriguing first hour. JR Bourne did a good job as the preacher and so did Allie Gonino as Jamie. (Add to that, I really liked Jamie’s hair.) There’s been a lot of bitchy mean girls on Lifetime but few of them have been played with the amount of sociopathic panache that Stephanie La Rochelle brought to the role of Tinsley.

What Did Not Work

So, here’s the thing: with a title like The Preacher’s Sin, I was expecting the film to feature the preaching sinning. I mean, okay — he did have an extramarital affair but that was before he even became a preacher. He never knew that he had a son and, once he found out, Evan went out of his way to accept and help him out..

To be honest, a better title for the film would have been Tinsley’s Sin because Tinsley was the one who kept doing the wrong thing. As a lot of people on twitter pointed out, the final 30 minutes of the film — which were pretty much dominated by Tinsley’s sins — felt like they were happening in a totally different movie.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Oh my God, I so related to Jamie! It’s not just that we were both rebellious teenagers who had to deal with jealous haters. It was also the fact that she was judged for having better hair than everyone else. I have red hair and Jamie had green hair. Judging from this movie, the only thing more difficult than being a redhead is being a greenhead.

Lessons Learned

It’s not easy being green.

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Mother of All Lies (dir by Monika Mitchell)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

mother of all lies

I watched one final film today as a part of my effort to clean out my DVR. Mother Of All Lies premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network on September 12th and I’m not really sure why I decided just to record it, as opposed to actually watching it. Perhaps I actually had a life on the night of the 12th. Who knows?

Anyway, much as in Girl Missing, Francesca Eastwood plays a young woman who discovers the identity of her birth mother and decides that she wants to see her. In this case, Eastwood is playing Sara Caskie, an intelligent but rebellious teenager (a common character type when it comes to Lifetime movies). Though Sara has a comfortable life with her adopted parents, she wonders about her biological mother, Abby (Jennifer Copping). It turns out that Abby is in prison, convicted of a robbery gone wrong. Over the warnings of her adopted parents, Sara writes a letter to the parole board and is so persuasive that her mother is released from prison!

After being told that she shouldn’t contact her biological mother, Sara does exactly what I would have done. She find out where her mother is living, sneaks out of the house, and then drives off to find her. It turns out that Abby is living in an isolated cousin with her scuzzy boyfriend. At first, Abby is shocked when Sara shows up but Abby eventually allows Sara to stay at the cabin. And that’s a good thing because, once Abby ends up killing her boyfriend, it’s good to have Sara around to help cover the crime up.

The boyfriend’s criminal associates are trying to track him down and soon, they are hanging out around the cabin and generally making things even more trashy. Meanwhile, Sara is starting to doubt whether she really wants to get to know anything else about her mother and Sara’s adoptive parents are frantically searching for her and calling the police.

Mother Of All Lies is one of the less impressive of the many films to premiere on Lifetime and LMN this year. Other then one brilliantly executed nightmare sequence, it’s just not a very memorable film. However, the film is partially redeemed by the heartfelt performances of Francesca Eastwood and Jennifer Copping. Francesca Eastwood — and yes, she is Clint’s daughter — has actually had a pretty good Lifetime run this year. Not only did she star in this film and Girl Missing but she also had a key supporting role in Wuthering High School. Francesca Eastwood is great at playing good-hearted but troubled characters. Meanwhile, Jennifer Copping actually makes her character both poignant and frightening. Whatever other flaws that Mother Of All Lies may have, it is worth watching for their performances.

Hallmark Review: Best Christmas Party Ever (2014, dir. John Bradshaw)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I never saw the boom mic drop, nor does this movie have anyone turn invisible. That’s refreshing. However, the title is a little off putting. Not because it’s super generic, but because I already watched a movie called Best Night Ever (2013) earlier this year. My god was that movie bad. So let’s talk about Best Christmas Party Ever.

This is our main character named Jennie Stanton (Torrey DeVitto). She’s a party planner. That kind of seems to be a recurring thing in these Hallmark movies. At least no one gets murdered leading her to try and solve a mystery such as Wedding Planner Mystery (2014) did. That would be another movie this is better than.

So Jennie works for a woman named Petra (Linda Thorson). She is throwing a party to step down as head of this event planning company. I know, you want to throw in a joke here that Diana Rigg is going to take over the company, but no such luck. In fact, she never actually says who is taking over. It’s kind of sorta implied that it’s going to be her out work actor son named Nick Forbes (Steve Lund).

Unless I missed some line where she explicitly says it, she just says she’s stepping down and wants him to work with Jennie to plan the upcoming annual Tyrell Toys party. Whether she makes it explicit or not, Jennie jumps to that conclusion. Now Jennie is kinda like Danica McKellar’s character from Perfect Match (2015). Oddly enough, another Ron Oliver movie this is better than. They both were in this business because they actually had a passion for it. In Jennie’s case, she attended these Tyrell Toys parties as a kid. Also, when her father was out of work, she wished her father would get a job, and Tyrell Toys hired him. In other words, she has personal reasons why she does what she does, and why she especially wants this party to be done right.

Now you’d think he’s going to be a problem and sparring partner throughout for her to wind up with, but not really. He starts off that way, but quickly changes. In fact, I think Jennie sums up his role in the movie quite well.

Although, referring to him as Dr. Feelgood of course made me think of the Mötley Crüe song.

In which case, she probably shouldn’t eat that hot dog. Who knows what could be in there.

This guy is her problem. He works at Tyrell Toys. They are romantically involved, but not much of anything is made of that. He just basically gets that look on his face more and more as he realizes her vision for the party is totally different from his. You see, the guy who used to own Tyrell Toys sold the company and now the party is supposed to be a more private company party rather than being a more charitable public outgoing type of thing.

The rest of the film can be summed up like this. As Jennie continues to try and maintain her vision for the party, the business guy keeps pushing it off the rails while Nick keeps popping in to try and keep her on track. Ultimately, she follows her heart even after Tyrell Toys fires her. She goes to the former owner and decides to throw the party anyways with his support. However, Petra gets wind of it, which leads to…

product placement. They have a nice long shot of her taking off her glasses and setting them next to that case to make sure you see the name Visionworks. At least it didn’t come at the emotional climax like it did in Always And Forever (2009) where he opens the ring box to make sure we get a nice clear shot of the name Kay Jewelers when he proposes to her. Petra of course backs her decision to throw this party the way Jennie wants to. She wanted to be let in on it, rather than having to find out from somebody else.

There are a couple little subplots, and a few other characters, but they don’t really matter. The party goes off well. The business guy’s superior catches wind of it and attends. You can see above that he thinks this was a pretty neat tradition that shouldn’t have been tossed aside. Then Jennie and Nick kiss while a ballerina waitress stands behind them.

This one wasn’t perfect, but definitely one of the better Hallmark Christmas movies I’ve watched so far.

Of course, since it is a Hallmark movie, there is something a little humorous to look for.

Notice the game on the screen behind her. It’s not that it just looks really cheaply slapped together, but that they still make games that look like they were drawn in MS Paint in reality.