It’s amazing how quickly a DVR can fill up.  Just a few weeks ago, as December came to a close, I went through my DVR, watched a lot of Christmas movies, and cleared up about 30 hours of space.  At the time, I was pretty proud of myself but now, a month later, I find myself once again in the same situation.  I am running out of space.

In other words, it’s time to clean out the DVR yet again.

I got things started by watching 911 Nightmare, which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network on January 10th.  And let’s give credit where credit is due.  That is a brilliant title, especially for a Lifetime film.  It not only promises a nightmare (perhaps even a sexy nightmare) but it also promises so much danger that someone is going to have to call 911.  A sexy nightmare and danger?  How can I say no to that!?

(According to the imdb, this film was originally called Dispatch.  911 Nightmare is a clear improvement.)

Anyway, as for the rest of the film, it tells the story of Christine McCullers (Fiona Gubelmann).  When we first meet Christine, she’s a cop and she’s carrying on a family tradition of law enforcement.  However, when she gets cornered by a perp (that’s right, I said “perp” because I love to use that official police talk) in an alley, her partner gets a bullet in the head and Christine gets a bullet in the leg.

Now wearing a big ugly brace and moving with a pronounced limp. Christine is working as a 911 operator.  One night, a call comes in.  Christine answers.

“911,” she says.

“The boogeyman is here!” a little kid says.

Christine tells the kid to get some sleep and to stop playing pranks and she threatens to tell his parents what a bad son they have.  She hangs up on the kid and, as a result, the kid’s best friend is murdered…

And I have to admit that this is where I kind of lost interest in 911 Nightmare.  The rest of the film deals with Christine trying to solve the murder and we’re clearly supposed to feel sorry for her because everyone is blaming her for what happened but you know what?  She deserves to be blamed because she messed up!  The film goes out of its way to convince us that Christine made an understandable (if unfortunate) mistake but it never quite convinces us.

Perhaps it would have worked better if the kid had been attacked while he was on the phone with Christine and killed before the police arrived.  And maybe then the police could try to blame Christine for their own failure (and certainly, they would point to her previous wounding in the line of duty as proof of her incompetence).  Then you would really root for Christine.

But no.  Christine is terrible at her job and it’s difficult to really root for a character who screws up that badly.  There’s a scene where Christine views all of the mean comments that have been posted about her online and it was probably a bad sign, as far as the film’s effectiveness was concerned, that I agreed with almost every single comment.

Anyway, Christine does go on to investigate the murder and, since this is a Lifetime movie, she also gets a boyfriend during the course of her investigation.  Good for her.  Unfortunately, however, the film fell apart as soon as she told that kid to go back to sleep.