I reviewed Stalked at 17 with Joey Lawrence’s Melissa & Joey co-star Taylor Spreitler yesterday. So, I thought I would remind people that Joey Lawrence having a music career was once a thing. If I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany is so 80s that it hurts, then this is so early-90s that it hurts. Wasn’t alive during this period, or are too young to remember? Well, they certainly put every aspect of the time period in this music video.
I don’t have anything else to say considering what happened. I just hope this early-90s cheese fest at least takes your mind off of it for a couple of minutes.
Between 2009 and 2012, Lifetime must have really decided to get behind this “at 17” series of movies. You’ll notice it’s not just Stalked at 17, but Stalked at 17 TM. This time the opening credits tell us that this movie is “Inspired by True Events.” I guess you can say that when your plot is so vague that it must have happened to somebody somewhere.
The movie begins, and we are introduced to our main character played by Taylor Spreitler. I know her character has a name in the movie, but if the script isn’t going to stop making endless references to the show she was on at the time called Melissa & Joey, then I can call her Lennox.
That’s a baby monitor that Lennox is listening to. That’s also most likely a future Lifetime movie when they realize that some Internet of Things baby monitors can be used to look inside other people’s homes. That is if they haven’t already. After Lennox goes to use the microwave, she is grabbed by the last 20 minutes or so of the movie before the film cuts to the title card, and it’s one year earlier.
Lennox and her friend are touring a college when we meet our bad guy for the movie on the left.
It’s also when I realized that the subtitles on the DVD didn’t work and turned on the captions instead. I love that they cast Charles Hittinger as Psycho Dad so he would look really intimidating. It’s probably because if you’ve watched Melissa & Joey, then you know that Taylor Spreitler and vulnerable go together about as much as Bella Thorne and drama.
Psycho Dad invites them to a party, and they of course decide to go. Now, for no good reason whatsoever, a guy wearing a sombrero with a bullseye on his chest.
We learn some very important information at the frat house. No, not that they decided to make him the one who was adopted by a councilwoman instead of Lennox. It’s that they run a very tight ship after Psycho Dad finds puke on the stairs.
Now we meet Lennox’s dad played by none other than whitelighter himself Brian Krause.
I agree, Leo. However, I think Doug Campbell was right to take the title of this movie and start calling the movies “Stalked by”. He’s just jealous because his wife played by Amy Pietz was in Stalked by My Neighbor (2015). This scene exists to tell us that they are having financial difficulties which will play no material role in the film.
Lennox and friend go to the party. As soon as the dialog tells us that Lennox is 16 at present, her and Psycho Dad immediately go upstairs together. After he tells her a sob story, they kiss and it fades to black before going to an establishing shot of her school.
I hope you like establishing shots of her school because you’ll see them 4-5 times in this movie. Heck, later in the movie you’ll get the exact same shot, but only a minute or so before or after the other shot.
Thanks to Lennox texting Psycho Dad, we learn that they did it on February 21st exactly because it is their two month anniversary.
Oh yeah, and his name is Chad. Just like Mister 45 minutes from Accused at 17. Real original there screenwriter Christine Conradt. It looks like Conradt is really passionate about these “at 17” movies seeing as she’s produced five of them. According to her bio on IMDb, she has an “MCJ from Boston University where she focused on cybercrime and juvenile delinquency.” It’s weird that with a focus in cybercrime, she seems to have had nothing to do with Fugitive at 17 (2012) where the girl in question is a hacker.
Now Lennox forgets that this movie is called Stalked at 17 and not Pregnant at 17, but it’s too late. I love how this scene plays out. Lennox is talking to a male friend when she grabs her stomach, and is obviously sick. She makes a mad dash for the bathroom. He quickly follows, but stops at the door, and asks a girl standing nearby to go in to check on her.
The line actually goes like this: “You really need to find a new friend cause that one out there couldn’t even be bothered to make sure you were okay, and sent me inside instead.”
Meanwhile, the film knows it needs to pad itself out.
Lennox is at home and finds out she is indeed pregnant. While that is going on, Psycho Chad is buying jewelry online. Back in Lennox’s bedroom, the movie gives us lines that might as well amount to this: “I don’t know if he was wearing a condom. You know what they say? If you look at it, then you go blind. I just had to take his word for it.” Of course Psycho Chad is happy about the news because it means he’ll have a family of his own now with a child who will love him unconditionally.
Then the two of them go to a restaurant where Psycho Chad blows up at a waiter. That’s basically the rest of the film. Chad gets nuttier, he gets in a fight with Leo, his biological mom he lied about being dead gets out of prison, and they finally get around to where the film started. At least it was fun to see Leo fighting with Psycho Chad along the way.
Lennox, baby, Psycho Chad, and Psycho Mom all end up at a convenience store where things go wrong and Psycho Chad is shot. Then it shows Lennox with the kid, and fades to black. I think this movie has earned the Godfrey Ho red screen end card for how abrupt the ending occurs.
Thus ends the classic tale of girl meets boy, girl gets herself knocked up, boy turns out to want a family, boy turns out to be crazy, everyone does their best to pad out the film, boy is shot, and the credits role. I have to admit that aside from this and Accused at 17, I have never seen credits that start by referring to the cast as “the players.”
At least this one had some kind of a story. That’s way more than I can say for Accused at 17. I have Fugitive at 17 coming soon, then that will be my last “at 17” movie for now.
FLAP is an attempt by director Sir Carol Reed to jump on the late 60’s/early70’s “relevance” bandwagon by depicting the modern-day mistreatment of the American Indian. It’s a seriocomic character study that struggles to find it’s identity, and as a result fails at both comedy and drama.
FLAP is Flapping Eagle, an ex-soldier living back on the reservation who’s “pissed off at everybody”. He’s a hard drinking man, as is just about all the Indians here, feeding into the stereotypical “drunken Indian” image. Flap’s had enough of the noise coming from construction workers building a highway project right next to the rez, and causes a fracas between the hardhats and the Indians, damaging a bulldozer in the process. Native Wounded Bear (who has a correspondence school law degree) points out the highway is gong through sacred burial ground, which turns out not to be the case. Everyone’s up in arms, especially local…
I did a Tiffany music video yesterday, so of course today had to be Debbie.
I don’t think anyone needs the importance of Debbie Gibson explained to them at this point. At least I hope they don’t. I do love what the host said at MTV’s 20th Anniversary in 2001 after they played a message from Gibson. He said that in about 10 years or so it will be a message from Britney Spears.
Debbie Gibson must have really liked black and white cause this is at least the third one of her videos that used it. It is just one of several ways they capture the isolation the person in the song is going through. We have the disconnection of random stock footage shots of the city. A guy standing on a peer. Her performing at a small nightclub type place. The separation of Gibson in the present from her happy times via partial use of color. The mirror that only reflects your own face and what is behind your eyes. A blood tinted dinner break-up. It all ties the song together visually.
It is one of my favorite Gibson music videos and songs. It isn’t likely a solo female singer could get away with wearing that many clothes today in their music videos. That, and the turquoise hair bow. I’m a sucker for Debbie Gibson, so you’ll likely see every video she ever did on here eventually.
I am also aware that today is Bastille Day. That’s why I have included a bonus performance below of Bastille Day by Rush.
I know Lisa would normally be the one to tackle these movies, but she just finished writing 40 reviews in about the span of a month. I think it goes without saying that she probably looks like this right now.
I also think it goes without saying that shot doesn’t exist in this movie.
Before the title card appears, we are treated to credits over shots that make us think we are about to watch a crime TV Show. I wish. Something might actually happen if that were the case.
Now we cut to five days earlier where we can tell things are going well because the captions tell us so.
We see some kids at school before we are introduced briefly to Cynthia Gibb at her job. Not sure what she does, and like most things in this movie, I don’t care. We then go back to the school to be introduced to obviously bad girl (Janet Montgomery) and low-rent Miriam McDonald (Stella Maeve) before cutting back to Gibb.
Some guy shows up to remind us he exists in the movie, but not to me. The school returns so we can meet Chad (Reiley McClendon) and obviously good girl who will be “accused”, even though that barely has anything to do with the movie.
Chad is here to tell her that she needs to cancel her plans and come to the best party of the year. I know this not only because the movie says so, but because when have you ever watched a movie where it isn’t supposed to be the greatest party of the year?
The guy who decided to exist for a bit brought along a pair of earrings so we can learn that the good girl is named Bianca (Nicole Gale Anderson). Already this movie is full of lies. Nicole Gale Anderson was 18 when she did this movie. She had long passed the age of 17 when you could be accused, stalked, betrayed, missing, pregnant, and become a fugitive all in the same year. It’s a long tradition going back at least as far as 1931 when Marian Marsh was in Under 18. She actually made that one when she was 17-18 years-old. When you turn 18, life just becomes one long snooze fest.
Bad girl shows up to make sure we know she’s very comfortable lying about people or animals dying before we can go to the party. That, and that her mother will totally back her lies up later in the movie. Fortunately, Bianca doesn’t make it to the party so Chad and another girl can have sex in a bathroom.
The one whose hands those belong to is Dory (Lindsay Taylor). She’s named that because the movie isn’t very well written. Also, her last name in the movie is Holland which goes right along with Cynthia Gibb’s character’s first name Jacqui to create the name of porn/B-Movie star Jacqui Holland. I’ve reviewed several of her films on this site.
All you need to know now is that things don’t go well for Bianca in several ways. Bianca and her friends sit next to a pool in bikinis to talk about boys because they aren’t guys. Otherwise, they would be doing this same scene while playing basketball. We get to see Bianca leave a nice little voicemail for Chad.
However, that’s not really what sets her off. This is what gets her riled up.
45 minutes? Chad’s a 10 minute man, 15 at the most. That’s why the girls decide to pick up Dory to take her to where “the hottest frat guys ever” are located.
Of course by that, they mean the set of Mojave (2015).
Sadly, Oscar Isaac is not there to greet them dressed as Antonio das Mortes. This makes Dory think something is up. She’s right. Dory punches Bianca to make sure she has a bruise on her forehead before she leaves the scene. Then obviously bad girl bashes Dory’s head in with a rock. That’s one Dead Dory.
I did forget one thing. On the way over, Dory made sure to leave a hair clip in the car to be used later in the movie.
In between Bianca leaving and Dory’s head getting hit by a rock, Bianca made sure to stop by a gas station so that someone will have seen her. It matters greatly to the plot, and by that I mean next to nothing. A plot I guarantee won’t matter to you if you watch Accused at 17. Things, stuff, and then we are introduced to our buddy cops.
They are clearly the best because they pay attention to every detail. In 2009, nobody was saying “Mackin'” anymore. That’s why they have a discussion as to whether they say “cuttin'”, “tappin’ it”, “hittin’ it”, or “hookin’ up”. They question Chad and we find out they actually aren’t the best cops around.
Officers, come on? Chad doesn’t seem like the type of guy who goes out to a Saturday Night Fish Fry.
However, I do believe that Chad is the kind of guy who takes Louis Jordan’s advice and when Bianca calls to ask if he’s alone, he tells her “no, I got three girls with me.”
Now they turn their attention to Bianca because the stuff in between the interrogations is really boring, so we need to keep moving along. There is a lot of padding in this movie. However, I have to give Janet Montgomery credit. She does a pretty good job of playing the evil girl. I also have to give the movie credit for how funny it was to see Bianca drive back to the scene of the head bashing the next day and call out Dory’s name as if she is just hiding somewhere. Just when the cop may actually be getting to something with his line of questioning, Cynthia Gibb interrupts to remind him that they still have about half a movie left to go so he better leave.
Now a couple of extras they gave hiking equipment find the body. Blah, blah, blah, and confrontation with evil girl’s mom.
The gist of it is that Barbara Niven can play a lesbian in one movie, a nice mom in a Hallmark murder mystery series, and do roles like this. She’s very versatile. Nothing really of consequence happens here except evil girl and evil mom lie because otherwise how are they going to get away with calling this movie “Accused at 17.”
Well, finally the trip to the gas station earlier and the hair clip left in the car pay off when the cops notice there are only about 30 minutes left in the movie.
They arrest her, so they can finally say with confidence that the title isn’t false advertising. More things happen, but it all amounts to Gibb and Bianca trying to prove her innocence till it’s time for bad girl to confront that other girl who only exists to be killed off.
She apparently needs an inhaler, so evil girl takes it away and sprays all the puffs out of it. No big loss. Again, more stuff happens that is of no real consequence until bad girl pulls a gun on her father.
Dad stops her, and everything is good again. That is except for Dory having had her head smashed in and that other girl having suffocated to death. None of that matters because Bianca puts on the earrings I mentioned earlier. The point of that is the guy who barely existed at the beginning of the film is Gibb’s new boyfriend/dad for Bianca so putting them on means she has accepted him.
This movie was terrible. I’m pretty sure more happened in Superdragon vs. Superman. The movies Stalked at 17 and and Betrayed at 17 arrived today. I’m so grateful that Lisa already reviewed Betrayed at 17 back in 2011. That means I only have to watch it, and not attempt to write about it.
Now for something completely different and not serious at all. Despite it being established several years prior by Rockwell that somebody is indeed watching you, Tiffany went ahead and covered Tommy James & The Shondells to create the definitive 80’s mall music video. Is there much to say about this? It’s so 80s it hurts. I think the only way this could be more 80s is if this were a post for The Go-Go’s Our Lips Are Sealed.
Yes, I do prefer this version to the original one. Mony Mony and Crimson and Clover are good both ways, but I really do like this one better. As for Tiffany and her sparing partner Debbie Gibson, I prefer Debbie Gibson. Something that is funny about this whole Tiffany and Debbie Gibson nonsense is that Mary Lambert who directed Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011) with both of them also directed a few music videos you might know such as Material Girl for Madonna. In other words, we’ll see her again. That, and “Baggage” is spelled “Bag”. You don’t need the rest of the letters any more than Tiffany needs a last name.
Now because there is no good reason that I have it, here is Tiffany’s 1990 appearance on a favorite childhood sitcom of mine called Out Of This World.
This is from the same episode where Maureen Flannigan performs Belinda Carlisle’s Leave a Light On, but that’s for a different post.
Tonight I’ll be watching the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, but for those of you non-baseball fans, here’s a look at five funny films from the 1930’s & 40’s:
IT’S A GIFT (Paramount 1934, D: Norman Z. McLeod) The Great Man himself, W.C. Fields , works his magic in this delightfully demented domestic comedy about hen pecked grocer Harold Bissonette, who dreams of owning an orange grove in California. His wife (Kathleen Howard) is a domineering battle-axe, his kid (Tommy Bupp) an obnoxious, roller skating brat, and daughter Mildred (Jean Rouveral) doesn’t want to leave her “true love”. This sets the stage for some of Fields’ funniest surrealistic scenes, including his grocery store being demolished by blind Mr. Mickle and perennial nemesis Baby Leroy; poor W.C. trying to get some sleep on the porch while being constantly disturbed by noisy neighbors, a wayward coconut, a man looking for “Carl LeFong”, and…
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
Through the Shattered Lens 