Cleaning Out The DVR: Pom Poms and Payback (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is it! Pom Poms and Payback is quite possibly the great Lifetime cheerleader film ever!

We start with a dream-like sequence in which a teenager named Sally Crumb walks down the street while three cheerleaders stalk behind her, chanting her name and accusing her of being “a bum” and “a cheater.” Reaching her house, Sally turns on the cheerleaders and shouts at them to leave her alone. The main cheerleader laughs at her. Sally threatens to kill all of the cheerleaders. Again, the cheerleaders don’t look particularly concerned. Meanwhile, barely noticed, Sally’s little sister glares at all three of them….

Jump forward 25 years! Three new cheerleaders — Sharlene (Shaylaren Hilton), Jessie (La’Priesh Roman), and Annabelle (Jazlyn Nicolette Sward) — are all looking forward to next school dance! They’ve all got wonderful boyfriends and all the reason in the world to be happy. But something goes wrong for all three of them. Sharlene sees a picture of her boyfriend making out with another girl. Jessie discovers that her grades have been altered, apparently be the somewhat nerdy but adorable guy that she’s dating. Meanwhile, Annabelle’s boyfriend goes to college out-of-state. Despite having promised to fly home for the dance, he never shows up. He claims that his flight was cancelled but obviously, he must have been cheating!

Under Sharlene’s direction, all three of the cheerleaders get revenge on their boyfriends but then Sharlene realizes that it’s all a bit too convenient. All three of their boyfriends turned out to be jerks on the same night? And all three of them claim that they were set up? Could it be that someone is trying to destroy the happiness of the school’s cheerleaders? And could that person be the new cheerleading coach, Denise Evergreen (Emily Killian)!?

Well, I’m not going to spoil too much of the plot, other than to say that it’s full of twists and turns. It’s also full of plenty of inentionally humorous moments because Pom Poms and Payback is not a film that’s meant to be taken too seriously. It’s a film that’s meant to be fun and that means that we not only get a science experiment gone wrong (“Watch out for that rocket!”) but we also get a scene where a character is taken down by a cheerleader doing a flip in slow motion. Pom Poms and Payback is a film that was specifically made for those of us who have seen countless Lifetime cheerleader films and who know all of the usual plot points and tricks. Pom Poms and Payback pokes some affectionate fun at the genre. Consider it to be Lifetime’s gift to all of us loyal viewers.

Doug Campbell, who is responsible for some of the best films to ever air on Lifetime, directs with his customary flair and the entire film is full of enjoyably weird characters and details. Emily Killian has a lot of fun with the part of the scheming Coach Killian while Carrie Schroeder, playing the mother of one of the cheerleaders, brings a lot of conviction to her role. It’s a film that comments on the Lifetime cheerleader genre and which also finds time to include an important message of bullying. Be carful who you taunt because high school is not forever.

Film Review: Breaking the Press (dir by Andrew Stevens)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbPdPLsYZpc

Ah, the parable of the prodigal son.

This is the Biblical parable about how the rich man who has two sons, both of whom are due to receive a large inheritance from their father. The younger son asks for his inheritance early and then leaves home, determined to make a life on his own. The older son stays at home and continues to loyally work for his father. Things don’t go well for the younger son. Before long, he’s broke, destitute, and desperate. For the longest time, the youngest son tries to avoid returning home. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s failed and he’s also scared of how his father will react.

Finally, though, the son does return home. He admits that he wasted his inheritance. He admits that he hasn’t been as responsible or faithful as his older brother. His father, though, forgives him and orders a large party to be thrown in his honor. The older son is not happy about this.

“Why,” the older son demands, “are you celebrating the return of Fredo when you’ve got Michael right here!?”

(Yes, in my version, they all love The Godfather.)

His father replies that he loves both of his sons equally and nothing will ever change that. But he is celebrating the return of his youngest son because “he was lost and now he’s found.”

It’s a parable that teaches a good lesson about forgiveness and the selflessness of parental love, regardless of whether you’re religious or not. Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s also a parable that has inspired any number of films. I mean, it’s inherent cinematic. Not only do you have a dramatic conflict between members of the same family but, before the forgiveness, comes the decadence. The parable of the prodigal son allows audiences to celebrate the younger son’s mistakes before also celebrating the eventual lesson that’s inspired by those mistakes.

2010’s Breaking The Press is based on the parable of the prodigal son, this time imagining the father as a high school basketball coach in rural Texas and his two sons as his star players. When one of his sons gets an offer to play basketball for a ritzy school in Dallas, he jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, things don’t go well in the big city. The prodigal son may be a good basketball player but he’s not mature enough to handle living away from his parents. Before long, he gets expelled from school and ends up living on the streets. Meanwhile, his father is coaching his team and his other son towards the state championship but will he be able to concentrate on the game when he learns what has happened? You can probably guess what this all leads to. I mean, I started off the review by sharing the parable and you did read all of that, right? You didn’t just skim it, did you?

In the end, Breaking the Press is a pleasant film. Even when the prodigal son ends up living on the streets, they’re not particularly frightening streets. By the standards of most prodigal son films, there’s not really much decadence to be found in Breaking the Press but that’s probably because the film was made for a family audience. That said, I kind of liked the film. Andrew Stevens is a Hollywood veteran and, even when working with an obviously low-budget, he still knows how to frame a shot and keep the action moving. Drew Waters is believable as the conflicted coach while his two sons are well-played by Tom Maden and Chad Holbrook. The film was shot in Waxahachie and there’s an authenticity to the film’s small town setting, one that helps the film survive a few heavy-handed moments. As a general rule, I’m going to enjoy any film that looks like it could have been filmed down the street from me.

I watched Breaking The Press last month, while I was recovering from a sinus infection. I was feeling like crap at the time but the film still held my interest and, most importantly, it didn’t make me feel any worse. That’s the key thing when it comes to a film like this. It was pleasant and it helped to pass the time until I felt up to watching something a bit more challenging.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Cheer For Your Life (dir by Jared Cohn)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bring it on deadly!

Cindy Braverman (Grace Patterson) and Allison Regan (Marisa Lynae Hampton) are both hoping to become the newest members of the Queen Bees, the senior cheerleaders! However, the head cheerleader — Fiona Sparks (Anna Belle Bayley) — isn’t going to make things easy for them or anyone else who wants to become a Queen Bee. Before you can be a Queen Bee, you have to go through two weeks of ritual humiliation and soul-destroying abuse.

That’s right …. it’s initiation time!

However, this isn’t a typical initiation. Sure, there’s the usual stuff, like getting soaked with a hose and being ordered to only say “buzz” for an entire day. But then there’s the secret parties, the forced marches, the mysterious car theft, the disappearances, and the murders. Oh yes, there are a few deaths. Actually, everyone insists that the deaths are just an unfortunate coincidence but Allison isn’t so sure and eventually, Cindy comes to share her suspicions. Can they solve the mystery of the dying and vanishing cheerleaders or is the high school going to have to suffer through a year without their bees!?

Buzz buzz!

I always enjoy a good Lifetime cheerleader movie, largely because they give me a chance to play “What if?” My sister was cheerleader and I spent my first two years of high school being continually told that I should be a cheerleader. I have to admit that I was perhaps a bit more tempted than I was willing to acknowledge at the time. However, in the end, I always decided that I wanted to establish my own identity and do my own thing and that’s what I did. I enjoyed high school and I have to admit that I’ve never been able to relate to people who claim that it was the worst time of their lives. Still, I do occasionally wonder what my high school experience would have been like if I had followed in my sister’s footsteps and cheered. Would I have still discovered my love of history, art, and writing? Would I have been lucky enough to still have the same large group of very different and very interesting friends? Or would I have spent all of my time just hanging out with the other cheerleaders? (For the record, my sister was a kickass cheerleader and is now a kickass photographer so it probably wasn’t quite the binary choice that it’s often presented as being.) I imagine I would have a good time regardless of which choice I made because I always manage to have a good time. But, as a cheerleader, I would have missed out on some fun experiences just as I probably missed out on a few by not being a cheerleader.

Or, at least, that’s what I believed before I watched my first Lifetime cheerleader film! Seriously, on Lifetime, cheerleading is dangerous! You’re always either getting stalked or the other cheerleaders are plotting to kill you or you end up with a teacher trying to ruin your life for no good reason. That’s the fun of a good Lifetime movie, of course. Everything and everyone always ends up going to extremes. Lifetime films deal with real-life situations but they do so in such an over-the-top way that you can watch them and think, “I may be struggling right now but at least my situation isn’t as bad as all that!”

Cheer For Your Life is a fun Lifetime cheerleader film, one that assures us that peer pressure is bad but being a cheerleader is really cool. While it hits all of the expected Lifetime cheerleader film plot points, it also features two likable performances from Grace Patterson and especially Marisa Lynae Hampton. (If you don’t cheer a little when Hampton continues her investigate despite being on crutches, I have to wonder what you would cheer for.) Anna Belle Bayley is wonderfully villainous as the head cheerleader. It’s an entertaining film, one that encourages you to be careful what you wish for while also assuring you that you should probably go ahead and wish for it anyways.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Killer Cheer Mom (dir by Randy Carter)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s not easy being a stepmother.

That’s one of the many things that I’ve learned from watching Lifetime movie. If you’re a stepmother, all of the neighbors are going to assume that you only got married for the money. If you have a stepson, he’s going to end up triggering bad memories that are going to lead to you trying to seduce and then kill him. If you have a stepdaughter, she’s going to resent you and you’re going to have to decide whether to win her trust by saving her from a stalker or to try to kill her off so that you alone stand to inherit all of your husband’s money after you poison him. Decisions, decisions!

The stepmom in Killer Cheer Mom is Amanda (Denise Richards). Amanda has just married James (Thomas Calabro) and she really wants to bond with her new stepdaughter, Riley (Courtney Fulk). Unfortunately, Riley doesn’t want to bond with her new stepmother. In fact, Riley kind of wishes that Amanda would just go away. Riley is far more concerned with making the cheerleading squad.

Whereas Riley sees a problem, Amanda sees an opportunity! Amanda can bond with Riley by helping her out with her cheerleading. And what better way to help than to injure and plot against Riley’s competition!? Soon, the local high school is the most dangerous place on Earth and it’s all because Riley refused to appreciate her stepmom.

It’s a bit unfortunate that Killer Cheer Mom was not produced as a part of Lifetime’s Wrong franchise, just because I would have liked to have heard Vivica A. Fox say something like, “Looks your father married the wrong cheer mom.” That said, even if Killer Cheer Mom doesn’t quite reach the wonderfully and intentionally absurd heights of the Wrong films, it’s still an enjoyably self-aware movie. After years of movies about cheerleaders being harassed by the crazed mothers of their friends, Killer Cheer Mom offers up a stepmother who is even more dangerous because she’s actually trying to be helpful. As the film plays out, Amanda’s schemes grow more and more extreme. More than just being a standard Lifetime villain, she’s instead a force of pure chaos. One gets the feeling that, if she didn’t have a stepdaughter, she would find another excuse to cause trouble. It’s what makes her happy.

A film like this is only as good as its villain and, fortunately, Amanda is played by Denise Richards. Richards gives a compelling performance, embracing the melodrama but, at the same time, never condescending to the material. Instead, she plays Amanda as being someone who never stops performing. When she’s in public, she pretends to be a loving wife. When she’s with her stepdaughter, she pretends to be a teenager again. When she’s alone and plotting against her daughter’s competition, she appears to be performing solely for her own amusement. What makes Amanda memorable is not just what she does but also the fact that she seems to get so much enjoyment out of doing it. It’s obvious that both Richards and Amanda are having a ball being bad.

Killer Cheer Mom is an enjoyable Lifetime cheerleader movie. Watch it and ask yourself how far you would go to make your stepdaughter happy. If you wouldn’t be willing to frame the competition by stashing drugs in their backpack, ask yourself why not. It’s all about family.

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Wrong Cheer Captain (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“She definitely picked the wrong cheer captain,” Carol (Vivica A. Fox) says toward the end of Lifetime’s The Wrong Cheer Captain and what else can I say but, “Damn right!”

Seriously, Anna (Sofia Masson) may be a good cheerleader and she may have a lot of experience and she may have even been recruited to go to her new high school so that she could be a member of the cheerleading squad but she definitely should not have been named captain. Not only is Anna failing her classes and vaping on school grounds but she also has a bad habit of murdering people! Of course, Anna only commits murder because a past trauma and because she wants so badly to succeed as a cheerleader but still, murdering is definitely not a good habit. I mean, if the school has a no vaping policy, I can only imagine what their policy on murder would be!

Perhaps a better pick for cheer captain would have been Carol’s daughter, Kate (Alexis Salmon). Of course, Kate is actually pretty busy trying to prove that Anna murdered her best friend so it’s not like Kate doesn’t already have a lot to deal with. Oddly enough, even though the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Anna is murderer, Kate can’t get anyone to listen to her. The principal is skeptical. The cheerleading coach just wants to win competitions. And Kate’s mother keeps trying to blame everything on drugs. She even orders Kate not to hang out with her boyfriend because of his past use of steroids….

Wow, there’s a lot going on at this high school! Who knew that the world of high school cheerleading was so ruthless?

Well, everyone. Everyone knows that high school cheerleading is perhaps the most dangerous activity that someone can involve themselves with, especially if they’re starring in a Lifetime film. And if you’re in a Lifetime film that has the word “Wrong” in the title, it’s even more dangerous! I’ve lost track of how many Wrong films David DeCoteau has directed by Lifetime but it certainly does seem like a lot of them feature cheerleaders. They also all feature Vivica A. Fox, usually playing a no-nonsense authority figure and ending the film by using the title as a way to sum things up. “It looks like you hired the Wrong Landscaper,” Vivica will say and, even though you didn’t actually do the hiring and he was instead only sent by an agency, you nod and agree because you know better than to openly disagree with Vivica A. Fox. Instead, you face the truth and admit that, even if it doesn’t seem that way, you were still somehow wrong.

The Wrong films have become a bit of a Lifetime mainstay, loved for their campy melodrama, their Canadian locations, and, of course, Vivica A. Fox. The Wrong Cheer Captain has a lot in common with the other Wrong films but then again, that’s part of the appeal of these films. They’re like comfort food. You watch them because of their comforting familiarity and because you know exactly what you’re going to get. The Wrong Cheer Captain delivers exactly what it promises, cheerleader mayhem and plenty of different takes on the term “wrong.” Who could possibly complain about that?

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Price of Fitting In (dir by Alpha Nicky Mulowa)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What is the price of fitting in?

Well, according to this Lifetime film, the price is getting hooked on synthetic marijuana, losing a scholarship to the best school for STEM in the country, and disappointing your mother. That last one has got to be the worst part of it all. I remember when I first started college, I would occasionally pop a handful of Dexedrine in the morning and then stay up for four days straight. It was fun at the time but I always felt terrible whenever I would go home for the weekend and see my mom. In fact, the main reason why I eventually stopped doing that wasn’t because it was messing with my health (though staying up for four days straight when you have asthma isn’t something I would necessarily recommend) but because I didn’t want my mom to blame herself if I ended up killing myself after falling asleep while driving.

Now, me, I experimented with drugs because I was curious and I thought that I might have an interesting experience or two. Charlie Cunningham (played by Elizabeth Adams) uses drugs because she’s under too much pressure. Her parents have just gotten an acrimonious divorce. Her father is always breaking his promises to her. Her mother, Amber (Lora Burke) is always working and is overprotective of Charlie. Charlie wants to pursue a career in STEM and she’s had trouble with pills in the past. (It’s implied that it all started at “STEMP camp,” which makes sense since that sounds like the most boring camp on the planet.)

When Charlie enrolls at a new school, Amber is hoping that it will be a new start for her. However, no sooner has Charlie gotten involved with her new school’s robotics club than she finds herself tempted back into her old ways. Her fellow teammates insist that synthetic marijuana is the best way to take the edge off and, of course, it’s totally legal! Soon, Charlie is buying so much that even the clerk at the local weed shop is giving her the side eye. However, it turns out that synthetic marijuana is linked to all sorts of bad stuff and soon, Charlie is losing interest in school, screwing up at robotics club, and passing out in alleys!

I’m probably making the film sound a bit more overdramatic and campy than it is. Though it’s hard not to notice that every bad thing that can happen does happen as far as Charlie’s drug use is concerned, the film never quite veers into Reefer Madness or “No Hope With Dope” territory. Lora Burke and Elizabeth Adams are well-cast as mother and daughter and both of them gave sincere and grounded performances, which kept the film from going totally over the top.

That said, the most interesting thing about the film was not Charlie’s use of drugs but instead the character of Andrew Fell (Nick Smyth), the sleazy high school guidance counselor who, upon discovering that Charlie is again using, proceeds to use that information to manipulate, control, and blackmail her. Everyone has met someone like Andrew Fell. They’re the people who claim to care about you but who ultimately go out of their way to keep you weak and dependent. Smyth did a wonderful job bringing the character to loathsome life. Every time he popped up and told Charlie that he was worried about her or threatened to call her mother about his concerns, my skin crawled. Though the film may have primarily been concerned with drug abuse, it was a better portrait of how people in positions of authority will often abuse the power and trust that comes with it.

The Price of Fitting In is a bit of a misleading title, as Charlie never quite fits in no matter what she does. Still, it’s an improvement on the film’s original title, Trouble in Suburbia. I’ve often complained about Lifetime’s habit of renaming films but, in this case, they made the right choice.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Deep Blue Nightmare (dir by Jared Cohn)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yay! It’s an Asylum shark movie!

By this point, all of our readers should know that I love the Asylum and I love shark movies. Unfortunately, with the SyFy channel moving away from showing original films, there’s been a definite lack of Asylum shark movies on television. So, it was good of Lifetime to step up to the plate and show Deep Blue Nightmare!

(Deep Blue Nightmare was originally released, in 2020, as Shark Season. However, because Lifetime is addicted to changing the titles of the films that they acquire, the title was changed to Deep Blue Nightmare. I think either title works. Shark Season gets right to the point of the film — SHARK! — while Deep Blue Nightmare sounds a bit more lifetime-y.)

It all starts out with three acquaintances kayaking out to a remote island. One giant shark attack later and you’re down to two people, who are now isolated in the ocean. Sarah (Paige McGarvin) and Meghan (Juliana Destefano) have every reason to hate each other, seeing as Meghan was dating Sarah’s ex-boyfriend. But now that the ex-boyfriend has become shark nourishment and Sarah and Meghan are floating out in the middle of nowhere, they’re going to have to work together if they’re going to survive!

Fortunately, Sarah’s father is James (Michael Madsen) and James used to be a member of the Civil Air Patrol! If James can figure out where the island is actually located, he can direct the patrol to rescue Sarah and Meghan. But, of course, he’s going to find the island before the shark gets around to eating his daughter because, as quickly becomes apparent, the shark isn’t going anywhere.

As Steven Spielberg proved nearly fifty years ago, you really can’t go wrong with sharks. Their reputation for being the ultimate aquatic predator might be overstated but they’re certainly among the most cinematic of the creatures living in the ocean. Of course, movie sharks are always a bit more clever than real life sharks. Real life sharks just eat whatever happens to be in front of them. Movie sharks are far more calculating and they also have the ability to jump out of the water and cleanly bite someone in half whenever they feel like it. That may or may not be realistic but, in the end, it’s not reality of how a shar behaves that really matters. Instead, it’s the fact that no one wants to get eaten by a shark or lose a limb to a shark. It’s true that Bethany Hamilton managed to maintain a good attitude even after losing an arm to a shark attack but, deep down, we all know that we’re nowhere near as cool as Bethany Hamilton.

Another thing that makes sharks effective cinematic threats is that they always seem to pop up near the most tranquil of beaches and in the bluest water. In Deep Blue Nightmare, there’s quite a contrast between the beauty of the ocean and the fearsome predator that’s hunting underneath the surface. The shadow of the shark serves as a reminder of the potential chaos that lurks behind every corner. Enjoy the beach. Enjoy the water. But never forget that a shark could get you at any minute.

I enjoyed Deep Blue Nightmare. If you’re a fan of shark action, it makes for an entertaining 90 minutes. It’s always nice to see Michael Madsen playing someone other than a gangster who delivers sotto voce threats and Paige McGarvin and Julianna Destefano are likable in the lead roles. This is a film to watch the next time you find yourself missing the ocean.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Psycho Storm Chaser (dir by Buz Wallick)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I know you!,” more than one person says during Psycho Storm Chaser, “You’re on TV! You’re Dr. Carl!”

And indeed, Carl Highstrom (played by Rob Hillis) is a bit of a local celebrity. He’s the guy who goes out in the middle of a hurricane and films himself talking about how everyone should be either evacuating the area or taking shelter. He’s the man who you trust during tornado and hurricane season! He’s out there, performing a public service! Thank you, Dr. Carl!

Of course, you’ll notice that the title of this Lifetime film is Psycho Storm Chaser. And, when we first meet Carl, he’s in the process of murdering a young woman who tried to hide in her basement during a hurricane. It turns out that Carl takes the weather very seriously. He’s also a big believer in following the directions of the National Weather Service. If the alert says that you need to take shelter, you better take shelter! If the alert tells you to leave the area, that doesn’t mean that you think about doing it. That means you do it! And, if you don’t, Carl will come by your house and kill you.

Unfortunately, Abby Fields (Tara Erickson) can’t leave the area, despite the fact that a hurricane is rapidly approaching. She’s a home care nurse and she’s been hired to take care of a house-bound coma patient. There’s no way to get the patient to a hospital. So, Abby has to stay in the house with another nurse and the patient’s sister and she has to hope that, even with a hurricane raging outside, the power doesn’t go out. Still, Abby is determined to her duty and it’s going to take more than a storm to defeat her!

Unfortunately, Carl really doesn’t care about the fact that Abby’s just doing her job. That’s because Carl is a psycho storm chaser!

What can I say about Psycho Storm Chaser? It’s such a simple idea for a film and yet I absolutely loved it! In my case, a lot of that is because I’m from Texas so I’ve known my share of self-styled storm chasers and most of them have been a bit off. Maybe not psycho but …. well, off. When Carl started ranting about how important it was to do what the Weather Service said, I was reminded of every local meteorologist who has ever interrupted regular programming to order me to get into a “tornado-safe room.” (I’m not sure which room that would be, to be honest. My favorite room is the second-story bedroom but that’s probably not a good place to be during a tornado.) When Carl first spotted Abby and had a dramatic moment due to her reminding him of someone from his past, I recalled the frantic storm chaser who went on television a few years ago and announced that a tornado had just ripped through an elementary school. “THE TORNADO HAS HIT THE SCHOOL!” he shouted, even though anyone watching the footage could see that the tornado was clearly nowhere near the school. After having caused a mass panic, that storm chaser was not asked to appear on television anymore.

Rob Hillis played Dr. Carl and he was a lot of fun in the role. He was just so grim and judgmental and goddamn serious about it all that it was hard not to get a kick out of the scenes of him lecturing anyone who didn’t evacuate the area. Carl was an entertainingly over-the-top villain and Hillis played him with just the right mix of humor and menace. He hated the weather but he loved his job.

Psycho Storm Chaser is an entertainingly silly film. It’s obviously not meant to be taken seriously. Instead, it’s just something to keep you amused until after the rain passes.

Film Review: Spirit Riders (dir by Brian T. Jaynes)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the main reasons why I love living where I do is because, any time I get in my car, I have a choice to make. I can drive for 20 minutes in one direction and soon find myself in downtown Dallas. Or, I can drive 20 minutes in the opposite direction and find myself out in the country, driving past horse ranches. I’ve always had a weakness for horses, which are not only majestic in appearance but also very loyal in personality.

Considering that, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve always had a weakness for movie about people who learn about responsibility by taking care of a horse. Apparently, I’m not alone in that because there are like hundreds of movies that feature that exact plot. These films always seem to tell the same basics story, i.e. out-of-control teen is sent to a horse ranch and spends the first half of the movie trying to run away and the second half of the movie learning how to ride. And I have to admit that, despite how predictable they may be, I end up enjoying just about everyone of these films that I see.

For example, consider the 2015 film, Spirit Riders. 17 year-old Kacie (Alexandria DeBerry) is a rebellious teen who gets in trouble with the law and who is sentenced to a work-release program at Spirit Riders, an equine therapy camp for disabled and physically challenged young people. At first, she struggle with all of the rules. She wants to smoke. She wants to fight. She wants to sneak off with her boyfriend, who is a total loser despite bearing a slight resemblance to Eric Balfour. She doesn’t want to make friends. She certainly doesn’t want to take care of a horse.

However, she soon meets Rex (Lance Henriksen), who is the owner of the ranch. Rex is tough but compassionate. He’s been around for a while and he’s heard all of the excuses. Rex tells her to stop feeling sorry for herself and to take care of her horse. Rex is stern but it’s obvious that he cares. Rex, in short, is the type of character that Lance Henriksen was born to play. A lesser actor would have just played Rex as being a serious-minded hardass but Henriksen does a good job of projecting the compassion that lurks underneath Rex’s no-nonsense exterior. Henriksen is one of those actors who sometimes seems as if he’ll appear in any film that’s offered to him. I mean, there aren’t many actors who can brag about appearing in everything from Pumpkinhead to Dog Day Afternoon to Near Dark to Spirit Riders to countless direct-to-video actions films. And yet, no matter what the role or the film, Henriksen always gives a good performance. Along with his undeniable physical presence, he just projects a certain integrity, the type that we usually associate with actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age of westerns and war films. Even when he’s playing a villain, you respect him. In Spirit Riders, he’s playing a good man and he makes that compelling.

I don’t want to oversale Spirit Riders, of course. It’s a fairly predictable film, one that will play best with people who already like horses and who can tolerate some occasionally heavy-handed plotting. But Alexandra DeBerry gives a good performance as Kacie and Lance Henriksen turns Rex into a monument to decency. The ranch itself is lovely to look at and so are the horses. It’s a pleasant film, one that’s won’t change the world but which I still enjoyed watching.