The Eric Roberts Collection: Deadly Sanctuary (dir by Nancy Criss)

In 2015’s Deadly Sanctuary, Philadelphia reporter Kendall O’Dell (Rebekah Kochan) relocates to a small town in Arizona and proceeds to spend the majority of the movie complaining about it.

Seriously, I could relate to Kendall to an extent. We both have red hair. We both have asthma. We both hate snakes. We both wear high heels in the desert. We’ve both run outside in our underwear after coming across a tarantula in our house. But, even with all that in mind, even I quickly got annoyed with listening to her complain about every little thing. Her father got her a job at the Arizona newspaper so, of course, Kendall calls him up to complain about the desert. An old man stops and helps to shoo a snake away from Kendall’s car so, of course, Kendall gives him the glare of death when he casually calls her “sweetie.” (The guy’s 70 and was clearly not hitting on Kendall so maybe he can be forgiven for not speaking like a 30-something grad student.) Kendall shows up late for her job interview so, of course, she complains about the newspaper to her editor (Eric Roberts). Kendall gets a place to live, rent-free. She complains about the house being located near a mental hospital. Kendall’s co-worker, Ginger (Teri Lee), sets Kendall up with both a handsome cowboy (Marco Dapper) and the richest man in town (Peter Greene) and, of course, Kendall finds an excuse to complain about it.

Eventually, a plot of sorts kicks in. Kendall investigates the death of her predecessor and discovers that the sheriff (Dean Cain) doesn’t seem to be all the interested in solving any of the murders that seem to occur around town. She also tries to set up an interview with Dr. Price (Daniel Baldwin), the owner of the mental hospital, but it turns out that he doesn’t want to talk to her. He doesn’t care that she once wrote a series of articles about mental health in Philadelphia. (Yikes! I’ve seen Parking Wars so I can only guess how scary that must have been.)

Kendall hears strange voices in her house and spiders keep showing up at inopportune moments. Who can she trust? Who is the bad guy here? The rich guy or the salt-of-the-Earth cowboy dude? Well, I won’t spoil the film. I will say that the plot had potential but the poor pacing and the unlikable lead character eventually combine to do this movie in.

Eric Roberts is his usual avuncular self in this film. He spends most of his scenes sitting behind a desk. The rest of the film’s celebrity cameo budget was apparently spent on Dean Cain and Daniel Baldwin, both of whom seem rather bored with the whole thing.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed: