Film Review: Out of Bounds (dir by Richard Tuggle)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just a country boy

Born and raised in South Des Moines

He took the midnight bus to anywhere….

That’s the story of Darryl Cage, the protagonist of the 1986 film, Out of Bounds. Played by Anthony Michael Hall, Darryl is an Iowa farm boy who goes to Los Angeles to live with his brother. Unfortunately, when his flight lands, Darryl’s suitcase is switched with another one that’s full of cocaine! Darryl becomes an accidental drug mule and end up getting his brother killed! WHAT A DUMBASS!

So now, Darryl is on the run. He’s a small town farmer in the big city, trying to avoid bad guy Roy (Jeff Kober) and the police, led by Lt. Delgado (Glynn Turman). Fortunately, Darryl meets an aspiring actress named Dizz (Jenny Wright). Dizz gives him a makeover and introduces him to the Los Angeles club scene. Siouxsie and the Banshees make a cameo appearance at one club. They perform one song and fortunately, it’s Cities in the Dust. Unfortunately, they don’t actually get involved in the plot of the film. I would have liked to have seen Siouxsie beat up Jeff Kober. But it doesn’t happen.

Out of Bounds is one of the many films that came out in the mid-to-late-80s in which the actors who were (somewhat unfairly) considered to be Brat Packers attempted to prove that they were capable of doing more than just projecting teen angst. Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy, for instance, starred in a forgettable neo-noir called Blue City. Andrew McCarthy starred in an interesting but ultimately uneven film called Kansas. Emilio Estevez not only starred in Wisdom but he directed it too. And Anthony Michael Hall starred in Out of Bounds.

Anthony Michael Hall was best-known for playing nerdy characters in Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club and it’s probable that he was attempting to escape being typecast when he took his role in Out of Bounds. This was Anthony Michael Hall’s chance to play an action hero! Unfortunately, Anthony Michael Hall made the same mistake that many of his peers made while trying to give the performance that would allow them to break free of the Brat Pack label. He tried too hard. While Glynn Turman, Jeff Kober and Jenny Wright obviously understood the type of rather silly movie that Out of Bounds was going to be and they modified their performances accordingly, Anthony Michael Hall apparently tried to duplicate the method intensity of Marlon Brando or James Dean. In other words, Hall took the film far more seriously than it deserved to be taken.

Out of Bounds get off to a bad start as soon as it opens with Anthony Michael Hall on the farm in Iowa. There’s absolutely nothing about the young Anthony Michael Hall that leaves on with the impression that he’s ever spent any time on a farm. Everything about him screams Hollywood before he even lands in Los Angeles. Hence, it gets difficult to really buy him as being the wide-eyed innocent that everyone else views him as being. Since a good deal of the film’s plot is dependent upon Hall being naïve, that’s a problem. He may be a farm boy but he certainly doesn’t freak out after shooting someone. He’s also somehow learned how to throw a knife straight into someone’s gut. Out of Bound‘s director, Richard Tuggle, directed two films for Clint Eastwood so he obviously knew how to frame a fight scene but Hall is so miscast that it’s impossible to really get into the movie.

The film is pretty much stolen by Jenny Wright and Jeff Kober. Kober is properly menacing and, just as she did in Near Dark and I, Madman, Jenny Wright works wonders with a role that could have just been formulaic. Jenny Wright has apparently retired from acting. Jeff Kober still shows up in movies and on television, usually playing villains. (Earlier this year, he played yet another drug trafficker on General Hospital.) Watching them give compelling performance in a film like Out of Bounds, it’s hard not to feel that both of them deserved bigger career than they had (or, in Kober’s case, still have).

The film is also stolen by its soundtrack, which is very 80s but in the best possible way. Adam Ant, The Smiths, the aforementioned Souixsie and the Banshees, they all make an appearance and provide the film with a bit of narrative momentum that it would otherwise lack. Watching the film, 80s Los Angeles comes across like a fun place. No wonder Darryl Cage wanted to stay even though everyone was trying to kill him.

Out of Bounds is ultimately pretty forgettable and it didn’t make Anthony Michael Hall into an action star. But, that’s okay. Like a lot of former Brat Packers, he’s proven himself to be a reliable character actor. There is life after high school. Even more importantly, there’s also life after Iowa.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Psycho Intern (dir by Ann Forry)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here at the Shattered Lens, we have a very simple but very important rule.

DON’T SLEEP WITH THE INTERNS!

Of course, we also don’t have any interns so I’ve never really had to go out of my way to enforce that rule but still, if we did have interns, the rule would definitely be to not sleep with them. Seriously, I’ve seen enough Lifetime films to know better. Anytime you see a Lifetime film with the word “Intern” in the title, you know that the intern is going to be attractive, you know that the boss is going to be dealing with a difficult divorce or some other personal issue, and you know that one night of passion is going to leave to at least 40 minutes of trouble.

That’s certainly the case when it comes to Alex Prescott (Madison Smith), the handsome young man who works as an intern for Maya (Emmanuelle Vaugier). At first, Alex just seems like an overly earnest college student who is oddly eager about making coffee. But then, after Maya’s assistant is injured in a mysterious accident, Alex becomes an indispensable part of the office. In fact, Alex is so helpful and so supportive and so handsome that it doesn’t seem to matter that he never brought in the information necessary for the company to run a background check for him. And when he’s asked to offer up some proof that he actually is a college student, he claims that university’s server has gone down and it’ll be a while before he can get that proof.

That all sounds pretty suspicious to me but one can’t really blame Maya for not paying to much attention. She’s got a lot to deal with. Not only is her daughter coming by for a visit but Maya also has a big presentation coming up. Unfortunately, she also has to deal with a misogynistic coworker. Fortunately, that coworker is sent to the hospital, the result of another mysterious accident! There certainly do seem to be a lot of mysterious accidents and incidents whenever Alex is around. Maya would probably notice that if she wasn’t busy having a one night stand with him in the office.

Afterwards, Maya is all like, “We have to transfer you to another office!” But Alex …. well, the title of the movie is Psycho Intern, afterall!

This is hardly the first movie about a psycho to air on Lifetime, nor will it be the last. Hell, it’s not even the first Lifetime movie about a psycho intern! For whatever reason, interns are always bad news on Lifetime, which leads me to wonder what life is like at corporate headquarters. One of the main themes of Lifetime movies that take place in the corporate world is that executives should never trust anyone who makes less money than them because those people will always end up trying to kill them. That’s certainly the case here but, what the film lacks in originality, it makes up for in entertaining melodrama. Madison Smith does a good job of switching back and forth from being charming to being batshit insane. Emmanuelle Vaugier is a veteran of these type of films and she bring her usual flair to the role. It’s a Lifetime movie that promises a psycho intern and it keeps its promise.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Driven to Kill (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ever since she was little, Brittany Green (Shelby Yardley) has wanted to become a professional race car driver. She just loves cars and who can blame her? Her fiancé, Kevin (Devante Winfrey), wants her to help him run his family’s hotel, despite the fact that a hotel is nowhere near as exciting as the Indy 500. And Andrew James (Phillip Boyd) …. well, he just wants Brittany.

Andrew used to be a hotshot race car driver, until a serious accident left him with vision problems and a slightly obsessive personality. Andrew now makes his living by teaching other people how to race cars. Guess who his latest student is? It’s Brittany! Unfortunately, Andrew has a former former rival named Mario (Justin Berti), and he also wants to teach Brittany and he’ll do everything in his power to pull her away. (He’ll even point out that he actually won his race, something that Andrew rarely did.) Unfortunately, what Mario doesn’t realize, is that Andrew will do anything to keep Brittany as a student.

That’s something that Kevin discovers as well. When a sudden death (once that Andrew had a little something to do with) forces Kevin to spend more and more time working at the hotel, he starts to pressure Brittany to give up her dream. Soon, it’s not just a question of whether or not Kevin and Brittany’s relationship will survive. It’s a question of whether or not Kevin and Brittany will survive as well!

Driven to Kill is a classic Lifetime film, an entertaining movie about obsession, fast cars, and a time bomb. (Listen, it’s just not a car movie without a time bomb.) Philip Boyd is convincingly unhinged as Andrew while Shelby Yardley is likable in the role of Brittany and even manages to make you care a little about whether or not she’s ever going to get to hit the NASCAR circuit. Justin Berti is enjoyable eccentric in the role of Mario and provides some nice comedic relief to all the melodrama.

The key to understanding a film like Driven to Kill is that it’s not a film that you’re meant to take seriously. It’s a film that celebrates everything that we love about Lifetime — i.e., the melodrama, the obsessiveness, and the message that you can have both do what you love and love the one you’re with. Yes, Andrew is obviously unhinged but that’s what makes a film like this fun! We know that Brittany’s in danger long before she knows it. This is the type of movie that you watch with a group of friend who enjoy talking back to the screen. It’s a fun movie and it features a lot of race track action and really that is what’s important. It’s a film that delivers exactly what it promises.

Driven to Kill was directed by Doug Campbell, who is responsible for many of my favorite Lifetime films. Some will undoubtedly notice that Driven to Kill feels a bit like a companion piece to Campbell’s previous film, Deadly Mile High Club, but so what? I enjoyed that movie too.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Malicious Motives (dir by Mike Hoy)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How far would you go to be popular?

Would you take a volunteer job at the hospital in an attempt to show everyone that you actually are a good person?

Would you lie about the terrible circumstances of your home life?

Would you try to become best friends with the most popular girl in school?

Would you donate an organ?

Would you….

Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly. I did say, “Donate an organ.” I realize that may sound somewhat extreme but that’s exactly what happens in the Lifetime film, Malicious Motives! When Katie (Juliana Destefano) learns that the most popular girl in school, Ashley (Revell Carpenter), desperately needs a live transplant and that they share the same blood type, Katie agrees to be the donor! They only problem is that, since Katie is a minor, she needs to get the permission of a parent or a legal guardian. Unfortunately, her legal guardian is her trashy sister, Sasha (Briana Femia). Knowing that Sasha will never agree, Katie forges Sasha’s name.

Yay! The operation is a success! Ashley is going to live and it looks like Katie has a new best friend! However, when Sasha finds out that Katie donated part of her liver to someone else, Sasha is livid. Katie lies and says that Ashley’s family is going to pay them for the transplant but that it’s going to take a few months for the money to go through because it’s like super illegal. Sasha’s like, “Fine, just get the money!” Katie starts to make plans to become a part of Ashley’s family….

Seriously, poor Katie! I mean, Katie is technically the obsessive danger in this particular film but it’s still hard not to feel that life just hasn’t given her a fair chance. She has absolutely the worst sister on the planet! Not only does Sasha refuses to pick Katie up from the hospital but she also sells all of Katie’s pain killers! Imagine trying to recover from a major surgery with no pain killers. Making it even worse is that Sasha’s boyfriend, Brett (Conner Floyd), is a total perv who thinks that organ donation scars are totally hot. AGCK! You really can’t blame Katie for going a little bit overboard in her attempts to escape from that situation.

Still, donating an organ does seem like an extreme solution. But, then again, this is a Lifetime film and a part of the fun of Lifetime is that everything’s extreme. No one does the sensible thing, like calling the police. Instead, they donate an organ and then try to force their way into someone else’s family. The implausibility of it all is a part of the fun. If you can’t embrace the melodrama, these films will never be for you,

Ultimately, what matters is that Juliana Destefano gives a good performance as the sympathetic but unhinged Katie while Briana Femia goes wonderfully over-the-top as the sister from Hell. As I watched the film, I found myself appreciating my own sisters. They would never have treated me as badly as Sasha treated Katie. I will always be thankful that, because of them, I made it through high school with all of my organs intact.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Imperfect High (dir by Siobhan Devine)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What do you do when the pills your popping only give you an imperfect high?

Take more!

That’s the philosophy followed by the majority of the characters in Imperfect High, a Lifetime film that serves as a follow-up to Perfect High. In Imperfect High, Nia Sioux of Dance Moms fame plays Hannah, a teenager who wants to be an illustrator. When her mother (Sherri Shepherd) gets a new job in Chicago, Hannah suddenly finds herself going to a new school (the same school from Perfect High) and struggling to fit in with her new classmates. Fortunately, the school has an arts program. Hannah works on her graphic novel and becomes friends with Rob (Anthony Timpano), an artist with a rebellious attitude who compares social media to Chernobyl. (Rob was previously in Perfect High, though he was played by actor Ryan Grantham.) She also meets Dylan (Gabriel Darku), who helps out when Hannah has a panic attack during an active shooter drill.

Rob tries to get Hannah hooked on art but Dylan and his wealthy friends get her hooked on Xanax. Xanax, they assure her, is a great high, it helps out with anxiety, and it’s totally legal. Ever better, if you’re in a hurry, you can smash the pill into a power and just snort it! (They’re not wrong, of course. In college, I once did a line of Xanax in the back booth of the local IHOP. The person I was with kept saying, “I love Zan,” which I found really funny at the time. Of course, snorting drugs at IHOP is not something I would even consider doing today but college was a time for trying new things.) Soon, Hannah has got a prescription of her own and she also has a drug problem! Well, we knew that was coming….

Having now watched both Perfect High and now Imperfect High, I think it might be time to shut down that school because, seriously, nothing good seems to happen there. If you’re artistic or shy, you’re pretty much doomed to end up getting hooked on drugs. And the teachers and the school administrators apparently can’t do anything about it. Perhaps there will be a third film — Rapidly Declining High, perhaps — that will explore whether or not the school itself is cursed. Somewhere, someone is watching these films and saying, “It’s the art program, I tell ya! Ya let these kids get involved with the artistic types and ya know what’s going to happen!”

During its first hour or so, Imperfect High feels a bit overwritten. Everyone is snarky. Everyone has a quip. Rob is perhaps the worst offender. This is one of those films that sometimes seemed to be trying too hard to capture the way that teenagers talk. Things got a little better once Hannah got hooked on pills, if just because the focus went from Hannah and her friends to Hannah and her mother and Nia Sioux and Sherri Shepherd were very believable as mother and daughter. That said, the film approached its subject with a bit of a heavy hand. I think that’s always a mistake when it comes to making movies about drug addiction. I mean, the truth of the matter is that, if you want to guarantee that someone is going to do something, just tell them not to. It’s a bit of a rule that every film about drugs has to end with an overdose but, in the real world, there are negative consequences to drug use that have nothing to do with overdosing. Sometimes, I think anti-drug films would be more effective if they would focus on those negative effects instead of just automatically jumping to a melodramatic overdose.

Obviously, my feelings on Imperfect High were mixed. They were mixed on Perfect High, as well. But Nia Sioux gives a good performance in her starring debut. I always thought she was one of the better dancers on Dance Moms (and certainly, her mother seemed to be the least insane of the moms) so it’s good to see that there’s life after the Abby Lee Dance Company.

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

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?