2020 In Review: The Best of Lifetime


As chaotic as 2020 may have been, one thing remained unchanged!  Lifetime provided me with a lot of entertainment!  Below, you’ll find my picks for the best Lifetime films and performances of the past year!

(For my previous best of Lifetime picks, click on the links: 2014201520162017, 2018, and 2019!)

Best Picture:

  1. Mile High Escorts
  2. Escaping My Stalker
  3. Sleeping With Danger
  4. Beware of Mom
  5. Abducted On Air
  6. Killer Competition
  7. Remember Me, Mommy?
  8. A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  9. Cheer Squad Secrets
  10. Deadly Mile High Club

Best Director:

  1. Jeff Hare for Beware of Mom
  2. Sam Irvin for Mile High Escorts
  3. David Weaver for Sleeping With Danger
  4. Linden Ashby for Escaping My Stalker
  5. Colin Theys for A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  6. Doug Campbell for Deadly Mile High Club

Best Actress:

  1. Wendie Malick in Deranged Granny
  2. Elisabeth Rohm in Sleeping With Danger
  3. Sydney Myer in Remember Me, Mommy?
  4. Ezmie Garcia in Escaping My Stalker
  5. Anita Brown in Cheer Squad Secrets
  6. Crystal Allen in Beware of Mom

Best Actor:

  1. Houston Stevenson in A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  2. Antonio Cupo in Sleeping With Danger
  3. Panos Vlahos in Psycho Yoga Instructor
  4. Nick Ballard in Psycho Escort
  5. Andrew James Allen in Escaping My Stalker
  6. T.C. Matherne in A Murder to Remember

Best Supporting Actor

  1. Damon K. Sperber in Deadly Mile High Club
  2. Jim Klock in Secrets in the Woods
  3. Gord Rand in Abducted on Air
  4. Brandon Howell in Beware of Mom
  5. Mark Jude Sullivan in Sinfidelity
  6. Jeff Schine in A Mother Knows Worst

Best Supporting Actress

  1. Cristine Prosperi in Killer Competition
  2. Perrey Reeves in Abducted on Air
  3. Mariette Hartley in Escaping My Stalker
  4. Christina Moore in Mile High Escorts
  5. Christie Burson in Ruthless Realtor
  6. Cristina Rosato in No Good Dead Goes Unpunished

Best Screenplay:

  1. Stephen Romano for Escaping My Stalker
  2. Richard Blaney and Gregory Small for Sleeping with Danger
  3. S.L. Heath for Beware of Mom
  4. Barbara Kymlicka for Abducted on Air
  5. Daniel West for Killer Competition
  6. Adam Rockoff and Zachary Valenti for Remember Me Mommy

Best Score:

  1. Andrew Morgan Smith for Sinfidelity 
  2. David Findlay for Revenge For Daddy 
  3. Christopher Cano for The Pom Pom Murders
  4. Fantom for Mile High Escorts

Best Editing:

  1. Maxime Chalifoux for Abducted on Air
  2. Seth Johnson for The Pom Pom Murders
  3. Bryan Capri for A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  4. Kelly Herron for Sleeping With Danger

Best Cinematography:

  1. Branden James Maxham for A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  2. Nate Spicer for Mile High Escorts
  3. Thomas M. Harting for Sleeping With Danger
  4. David Dolnik for Deadly Mile High Club

Coming up next (tomorrow at the latest — maybe sooner, depending on how much time I can devote to watching 6 movie today): My picks for the best films of 2020!  Finally!

TSL Looks Back at 2020:

  1. 12 Good Things I Saw On Television in 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  2. Lisa Marie’s Top 8 Novels of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  3. Lisa Marie’s Top 8 Non-Fiction Books of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  4. Lisa Marie’s 20 Favorite Songs of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  5. Lisa Marie’s 16 Worst Films of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  6. My Top 20 Albums of 2020 (Necromoonyeti)
  7. 25 Best, Worst, and Gems That I Saw In 2020 (Valerie Troutman)
  8. Top 10 Vintage Collections (Ryan C)
  9. Top 10 Contemporary Collections (Ryan C)
  10. Top 10 Original Graphic Novels (Ryan C)
  11. Top 10 Ongoing Series (Ryan C.)
  12. Top 10 Special Mentions (Ryan C.)
  13. Top Ten Single Issues (Ryan C)

 

Lifetime Film Review: A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2 (dir by Colin Theys)


Look who’s back!

At the end of the 2017 Lifetime film, Stalker’s Prey, it appeared the psycho Bruce had been eaten by a shark.  Normally, that’s not a fate that I wish on anyone but Bruce ….. well, Bruce really was a psycho.  In fact, Bruce even fed several people to the sharks so it seemed kinda appropriate that a shark would eventually take him out.  Like a lot of Lifetime movie psychos, Bruce was also the obsessive type.  He was the type who would save your life (after, of course, arranging the accident that put you in danger in the first place) and then decide that you belonged to him.  Bleh.  Go, shark, go!

However, amazingly enough, Bruce apparently survived that shark attack.  A Predator’s Obsession finds Bruce — now known as Daniel and played by Houston Stevenson — working at a local marina.  He looks a bit different now, which I guess would make sense after everything that he’s been through.  He’s got a few scars from being attacked by that shark but he also has all of his limbs.  Most importantly, Bruce still loves sharks and they apparently love him.  I guess it makes sense, seeing as how he’s named after the shark that starred in Jaws.

When Bruce saves a child named Kevin (Brayson Goss) from a shark, the media proclaims him a hero.  Kevin’s family invites Bruce over for dinner.  When they find out that Bruce has just gotten kicked out of his apartment and doesn’t have anywhere to live, they open their house to him.  It’s supposed to only be a temporary thing but Bruce has no intentions of leaving.  Bruce has fallen for Kevin’s older sister, Alison (Julia Blanchard).  Despite the fact that her rich, no-good boyfriend, Carson (Jackson Dockery), is not happy about her living with another man, Alison tries to make Bruce comfortable.  She even sets Bruce up on a date with her fun-loving best friend, Rhiannon (Sarah Wisser).

(It wouldn’t be a Lifetime film without a fun-loving best friend!)

However, Bruce is only interested in Alison and you know what that means.  It’s time for Bruce to start feeding people to the sharks.  It’s kind of sad, really.  Bruce is handsome, charming, athletic, and he’s a good swimmer.  It seems like he should be able to get a date without having to resort to feeding people to sharks.  But I guess Bruce has his issues and, as a result, he never really got beyond the “feed my enemies to wild animals” stage of personal growth.

I absolutely loved Stalker’s Prey and I enjoyed the sequel as well.  The great thing about A Predator’s Obsession is that it doesn’t take itself seriously at all.  It fully embraces the shark-filled melodrama and the resulting action is just as over-the-top and joyfully outlandish as you could possibly hope for.  In the previous film, Bruce was content to just push people over the side of a boat.  In this film, he uses a crane to suspend someone over the water.  He traps another person in a cage.  The film understands that a good sequel has to be bigger than the original film and it’s so entertaining that I can’t wait for Stalker’s Prey 3.

I mean, with SyFy no longer showing original movies, there’s a whole lot of shark fans out there looking for a new home.  Go get ’em, Lifetime!