Tag Archives: Ashlee Fuss

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Do Not Reply (dir by Daniel Woltosz and Walter Woltosz)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What a disturbing movie!

2019’s Do Not Reply is about Chelsea (Amanda Arcui, who previously played Lola during the final seasons of Degrassi), a high school student who is super-excited to have found an online boyfriend.  Brad (Jackson Rathbone) seems like he’s funny, handsome, and charming and he’s even got a semi-tragic life story!  Now, it should be mentioned that there are some immediate red flags about Brad.  Brad seems to be just a bit too perfect and the story of his life — being adopted and having parents who won’t even spend the money necessary to get him a new phone — seems to be a little bit too on-the-nose as far as getting Chelsea to feel sorry for him is concerned.

Brad and Chelsea agree to go to the Halloween dance together.  Brad says that he’ll show up as a zombie football player and he requests that Chelsea show up dressed a cheerleader.  (RED FLAG!  RED FLAG!)  To the surprise of no one, Chelsea meets up with Brad at the dance and is promptly kidnapped.

Brad, it turns out, is not a teenager with parents who refuse to buy him a new phone.  Instead, he’s a man in his 20s who lives in a surprisingly nice house.  He’s been meeting and kidnapping teenager girls for a while.  He holds them prisoner in his house, requiring that they wear cheerleader uniforms while cleaning the place.  Brad wants the house to be spotless.  He wants his prisoners to adore him.  He wants them to be very polite and well-mannered whenever they eat the dinners that he prepares for them.  One girl who tried to escape was several beaten by Brad and locked in her room, where she suffers as a warning to the others.  Meagan (Kerri Medders) and Heather (Elisa Luthman) both seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and they not only go out of their way to keep Brad happy but also to keep Chelsea from trying to escape.

If he’s in a good mood, Brad rewards his prisoners with “outdoor time,” which means that he allows them to wear a VR headset and visit an imaginary park.  Brad spends most of his day wearing his headset, not only searching for new realities but also reliving all of the terrible things he did in the past.  Brad is one sick man, his madness apparently inspired by his incestuous feelings towards his deceased sister who was — wait for it — a cheerleader!

The premise is a disturbing one, precisely because it is based on reality.  There are internet stalkers out there and there have been internet murderers as well.  Most of them aren’t as wealthy or handsome as Brad but they’re still out there, preying on those who are too naive to question their intentions.  While there’s definitely more than a small element of exploitation to the film (with the camera tending to linger over the cheerleader uniforms almost as intensely as Brad does), the film is ultimately on the side of Brad’s prisoners.  As opposed to the hyperarticulate madmen who tend to populate films like this, Brad is a loser from the start and the moment when his victims finally start to get the upper hand on him is a cheer-worthy moment.  Though the film gets off to a rather slow start, Amanda Arcuri, Kerri Medders, and Elisa Luthman all give good performances.  It’s a flawed film but it gets the job done.

 

Lifetime Film Review: Most Likely To Murder (dir by Kaila York)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh Hell Yeah!  Now, seriously, this is the perfect Lifetime movie!

Welcome to Lifetime High School!  It’s a school where students plot to win awards, the mean girls are at war with the one nice girl, the cheereleaders determine who is popular and who is a pariah, and where social media is both a great equalizer and a deadly weapon.  It’s just like any other high school, except it’s a Lifetime high school.  That means that everything is juts a little bit more extreme than usual.  Whereas regular high school cheerleaders might inspire someone to develop an eating disorder, Lifetime cheerleaders plant drugs on their rivals and arrange for season-ending injuries.  And, if that doesn’t work, there’s always murder….

Poor Casey (Madison McLaughlin)!  She used to be popular.  She used to be a cheerleader.  She used to be the one making other people insecure and giving them eating disorders.  But, things happens.  Things change.  Her father was killed in a housefire and now, Casey wears a wig to cover up her own scars.  Casey’s mother (Heather McComb) now works as a waitress and is dating a loser named Harlen (Brendan McCarthy).  Casey’s former best friend, Hailey (Ava Allan), is now her greatest enemy, which means that Hailey not only delights in stealing Casey’s wig but she also plots to make each and every one of Casey’s humiliations go viral.

(You can tell this is a Lifetime High School film because, whenever anyone looks at their phone, they immediately exclaim, “You’re going viral!”)

However, Reagan (Bayley Corman) wants to help Casey out.  Reagan’s a cheerleader but, because she went through a lengthy “ugly duckling” phase, she still feels a lot of compassion for the downtrodden.  Reagan befriends Casey.  Regan encourages Casey to tell the entire school about the fire and to reveal that scars underneath her wig.  Reagan defends Casey against the abuse of Hailey and she tells Casey that she shouldn’t be ashamed of her mother’s waitressing job.  She even encourages Casey to believe that she might win the year-end award for “Most Inspiring” student!

Of course, Hailey and her friend, Clair (Ashlee Fuss), keep telling Reagan that Casey isn’t the perfect, shy person that she pretends to be.  They say that Casey shouldn’t be trusted.  Reagan refuses to believe them.  After all, Clair’s just mad because she broken her ankle in a mysterious accident.  And Hailey’s been upset ever since the cops discovered the stash of pills in her backpack.  (Of course, Hailey swears that the pills don’t belong to her, which sounds like something a pill-popping cheerleader would say….)  Reagan has no reason to believe Hailey and Clair but …. what if they’re right!?

Most Likely To Murder is a lot of fun, precisely because, for the majority of the movie, only the viewers are aware that Casey’s not as innocent as she pretends to be and there’s something undeniably enjoyable about watching her yank the wool down over everyone’s eyes.  She may be a menace but she’s a clever menace and that makes her a lot of fun to watch.  Madison McLaughlin does a great job in the role, making Casey not just dangerous but also sympathetic as well.  I mean, as bad as Casey turns out to be, her tormentors aren’t much better.  In the end, everyone’s kind of evil except for Reagan and her snarky friend, Taylor (Kara Royster).  Needless to say, I’m a fan of any film where the snarky best friend is one of the heroes.

Most Likely To Murder provides exactly what you want from a Lifetime film — melodrama, murder, and high school backstabbing.  It’s a lot of fun and one to keep an eye out for.

Let’s Talk About Killer Under The Bed (dir by Jeff Hare)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Killer Under The Bed aired on the Lifetime network back on October 20th and, at first glance, it might sound like a typical lifetime film.

Recent widow Sarah (Kristy Swanson) has moved into a new house and gotten a new job.  She has two teenage daughters, both of whom are still struggling to deal with the death of their father.  The older daughter is Chrissy (Madison Lawlor), the star athlete who is protective of her younger sister, even if she’s not always willing to admit it.  Kilee (Brec Bassinger) meanwhile is struggling to escape from her sister’s shadow and fit in at her new school.

Consider some of what Kilee has to deal with.  The school’s resident mean girls are determined to destroy her.  She has a crush on one of her teachers and he seems to be growing more and more obsessed with her.  Kilee has a secret that she can’t tell her mother or her sister and Kilee fears that everyone blames her for what happened to her father.

As I said, it sounds like a typical Lifetime situation but here’s the twist.  Almost all of Kilee’s problem can be linked to the rather ugly doll that she stumbled across in her new home.  Much like buying weed in Colorado and then trying to sell it for a profit in Wyomng, having a voodoo doll seemed like a good idea at first.  By making wishes, Kilee not only punished the school bully but she also resolved a conflict between her mom and a co-worker.  And when Kilee wished that her teacher would love her, he went from holding her at a polite distance to suddenly sending her flirtatious texts and photoshopping their faces onto wedding advertisements!

But, much like a Colorado weed dealer spending the night in a Wyoming jail, Kilee soon discovers that nothing’s ever as easy as it seems.  Even the best of ideas have consequences.  For one thing, the doll has the power to drive people crazy.  Secondly, the doll itself is a bit possessive and has a temper.  When Chrissy comes across the doll and tries to throw it away, the doll responds by climbing out of the trashcan and reentering the house.  Later, when the school bully tries to steal the doll, the doll responds by attacking her with a knife.  Soon, the doll is crawling around the house, hiding underneath beds, and creating all sorts of mayhem.

Oh my God, this was such a great movie!  From the minute that doll unzipped Kilee’s backpak so that it could escape to raise havoc, I knew I was watching a great film.  Killer Under The Bed is totally over the top and just so wonderfully ludicrous that there’s no way that you can’t have fun watching it.  Between the killer doll, the bullies that were so evil that seemed like they should be plotting against The Avengers, and the perpetually confused teacher, Killer Under The Bed was way too much fun.

In the past, I’ve been told that Lifetime tends to be resistant to horror movies.  They really should rethink that policy.  Killer Under The Bed is one of the most entertaining Lifetime films that I’ve seen in a while.