Cameron Jebo | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, my friends, the Snarkalecs, and I watched the latest SyFy original film, The Crooked Man!

Why Were We Watching It?

Gawdamn, y’all (as we tend to say down here in Texas), do you remember how much fun it used to be when SyFy would premiere a different movie every Saturday night? Back when I first started regularly watching SyFy and live tweeting with the Snarkalecs, SyFy was all about original movies.

Sadly, things have changed. Now, we only get SyFy original movies twice during the year. Once is during the week leading up to the latest Sharknado film. The other time is October, when SyFy does its 31 Days of Horror.

Since the Snarkalecs are still trying to change SyFy’s policy towards original movies, we make it a point to watch every single one of them. We also make it a point to tweet about the movies, the hope being that someone at SyFy will see that there is an audience for original movies.

That’s what we were doing last night as we watched The Crooked Man.

What Was It About?

Olivia (Angelique Rivera) gets all of her friends killed but isn’t ever really held responsible because she’s the main character in the film.

Okay, there’s actually a little more to it than that. The Crooked Man is a hybrid of The Ring, It Follows, Candyman, Slenderman, The Nun, and … well, just about every other horror film made over the past 16 years. It starts with a slumber party, where a group of 12 year-old girls make the mistake of listening to a song online. The song, it’s said, will summon the Crooked Man.

Later, the slumber party is interrupted when all the lights go out. Fortunately, there’s also a pizza delivery guy at the party and he knows how to turn the lights back on. Well, that’s good. However, there is yet another interruption when one of the girls, Jill, is found dead at the foot of the stairs. Standing over her is Olivia. Though Olivia has a knife in her hands, she swears that she didn’t kill Jill. It was … THE CROOKED MAN!

Olivia is sent to a mental asylum for six years. When she’s released, she returns home. The problem is that nobody in the town wants her to come home. And actually, they have a point because, as soon as Olivia returns, The Crooked Man starts killing everyone who was at that slumber party.

EVEN THE PIZZA GUY!

What Worked?

I will be the first to admit that most of my tweets were pretty critical last night but there were a few effectively creepy moments in The Crooked Man. The Crooked Man himself was scary.

The Voice‘s Dia Frampton showed up to sing a song and then promptly got killed. That definitely provided the film with a nice WTF moment.

What Did Not Work?

Okay — so the Crooked Man can only get you when you’re in the dark, right? SO WHY DOES EVERYONE IN THE FILM KEEP TURNING OFF ALL THE LIGHTS!? Seriously, nobody seemed to appreciate that there was a really easy solution to most of their problems…

(Actually, in all fairness, The Crooked Man had the power to kill all the electricity and plunge people into darkness. But still, it did seem like the characters often never even considered trying to turn on all the lights. I would have at least liked to have seen some sort of effort.)

“OMG! Just like me!” Moments

I related to the character of Violet. Violet was at the slumber party and therefore, she was on Crooked Man’s kill list. And Violet put the blame right where it belonged. On Olivia!

Seriously, Olivia, way to get all your friends killed.

Lessons Learned

If a monster can only exist in the dark, turn on the damn lights!

For the past three weeks, Lisa Marie has been in the process of reviewing 56 back to school films! She’s promised the rest of the TSL staff that this project will finally wrap up by the end of today, so that she can devote her time to helping to prepare the site for its annual October horrorthon! Will she make it or will she fail, lose her administrator privileges, and end up writing listicles for Buzzfeed? Keep reading the site to find out!)

The 2016 film Killer Coach premiered on Lifetime on July 30th. At the time, I suspected that it was probably being released specifically to capitalize on all of the attention that was being paid to the Summer Olympics in general and Michael Phelps in specific. After all, Killer Coach is a film about a swimmer in trouble and, as you might guess from the title, a lot of that trouble has to do with her coach.

Now, I have to admit that I kinda ignored the Olympics this year. I’m as shocked as anyone by that but, quite frankly, I just wasn’t feeling it. 2016 has sapped the enjoyment out of a lot of events that you could previously depend upon. Hopefully, I’ll regain my excitement in 2018 because I’d hate to miss the curling. Along with not being into the Olympics this year, I also have an intense fear of drowning and movies that feature people trapped underwater tend to give me nightmares. With all that in mind, I was worried that Killer Coach might not be for me. However, I still watched it because it was on Lifetime. You know how that goes.

Well, I shouldn’t have worried. Killer Coach was pure Lifetime goodness, even if it never quite reached the wonderful heights of The Perfect Teacher or Babysitter’s Black Book. Though the film may have been advertised to exploit all the attention being given to the Olympics, it was not necessary to be a swim fan to appreciate it. As for the drowning scenes — well, there were a few but they didn’t traumatize me. In the best Lifetime tradition, Killer Coach is pure entertainment. No need to worry about trauma.

As for the film, it’s about Samantha (Javicia Leslie). Sam is a smart and popular high school student. She also has the potential to be one of the best swimmers in the country and is looking forward to going to college on a swim scholarship. Who knows? Olympics medals may be in her future! As for Sam, she’s mostly just looking forward to a future with her boyfriend (Cameron Jebo).

Sam’s coach, Gina (Keesha Sharp), puts her under constant pressure. Nothing is ever good enough for Gina. That’s what a coach is supposed to do, right? The only problem is that Gina is also Sam’s mother and it’s obvious that she’s reliving her own past as a championship swimmer through her daughter. Gina is so intense that Sam is happy that the new assistant coach appears to be so laid back. Even better, Bryce (Tom Maden) is hot!

Of course, he’s also kind of crazy. After a one night stand, he grows obsessed with Sam and starts stalking her. It’s actually kind of a nice reverse on the typical Lifetime storyline. Usually, it’s a student stalking a teacher.

Anyway, there’s more to the story than just that. Bryce is fueled by more than just obsession and Gina has secrets in her own past. I didn’t really care about any of that and I could have done without it. The film is far more interesting when it just focuses on Bryce as a crazed authority figure.

Killer Coach is well-filmed by veteran Lifetime director Lee Friedlander and he keeps the story moving along quickly. Leslie is sympathetic as Samantha and Maden is memorably unhinged as her stalker. Killer Coach is an above average Lifetime film and definitely an entertaining way to spend two hours.