Lifetime followed Mommy’s Little Boy with the American premiere of Double Mommy.
Double Mommy is another Canadian-produced Lifetime film. This one is a bit of a spiritual cousin to Double Daddy. Like Double Daddy, Double Mommy starts with a high school party, ends with the arrival of two babies, and finds the time to include some homicide in between. It’s also something of a class drama, with the rich being very evil and the middle class being very saintly and the lower class being pretty much nonexistent.
In Double Mommy, Jess (Morgan Obenreder, best known to readers of the site for playing Charisma Carpenter’s daughter in Bound) is pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. However, she’s not sure who the father is. She wants the father to be Ryan (Griffin Freeman), her perfect boyfriend. But she suspects that the father might be Brent (Mark Grossman), Ryan’s former best friend. One night, while Ryan was away, Brent gave Jess a drink. He said it was nonalcoholic and the can said “Cola.” But the way the camera lingered on that can before Jess actually drank it, everyone watching the movie knew that it was drugged. Jess has only vague memories of the rest of the night but she knows what happened.
A paternity test reveals that one twin was fathered by Ryan and the other by Brent! At this point, I said, “So, which one is going to be the evil twin!?”
Well, the film never really got around to answering that question. Instead, it focused on the attempts of Brent’s rich father (Bruce Boxleitner) to pay Jess and her family off. It turns out that Jess is not the first girl that Brent has raped and his father has been covering up for him. Jess is determined to expose Brent as a rapist. Jess hangs banners at school. She posts Brent’s picture on social media.
Let’s give Double Mommy credit where credit is due. In the characters of Brent and his father, the film makes a point about how one generation enables the bad behavior of another and how misogyny can be passed down from father to son. Furthermore, Jess never allows herself to simply be a victim. She’s a fighter who never apologizes for standing up for herself and who, most importantly, never blames herself for the rape. But, with all that in mind, Double Mommy would have been so much better (and certainly more empowering) if Jess had gone all Ms. 45 or I Spit On Your Grave on Brent’s ass.
I mean, it’s true that, as a result of Jess’s efforts, Brent loses a scholarship and gets booed at a soccer game. That’s all good but Brent was such a loathsome character that he deserved much worse. If there’s ever been a character in a Lifetime film who deserved to be locked in a cage and beaten until he confessed to his crimes, it was Brent. After an hour of Brent smirking, bragging, and drugging, I was ready to see Jess pick up a gun and blow his head off while uttering a priceless one-liner. Instead, Brent just got embarrassed and eventually ended up running around with a gun of his own. What could have been an empowering little revenge flick turned into a typical Lifetime movie.
That said, the film was well-acted and nicely put together. Mark Grossman turned Brent into a disturbingly familiar villain. (We’ve all known a Brent.) I just wish the film had gone a bit further in giving Jess her revenge.
Today, I continue my look back at the year 2016 with the best of Lifetime! Below, you’ll find my nominations for the best Lifetime films and performances of 2016! Winners are starred and listed in bold!
Best Picture Bad Sister, produced by Robert Ballo, Timothy O. Johnson, Rukmani Jones, Ken Sanders The Cheerleader Murders, produced by Sharon Bordas, Arthur Edmonds III, Hannah Pillemer, Fernando Szew, Jennifer Westin Girl in the Box, produced by Stephen Kemp, Charles Tremayne, Thomas Vencelides Inspired to Kill, produced by Johnson Chan, Michael Fiefer, Douglas Howell, Stephanie Rennie, Vincet Reppert, Nathan Schwab, Tammana Shah, Shawn Tira Manson’s Lost Girls, produced by Nancy Bennett, Kyle A. Clark, Lawrence Ducceschi, Joan Harrison, Jonathan Koch, Stephen Kronish, Steven Michaels, Lina Wong Mommy’s Little Girl, produced by Tom Berry, Steve Boisvert, Neil Bregman, Cinthia Burke, Christine Conradt, Curtis Crawford, Pierre David, Donald M. Osborne, Andrew E. Pecs *A Mother’s Escape, produced by Sharon Bordas, Lori Bell Leahy, Michael Leahy, Kristofer McNeeley, Fernando Szew My Sweet Audrina, produced by Dan Angel, David Calvert-Jones, Harvey Kahn, Kane Lee, Tom Mazza, Mike Rohl, Jane Startz The Night Stalker, produced by Matthew R. Brady, Patrick G. Ingram, Michel Rangel, Alisa Tager The Wrong Car, produced by Mark Donadio, Miriam Marcus, Molly Martin, Michael O’Neil
Best Makeup and Hairstyling Girl in the Box, Claudia Breckenridge, Jen Fisher, Oriana Rossi, Alex Rotundo, Collette Tolen Killing Mommy, Cinthia Burke, Christie Capustinsky, Kevin Crawley, Kirsten Fairfield, Margaret Harding-Crawley, Corey J. Stone *Manson’s Lost Girls, Jenni Brown Greenberg, Randi Mavestrand, Kelly Muldoon, Natalie Thimm A Mother’s Escape, Jenny Hausam, Toni Mario My Sweet Audrina, Alannah Bilodeau Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart, Tara Hadden-Watts, Alexandra Holmes
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!)
Oh Hell yeah!
Eric Roberts is back as Dr. Beck and, once again, he’s obsessed with a teenage girl! Believe it or not, this is a good thing because this obsession leads to Dr. Beck spending a lot of time sitting in a car that’s parked in front of Amy’s (Claire Backwelder) high school. By doing so, Dr. Beck justifies my decision to include the 2016 Lifetime film Stalked By My Doctor: The Return in my series of Back to School reviews.
Thank you, Dr. Beck!
As you may remember from last year’s Stalked By My Doctor, Dr. Beck is a neurotic doctor who has an unfortunate tendency to get obsessed with his patients. At the end of the first movie, the good doctor narrowly escaped the police and was last seen flashing a somewhat nervous smile.
At the start of The Return, we find Dr. Beck now living in Mexico. He’s done a pretty good job of avoiding arrest and has a successful career going as a beach bum but he has yet to find true love. However, it seems like that might change when, one day, he spots a teenage girl drowning in the ocean. Dr. Beck not only saves Amy from drowning but he also literally brings her back to life. Seriously, my wonderful readers, be sure to learn CPR.
(Then again, I’m not sure that I’ve ever learned CPR. I guess I should. We can’t always depend on a crazy fugitive doctor to be around.)
Both Amy and her overprotective mom, Linda (Hilary Greer), are thankful and now, Dr. Beck is now obsessed all over again. In fact, he’s so obsessed that he even risks capture by returning to the United States. Under the pretense of merely wanting to check up on his patient, Beck starts to stalk Amy. Taking a lesson from Nabokov’s Lolita, Beck starts to go out with the neurotic Linda. By marrying Linda, Dr. Beck hopes that he can get to Amy.
All together now: Ewwwwwww! Bad doctor!
Amy and her boyfriend (Mark Grossman) eventually grow suspicious of Dr. Beck. They even recruit Amy’s Uncle Roger (Christopher Crabb) to investigate the good doctor. However, Linda refuses to hear a word against him. That’s not surprising, considering that she’s just agreed to marry him…
Stalked By My Doctor: The Return is a deliberately over-the-top melodrama, one that has more in common with the snarky satire of A Deadly Adoption than the previous Stalked By My Doctor. Sprinkled throughout the film are several scenes in which Dr. Beck has conversations with the voices in his head and, as you can probably guess, Eric Roberts plays the Hell out of these scenes. In fact, Roberts is a force of nature in this film, keeping a straight face while ripping through his overwrought dialogue and only stopping occasionally to wink at the camera, almost as if Dr. Beck realizes that he’s just a character in a Lifetime movie. Roberts is obviously having a blast in the role and his demented joy is somewhat infectious. After imagining that he’s killed a dining companion, a blood-covered Roberts says, “Check please,” and his delivery of that one-liner is absolutely brilliant.
Stalked By My Doctor: The Return is a blast of over the top, Eric Roberts-inspired lunacy.
Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Backstabbed!
Why Was I Watching It?
Well, the obvious answer is that I was watching it because it was on Lifetime and, as everyone knows, I love anything on Lifetime. The other reason is that I haven’t done many entries in What Lisa Watched Last Night this year. I wanted to correct that!
(And here we are…)
What Was It About?
It’s about lies, love, sex, murder, and the crazy world of real estate. Whenever I watch a movie about real estate, I always wait for someone to yell, “You moved the headstones but you left the bodies, didn’t you!? YOU LEFT THE BODIES!” That didn’t happen in this movie but seriously, real estate is crazy!
Paulette Bolton (Josie Davis) is one of the top real estate people in California but the people who work for her have a tendency to end up dead. That’s because Paulette kills them and a lot of other people.
Paulette has a new protegé: Shelby (Brittany Underwood). Shelby has just received her real estate license and … oh no! Is she thinking of going into competition against her psychotic mentor?
Well, that might not turn out for the best…
What Worked?
One of my favorite things about Lifetime movies is that everyone always lives in such a nice house. Lifetime understands that its audience not only likes to see what people are wearing but where they live as well. Backstabbed was pretty much all about houses. Paulette had a great house. She and Shelby were competing to sell an even better house. Even Shelby’s house was nice and she was supposed to be poor!
In the role of Paulette, Josie Davis was totally and completely insane. She delivered one of the greatest over-the-top performances in Lifetime history and the film was all the better for it! Among the supporting cast, Kevin Spirtas was fun as a decadent home owner and, oddly enough, former Texas Congressman Henry Bonilla had a role as well.
What Did Not Work?
I have to admit that I struggled to follow the plot. It may have been because it’s the Labor Day weekend and I was dividing my attention between the film and my niece and nephew but still, I had a hard time keeping track of why, exactly, Paulette kept killing people. Fortunately, Josie Davis killed people with such panache that it wasn’t a major problem.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
“That’s my dress!” I yelled when, at one point, Paulette showed up wearing a pretty red dress that looked identical to one that I have hanging in my closet. Then Shelby showed up, also wearing a red dress that looked identical to another one that I have hanging in my closer and again, I yelled, “That’s my dress!”
At that point, my niece pointed at the TV and went, “That’s Lisa Marie’s dress!” She’s so cute.
Between 2009 and 2012, Lifetime must have really decided to get behind this “at 17” series of movies. You’ll notice it’s not just Stalked at 17, but Stalked at 17 TM. This time the opening credits tell us that this movie is “Inspired by True Events.” I guess you can say that when your plot is so vague that it must have happened to somebody somewhere.
The movie begins, and we are introduced to our main character played by Taylor Spreitler. I know her character has a name in the movie, but if the script isn’t going to stop making endless references to the show she was on at the time called Melissa & Joey, then I can call her Lennox.
That’s a baby monitor that Lennox is listening to. That’s also most likely a future Lifetime movie when they realize that some Internet of Things baby monitors can be used to look inside other people’s homes. That is if they haven’t already. After Lennox goes to use the microwave, she is grabbed by the last 20 minutes or so of the movie before the film cuts to the title card, and it’s one year earlier.
Lennox and her friend are touring a college when we meet our bad guy for the movie on the left.
It’s also when I realized that the subtitles on the DVD didn’t work and turned on the captions instead. I love that they cast Charles Hittinger as Psycho Dad so he would look really intimidating. It’s probably because if you’ve watched Melissa & Joey, then you know that Taylor Spreitler and vulnerable go together about as much as Bella Thorne and drama.
Psycho Dad invites them to a party, and they of course decide to go. Now, for no good reason whatsoever, a guy wearing a sombrero with a bullseye on his chest.
We learn some very important information at the frat house. No, not that they decided to make him the one who was adopted by a councilwoman instead of Lennox. It’s that they run a very tight ship after Psycho Dad finds puke on the stairs.
Now we meet Lennox’s dad played by none other than whitelighter himself Brian Krause.
I agree, Leo. However, I think Doug Campbell was right to take the title of this movie and start calling the movies “Stalked by”. He’s just jealous because his wife played by Amy Pietz was in Stalked by My Neighbor (2015). This scene exists to tell us that they are having financial difficulties which will play no material role in the film.
Lennox and friend go to the party. As soon as the dialog tells us that Lennox is 16 at present, her and Psycho Dad immediately go upstairs together. After he tells her a sob story, they kiss and it fades to black before going to an establishing shot of her school.
I hope you like establishing shots of her school because you’ll see them 4-5 times in this movie. Heck, later in the movie you’ll get the exact same shot, but only a minute or so before or after the other shot.
Thanks to Lennox texting Psycho Dad, we learn that they did it on February 21st exactly because it is their two month anniversary.
Oh yeah, and his name is Chad. Just like Mister 45 minutes from Accused at 17. Real original there screenwriter Christine Conradt. It looks like Conradt is really passionate about these “at 17” movies seeing as she’s produced five of them. According to her bio on IMDb, she has an “MCJ from Boston University where she focused on cybercrime and juvenile delinquency.” It’s weird that with a focus in cybercrime, she seems to have had nothing to do with Fugitive at 17 (2012) where the girl in question is a hacker.
Now Lennox forgets that this movie is called Stalked at 17 and not Pregnant at 17, but it’s too late. I love how this scene plays out. Lennox is talking to a male friend when she grabs her stomach, and is obviously sick. She makes a mad dash for the bathroom. He quickly follows, but stops at the door, and asks a girl standing nearby to go in to check on her.
The line actually goes like this: “You really need to find a new friend cause that one out there couldn’t even be bothered to make sure you were okay, and sent me inside instead.”
Meanwhile, the film knows it needs to pad itself out.
Lennox is at home and finds out she is indeed pregnant. While that is going on, Psycho Chad is buying jewelry online. Back in Lennox’s bedroom, the movie gives us lines that might as well amount to this: “I don’t know if he was wearing a condom. You know what they say? If you look at it, then you go blind. I just had to take his word for it.” Of course Psycho Chad is happy about the news because it means he’ll have a family of his own now with a child who will love him unconditionally.
Then the two of them go to a restaurant where Psycho Chad blows up at a waiter. That’s basically the rest of the film. Chad gets nuttier, he gets in a fight with Leo, his biological mom he lied about being dead gets out of prison, and they finally get around to where the film started. At least it was fun to see Leo fighting with Psycho Chad along the way.
Lennox, baby, Psycho Chad, and Psycho Mom all end up at a convenience store where things go wrong and Psycho Chad is shot. Then it shows Lennox with the kid, and fades to black. I think this movie has earned the Godfrey Ho red screen end card for how abrupt the ending occurs.
Thus ends the classic tale of girl meets boy, girl gets herself knocked up, boy turns out to want a family, boy turns out to be crazy, everyone does their best to pad out the film, boy is shot, and the credits role. I have to admit that aside from this and Accused at 17, I have never seen credits that start by referring to the cast as “the players.”
At least this one had some kind of a story. That’s way more than I can say for Accused at 17. I have Fugitive at 17 coming soon, then that will be my last “at 17” movie for now.
I know Lisa would normally be the one to tackle these movies, but she just finished writing 40 reviews in about the span of a month. I think it goes without saying that she probably looks like this right now.
I also think it goes without saying that shot doesn’t exist in this movie.
Before the title card appears, we are treated to credits over shots that make us think we are about to watch a crime TV Show. I wish. Something might actually happen if that were the case.
Now we cut to five days earlier where we can tell things are going well because the captions tell us so.
We see some kids at school before we are introduced briefly to Cynthia Gibb at her job. Not sure what she does, and like most things in this movie, I don’t care. We then go back to the school to be introduced to obviously bad girl (Janet Montgomery) and low-rent Miriam McDonald (Stella Maeve) before cutting back to Gibb.
Some guy shows up to remind us he exists in the movie, but not to me. The school returns so we can meet Chad (Reiley McClendon) and obviously good girl who will be “accused”, even though that barely has anything to do with the movie.
Chad is here to tell her that she needs to cancel her plans and come to the best party of the year. I know this not only because the movie says so, but because when have you ever watched a movie where it isn’t supposed to be the greatest party of the year?
The guy who decided to exist for a bit brought along a pair of earrings so we can learn that the good girl is named Bianca (Nicole Gale Anderson). Already this movie is full of lies. Nicole Gale Anderson was 18 when she did this movie. She had long passed the age of 17 when you could be accused, stalked, betrayed, missing, pregnant, and become a fugitive all in the same year. It’s a long tradition going back at least as far as 1931 when Marian Marsh was in Under 18. She actually made that one when she was 17-18 years-old. When you turn 18, life just becomes one long snooze fest.
Bad girl shows up to make sure we know she’s very comfortable lying about people or animals dying before we can go to the party. That, and that her mother will totally back her lies up later in the movie. Fortunately, Bianca doesn’t make it to the party so Chad and another girl can have sex in a bathroom.
The one whose hands those belong to is Dory (Lindsay Taylor). She’s named that because the movie isn’t very well written. Also, her last name in the movie is Holland which goes right along with Cynthia Gibb’s character’s first name Jacqui to create the name of porn/B-Movie star Jacqui Holland. I’ve reviewed several of her films on this site.
All you need to know now is that things don’t go well for Bianca in several ways. Bianca and her friends sit next to a pool in bikinis to talk about boys because they aren’t guys. Otherwise, they would be doing this same scene while playing basketball. We get to see Bianca leave a nice little voicemail for Chad.
However, that’s not really what sets her off. This is what gets her riled up.
45 minutes? Chad’s a 10 minute man, 15 at the most. That’s why the girls decide to pick up Dory to take her to where “the hottest frat guys ever” are located.
Of course by that, they mean the set of Mojave (2015).
Sadly, Oscar Isaac is not there to greet them dressed as Antonio das Mortes. This makes Dory think something is up. She’s right. Dory punches Bianca to make sure she has a bruise on her forehead before she leaves the scene. Then obviously bad girl bashes Dory’s head in with a rock. That’s one Dead Dory.
I did forget one thing. On the way over, Dory made sure to leave a hair clip in the car to be used later in the movie.
In between Bianca leaving and Dory’s head getting hit by a rock, Bianca made sure to stop by a gas station so that someone will have seen her. It matters greatly to the plot, and by that I mean next to nothing. A plot I guarantee won’t matter to you if you watch Accused at 17. Things, stuff, and then we are introduced to our buddy cops.
They are clearly the best because they pay attention to every detail. In 2009, nobody was saying “Mackin'” anymore. That’s why they have a discussion as to whether they say “cuttin'”, “tappin’ it”, “hittin’ it”, or “hookin’ up”. They question Chad and we find out they actually aren’t the best cops around.
Officers, come on? Chad doesn’t seem like the type of guy who goes out to a Saturday Night Fish Fry.
However, I do believe that Chad is the kind of guy who takes Louis Jordan’s advice and when Bianca calls to ask if he’s alone, he tells her “no, I got three girls with me.”
Now they turn their attention to Bianca because the stuff in between the interrogations is really boring, so we need to keep moving along. There is a lot of padding in this movie. However, I have to give Janet Montgomery credit. She does a pretty good job of playing the evil girl. I also have to give the movie credit for how funny it was to see Bianca drive back to the scene of the head bashing the next day and call out Dory’s name as if she is just hiding somewhere. Just when the cop may actually be getting to something with his line of questioning, Cynthia Gibb interrupts to remind him that they still have about half a movie left to go so he better leave.
Now a couple of extras they gave hiking equipment find the body. Blah, blah, blah, and confrontation with evil girl’s mom.
The gist of it is that Barbara Niven can play a lesbian in one movie, a nice mom in a Hallmark murder mystery series, and do roles like this. She’s very versatile. Nothing really of consequence happens here except evil girl and evil mom lie because otherwise how are they going to get away with calling this movie “Accused at 17.”
Well, finally the trip to the gas station earlier and the hair clip left in the car pay off when the cops notice there are only about 30 minutes left in the movie.
They arrest her, so they can finally say with confidence that the title isn’t false advertising. More things happen, but it all amounts to Gibb and Bianca trying to prove her innocence till it’s time for bad girl to confront that other girl who only exists to be killed off.
She apparently needs an inhaler, so evil girl takes it away and sprays all the puffs out of it. No big loss. Again, more stuff happens that is of no real consequence until bad girl pulls a gun on her father.
Dad stops her, and everything is good again. That is except for Dory having had her head smashed in and that other girl having suffocated to death. None of that matters because Bianca puts on the earrings I mentioned earlier. The point of that is the guy who barely existed at the beginning of the film is Gibb’s new boyfriend/dad for Bianca so putting them on means she has accepted him.
This movie was terrible. I’m pretty sure more happened in Superdragon vs. Superman. The movies Stalked at 17 and and Betrayed at 17 arrived today. I’m so grateful that Lisa already reviewed Betrayed at 17 back in 2011. That means I only have to watch it, and not attempt to write about it.
Last night, after I finished with Going My Way, I decided to stick with the Catholic theme by rewatching Bad Sister. Bad Sister aired on Lifetime on January 3rd. Having seen several wonderfully sordid commercials, I watched it and I loved every minute of it. I was really looking forward to watching it again but apparently, there was some sort of screw-up with my usually ultra-dependable DVR. It only recorded bits and pieces of Bad Sister.
I was so disappointed! Fortunately, however, I still remember Bad Sister well enough to review it. For instance, who could forget this scene?
Okay, technically, that was a scene from the episode of King of the Hill where Peggy pretends to be a nun so she can get a job teaching at a Catholic school. (“Sister Peggy, will my cat go to heaven?” “Well, I’ve heard that all dogs go to Heaven so I’m pretty sure that cats do not.”) For whatever reason, I couldn’t find any Bad Sister clips on YouTube but really, the movie has pretty much the same plot. It’s just, in the case of the movie, the fake nun is also a sociopath who starts to obsess on one of her students.
From the minute Sister Sophia (Alyshia Osche) shows up at her new job as a teacher at a Catholic boarding school, it’s obvious that she’s not like the other nuns. For one thing, she’s awfully enthusiastic about her students, especially the male ones. Plus, there’s not many nuns who specifically make it a point to strip down to sexy red lingerie while being watched by a teenage boy. Even beyond that, Sophia refuses to take part in Morning Prayer and she doesn’t seem to know much about … well, anything Catholic. Is Sister Sophia just young and naive or is it possible that she’s actually an escaped mental patient named Laura? And could it be that, perhaps at the start of the movie, Laura murdered the real Sister Sophia and stole her identity?
Well, this is a Lifetime movie so, of course, that’s exactly what happened!
As a result of seeing him sing on YouTube, Sister Sophia is obsessed with Jason (Devon Werkheiser, the star of Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, all grown up). Jason’s a student who dreams of being the next Justin Bieber. However, to get to Jason, Sister Sophia has to deal with not only Jason’s girlfriend (Sloane Avery) but also Jason’s suspicious sister, Zoe (Ryan Newman). And, of course, there’s Sister Rebecca (Helen Eigenberg), another nun who is starting to suspect that Sophia might not be who she says she is…
Bad Sister was a totally over-the-top masterpiece of Lifetime moviemaking. Director Doug Campbell is one of my favorite Lifetime directors and he doesn’t disappoint with Bad Sister, playing up the sordid melodrama while, at the same time, never making the mistake of taking this story too seriously. Alyshia Osche was brilliant as Sister Sophia. One of the most entertaining parts of the film was watching her switch back and forth from being the enthusiastic Sister Sophia and the perpetually annoyed Laura. (Just watch the scene where she goes through the real Sister Sophia’s stuff and discovers the boring, dowdy underwear that she’s expected to wear. The look of total and thorough annoyance that flashes across her face is absolutely brilliant acting on Osche’s part and, within seconds, totally and completely defines the character of Laura/Sister Sophia.)
Bad Sister was the first great Lifetime film of 2016! Keep an eye out for it.
(I should add that you probably don’t have to come from a Catholic background to enjoy Bad Sister. But it definitely helps!)
Today, I continue my look back at 2015 by posting my picks for the best of Lifetime! My nominees for the best Lifetime films and performances are listed below, with the winners starred and listed in bold! Congratulations to all the nominees and winners and thank you for making this one of the most entertaining years in my long history of watching Lifetime movies!
Last night, I watched the second-to-last original Lifetime film of 2015, Stalked By My Doctor!
Why Was I Watching It?
After a month of nonstop holiday cheeriness, Lifetime returned to doing what it does best. With the premiere of Stalked By My Doctor, Lifetime announced that the melodrama was back! There was no way that I was going to miss it. (Of course, it also helped that the film was directed by Doug Campbell, who previously directed such classic Lifetime films as Sugar Daddies, Stalked By My Neighbor, Betrayed at 17, and The Cheating Pact.)
What Was It About?
Teenager Sophie Green (Brianna Joy Chomer) is nearly killed in a car accidents that occurred because her dumbass boyfriend was texting while driving. Fortunately, her life is saved by the brilliant Dr. Beck (Eric Roberts).
Unfortunately, as brilliant as he may be as a doctor, Beck has some issues. He’s a sociopath with an obsessive streak and he quickly decides that he’s in love with Sophie. Soon, Sophie is being stalked by her doctor…
What Worked?
Oh my God, Eric Roberts was so creepy in this movie! And I mean that in the best possible way. Whether flashing a smile that was a bit too quick or leaning in a bit too close while having a conversation or throwing a sudden and childish fit, Eric Roberts turned Dr. Beck into the creepiest stalker in the history of creepy Lifetime stalkers. But what made Roberts’s performance even better was that, no matter how crazy he went, you still believed that he could be a brilliant surgeon.
The film also did a good job of revealing the double standard when it comes to how society views stalkers and their victims. No matter how insane Dr. Beck revealed himself to be, Sophie’s father was quick to 1) make an excuse for him and 2) accuse his own daughter of leading him on.
What Did Not Work?
It all worked! This was exactly what viewers like me are looking for when we watch a Lifetime film.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
When I was 19 years old, I was in a serious accident much like Sophie’s. By all logic, I shouldn’t have survived. It was raining, I wasn’t wearing my seat belt, I was driving too fast, and I was in a convertible. When I hit the car in front of me, I turned the wheel too sharply and my car flipped over and skidded, upside down, across the street. By the time the car came to a stop, both the windshield and the door windows had shattered, showering me with broken glass. Thankfully, since it was raining, I had the top up on the car. Otherwise, I would have ended up with a broken neck and more. However, somehow, I only ended up with a few scrapes on my legs, a small cut on my hand, and a gash on my neck that bled a lot but didn’t sever any major veins or arteries. I didn’t have any broken bones or anything else and, my injuries meant that I’d only have to deal with some stitches and I wouldn’t be able to show off my legs for a few days. I don’t know how I survived but I do know I was a very lucky girl!
And though my injuries were not as bad as Sophie’s (I didn’t nearly die, for instance), I did feel like the doctor at the hospital was hitting on me but who was I to complain? He was a medical professional and I was in shock and bleeding. He could flirt as much as he wanted as long as he made sure I didn’t end up with any disfiguring scars.
Lessons Learned
Melodramatic Lifetime is a lot more than Holiday Lifetime (though I did enjoy The Spirit Of Christmas!)
Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original movie, Stalked By My Neighbor.
Why Was I Watching It?
Well, of course, the obvious reason was because it was on Lifetime and I love Lifetime movies. But, even if I wasn’t a Lifetime movie addict, I probably would have watched Stalked By My Neighbor. Stalked By My Neighbor is a great title. Whenever you see a Lifetime movie with the word “Stalk” in the title, you know that it’s going to be a good one.
What Was It About?
It’s a Lifetime homage to Rear Window! Jodi (Kelcie Stranahan) and her mother (Amy Pietz) move to the suburbs. A talented photographer, Jodi is still struggling to deal with the after-effects of a horrifying home invasion. Hiding out in her bedroom, Jodi watches her new neighborhood through the lens of her camera and eventually comes to believe that she may have witnessed the murder of a neighbor (Kelly Packard). While the police suspect that the murderer was the cute boy who lives next door (Grant Harvey), Jodi suspects that it may have actually been the dead woman’s niece (Katrina Norman). Soon, Jodi, camera in hand, is stalking her neighbors and trying to solve the mystery.
What Worked?
Stalked By My Neighbor was directed by Doug Campbell, who earlier this year gave us Sugar Daddies. As I previously stated in my review of Sugar Daddies, Campbell is one of the better filmmakers to regularly make films for Lifetime. (He also directed several of my favorite ….At 17 movies.) Much as he did with Sugar Daddies, Campbell strikes just the right balance between melodrama and realism. As both director and screenwriter, he pushes the story as far as it can go without allowing things to go overboard. The end result is a very entertaining film that is the epitome of why people like me love Lifetime movies.
Kelcie Stranahan was well-cast as Jodi and she had a lot of chemistry with Grant Harvey. As well, she and Amy Pietz were totally believable as mother-and-daughter. Wisely, while the film had a lot of fun with the more melodramatic elements of the mystery plot, Jodi’s PTSD was played totally straight and Stranahan did a great job of capturing Jodi’s fragile mental state. By the end of the film, Jodi is a role model for survivors everywhere.
What Did Not Work?
It all worked. This was Lifetime moviemaking at its best!
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I totally related to the character of Jodi, which is a huge reason why I enjoyed the movie. Towards the end of the film, Jodi had a fight with her mom and ended up getting grounded. Afterward, Jodi made it a point to elaborately apologize and then, as soon as her mom left the room, Jodi was sneaking out the bedroom window. That one scene pretty much epitomized my senior year of high school.
And really, the relationship between Jodi and her mom was the main reason why I loved Stalked By Neighbor. Don’t get me wrong. The mystery was fun. Grant Harvey was cute and the scene where he dances with Jodi was really well done. But ultimately, the film worked for me because I related so much to Jodi and I saw so much of my mom in her mom.
Lessons Learned
If you think you’re neighbor might be a murderer, always make sure you have an extra memory card for your camera. (Seriously, watch the movie. It’ll make sense.)
Through the Shattered Lens 