Elimu Nelson | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, I watched one of the final Lifetime movies of 2017, Web Cam Girls!

Why Was I Watching It?

Well, the obvious answer is that I was watching it because it was on Lifetime and our regular readers know how much I love Lifetime!

However, from the minute that I saw the first commercial for Web Cam Girls, I grew convinced that it would be better than the average 2017 Lifetime film. The commercials were just so melodramatic and wonderfully sordid. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that the best Lifetime films always seem to be about capitalizing on people’s fear of the dark web. (Then again, people probably should be scared of the dark web…)

Finally, I knew that I was going to have to review this film just because of the title. Now, whenever someone does a search for “web cam girls,” there’s a good chance they’ll end up on this site. They’ll probably get mad once they arrive here but a click is a click.

What Was It About?

Carolyn (Lorynn York) needs money so she becomes a web cam girl. Her cousin, Alex (Sedona Legge), says it’s a bad and dangerous idea but Carolyn claims that it’s actually the safest way to make money. She never meets the men who watch her. All she has to do is undress a little on camera and, pretty soon, she’ll be able to get an apartment in New York and make all of her dreams come true.

But then, one night, Carolyn gives in to temptation to agrees to meet one of her admirers in a sleazy motel. She promptly vanishes, leaving Alex and their friend Shawn (Liam McKanna) to try to figure out what happened. Was she kidnapped and, if so, by whom? There are suspects all around and it’s starting to look like the only way Alex is going to find her is by going on camera herself.

What Worked?

Oh my God, Lifetime really did save the best for last! After a year that left many longtime Lifetime viewers feeling somewhat disappointed, Lifetime finally gave us the type of movie that made us fall in love with the network in the first place. Web Cam Girls is wonderfully melodramatic, over the top, and incredibly entertaining. The houses are beautiful, the villain is perhaps one of the most evil characters to ever appear in a Lifetime film, and the whole thing is full of details that will reward the observant viewer.

For instance, Carolyn, Alex, and Shawn discuss watching Sunrise in film class. Sunrise, of course, is a film about an innocent who is tempted by the sinful city, much in the same way that Carolyn and Alex are tempted by the sinful internet. Later, another teacher tells Alex that he was impressed with her essay about H.P. Lovecraft. References to both Lovecraft and F.W. Murnau in a Lifetime movie? How can’t you love that?

It was also well-acted. Stephen Graybill and Joe Hackett were memorable as two sinister teachers. I liked both Jon Bridell as Carolyn’s drunk but ultimately heroic father and John Dinan as his best friend. In the role of Carolyn’s mentor, Nikki, Tonya Kay made such a strong impression that a lot of us on twitter were demanding that Nikki get a spin-off film of her own. Down to the smallest part, everyone made their character interesting.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

When I was in high school, I also used to dress in black and write essays about H.P. Lovecraft.

Lessons Learned

Beware the dark web!

What happens when you take a little Paranormal Activity and mix it in with a little Rosemary’s Baby and then toss in Devil’s Due and then top it all off with a sprinkle of Deliverance and The Chernobyl Diaries and just a hint of the remake of I Spit On Your Grave?

You end up with a big ol’ mess of a movie. I just watched Bleed on Netflix and the plot is so convoluted that I’m still trying to figure out what exactly I just watched.

But, before I try to figure this all out, let’s take a look at the trailer:

Sarah (Chelsey Crisp) is a newlywed who appears to have it all. She’s got a wonderful husband, Matt (Michael Steger), they’ve got a beautiful house out in the country, and even more importantly, they’ve got a baby on the way! So what if the nearby town seems to be a little bit creepy and is full of country-accented men with beards? And so what if there’s a deserted prison nearby, one that is rumored to be haunted by the spirit of a preacher-turned-serial killer who died when a fire broke out at the prison? And what about that mysterious woman who keeps showing up in the nearby field and screaming like a banshee? That’s just local color! Anyone who thinks that’s unusual has obviously never lived in Oklahoma or visited Hot Springs, Arkansas.

In order to celebrate their new home, Sarah and Matt decide to invite their best friends out to the house. Dave (Elimu Nelson) and Bree (Brittany Ishibashi) are a likable couple, especially now that Bree is regularly taking her medication. Bree is schizophrenic and hears voices when she doesn’t take her meds. To the film’s credit, it portrays Bree as a positive character and never goes down the path that I feared it would follow.

Suddenly, Sarah’s good-for-nothing brother, Eric (Riley Smith) shows up. His girlfriend, Skye (Lyndon Smith) is with him. The first thing that Eric does is ask for money. The second thing that Eric does is get high. The third thing that Eric does is talk about how he and Skye have spent the past few months driving across America and searching for ghosts. And hey, isn’t there a haunted prison somewhere nearby?

Meanwhile, Skye takes a bath. While she’s in the bathtub, she suddenly see an evil-looking apparition standing over her. She screams for help and Matt responds. The apparition has vanished. Sarah glares at Matt and the towel-clad Skye. “I didn’t know she’d be half-naked!” Matt protests. Of course not! Why would someone get undressed before taking a bath?

Anyway, Eric convinces everyone but Sarah to search for ghosts with them. Sarah drops them off at the ruins of the prison, promises to come back for them in a few hours, and then starts back home. Unfortunately, she has an accident on the way back and ends up getting a ride with a creepy deputy. And it quickly becomes clear that the deputy isn’t in any hurry to get her back home…

Meanwhile, at the prison, all Hell breaks loose. Skye sees another evil spirit. Eric’s throat gets slashed but oddly, it stops bleeding after a few seconds. Voices are heard. Objects move. So many Paranormal Activity-type things occur that I’m actually surprised (and relieved) that Bleed wasn’t a found footage film…

One thing that Bleed does is that it keeps you guessing. At first, I assumed it would be another city folk vs. hillbillies type of film but then it turned into a ghost story. And, for a long while, I thought it was just another ghost story but then it turned out to be something different all together. Admittedly, the film sometimes struggles to handle the constant shift in tone but, oddly, that kinda works. It definitely keeps the viewer off-balance.

As you might expect from a film that’s constantly changing tone, Bleed is a bit uneven but it’s definitely a watchable and intriguing horror film and the film makes good use of that atmospheric prison. For a lot of viewers, Bleed will probably be a love-it-or-hate-it type of film. It’s well-directed but the story is just almost unnecessarily complicated. My recommendation is that you watch it and judge for yourself.