Elisa Luthman | Through the Shattered Lens

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.

(I recorded Party Mom off of the Lifetime Movie Network on March 30th.)

Party Mom tells the story of two moms who live in Los Angeles.

Jackie (Krista Allen) is a party mom! She has a nice house in Beverly Hills, where the party never ends. She’s always quick to point out that she looks young enough that she could pass for being Ashley’s sister instead of her mother. For her part, Ashley (Amber Frank) kinda wishes that her mother would be a little more traditional. Of course, Jackie’s usually too busy trying to get Ashley’s friends drunk to really worry about what her daughter wants.

Caroline (Megan Ward) is definitely not a party mom. Instead, she’s a hard-working, no-nonsense mom who lives in the Valley with her husband, Gary (Brian Krause), and her two daughters, Brittany (Elise Luthman) and Emma (Savannah Judy). Caroline just can’t understand today’s teenagers, with their social media and their iPhones and their lack of interest in hanging out with their boring parents. In Caroline’s day, teens would have loved a chance to spend a night watching TV and eating popcorn with mom and dad! Now, they just want to sneak out of the house and take selfies.

Brittany thinks that Jackie is the best, though Caroline isn’t quite sure that she wants her daughter hanging out in a mansion where all of the adults are just as stoned and drunk as the kids. Caroline even attempts to put her foot down and ground her daughter. Of course, that doesn’t really work. Instead, Brittany simply sneaks out of her bedroom window and heads for Beverly Hills!

Of course, since this is a Lifetime film, it all leads to the usual combination of underage drinking and tragedy. When Brittany and a group of drunk friends leave the mansion, a terrible car accident leaves only one survivor. Jackie finds herself on trial for involuntary manslaughter. Caroline and Gary are determined to see Jackie pay for being a party mom but Jackie’s rich enough to afford a slick attorney. In fact, Jackie doesn’t even seem to feel that bad about the car accident or almost anything that happens afterward. As she explains it, all of the tragedy is due to people from the Valley coming into Beverly Hills, where they don’t belong. It all leads to murder, arrests, and one final confrontation.

I liked Party Mom, largely because, in high school, my best friend’s mom was a party mom and watching this movie brought back a lot of memories. At the time, it was always fun going over to my friend’s house and literally getting to do anything that I wanted to do. Looking back now, of course, it’s easy to say that my friend’s mom was incredibly irresponsible and probably should have been forced to go on Dr. Phil or something. But, at the time, I was a lot like Brittany. I just thought it was cool that there was an adult around who refused to care what was being done in her house.

Krista Allen does a really good job in the role of Jackie, tearing through the film like an irresponsible, perpetually drunk tornado. She especially does well towards the end of the film, when Jackie really goes off the deep end. Like all good Lifetime film, the melodrama in Party Mom is over-the-top and we’re all the better for it.