Last night, in between wrapping birthday presents and eating dinner, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, Nightmare Wedding!

Why Was I Watching It?

It all started a little over 6 years ago when Arleigh asked me if I’d like to review movies for the Shattered Lens.  When I said yes, that meant I was promising to watch and review as many movies as possible.  If I hadn’t watched and reviewed Nightmare Wedding, I would be breaking my promise to Arleigh!

Add to that, Nightmare Wedding was a Lifetime film and I love Lifetime films!  And let’s be honest — how can you not watch something called Nightmare Wedding?  That’s a great title!

What Was It About?

After six years of dating, Max (Isaac Reyes) and Sandy (Nicola Posener) are finally getting married!  However, there’s a bit of a problem: Max’s friend, Roman (Evan Henderson), suddenly shows up for the ceremony.  Before she got together with Max. Sandy briefly dated Roman.  Now, she hates Roman.  Her family hates Roman.  He friends hate Roman.  Everyone hates Roman except for Max!

For his part, Roman is still in love with Sandy and he’s obsessed with both stopping the wedding and winning her back.  And if that means that he has to kill a few people, send a few incriminating text messages, and do a few other shady things, that’s what Roman’s going to do!

Sandy’s friend Lisa (Angie Teodora Dick) attempts to confront Roman about his stalkerish behavior.  Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of doing this while standing on the edge of a cliff.  Roman responds by tossing her over the side.  AGCK!  I hate it when they kill off anyone named Lisa!

What Worked?

This was the epitome of a Lifetime guilty pleasure.  Yes, the plot was totally ludicrous and, to a large extent, Roman’s plan depended upon everyone being an idiot.  But, even with that in mind, the movie was still a lot of fun.  One thing that I especially appreciated was the fact that Roman was so obviously psychotic and yet no one ever seemed to notice or care.  Normally, that might be cause for criticism but Nightmare Wedding pushed things to such an extent that it became oddly charming.

Nicola Posener did a good job in the role of Sandy.  You had sympathy for her and you really did find yourself hoping that she would get to have her dream wedding.  Evan Henderson went so far over the top as Roman that his performance actually worked in a very odd and unexpected sort of way.

(Add to that, Evan bared just enough of a resemblance to Ryan Hansen that I could pretend that I was watching a spin-off of Veronica Mars.)

What Did Not Work?

Max was such a wimp!  Seriously, after about five minutes, I found myself repeatedly shouting, “Be a man!” whenever he showed up on the screen.  You didn’t want Sandy to get together Roman but, at the same time, it was impossible not to feel that she could have done a lot better than Max.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I related to Megan (Gina Vitori), Sandy’s fun-loving sister.  She was determined to have a good time, regardless of how many psychos showed up for the wedding.  Watching Megan defiantly refuse to take the wedding seriously reminded me of my own refusal to take 2016 seriously.  Good for Megan!

Lessons Learned

Never call out a psycho while standing on the edge of a cliff.  It’s just common sense.