Lifetime Film Review: Killer Advice (dir by Jared Cohn)


Beth (Kate Watson) is not having an easy time dealing with her seemingly perfect life.

She’s worried about whether or not her teenage daughter, Jess (Gigi Gustin), is going to be able to get into a good college. She’s worried about whether or not her husband, Nick (Steve Richard Harris), is going to be able to hold onto his job. She’s also overworked at her own job. That’s a lot of stress to deal with. Of course, what’s really causing Beth the most trouble is the fact that she was recently the victim of a terrifying attack. In an underground parking garage, a man in a mask tried to attack her and chased her all the way to her car. Beth is having trouble recovering from the trauma. Eventually, she ends up seeing a highly praised therapist named Marsha (Meredith Thomas).

At first, Marsha seems like the perfect therapist. She listens to what Beth has to say. She gives good advice. She seems to genuinely care about Beth’s well-being. Then, one night, Nick announces that his firm has a rich new client and that this new client specifically asked to work with him. He goes on to explain that the client is coming to dinner and that it’s very important that everything go perfectly because, otherwise, the client might go to another firm. Beth works all day, preparing the perfect meal. When the client shows up, it turns out to be …. MARSHA!

Marsha claims to be shocked to discover that Nick and Beth are married. Why, Marsha just had no idea! What a coincidence! Later, Marsha hears Beth’s best friend, Simone (Gina Hiraizumi), saying that Marsha should be reported for violating her professional ethics by hiring a patient’s husband. Marsha, needless to say, isn’t happy to hear that and promptly looks for a rock that she can use to bash in Simone’s head….

That’s right! This is one of those type of films! Airing on Lifetime, Killer Advice is another film in which a woman with a perfect family finds herself being stalked by someone who is obsessed with her. This a frequent Lifetime genre and it’s one that centers around a fear that we all have, that fear that our new best friend might actually be a knife-wielding psycho. If you’re not paranoid after watching a Lifetime film, then you’re just not paying attention.

With it’s plot of a dangerous therapist, it’s tempting to compare this film to the Stalked By My Doctor films. Making that comparison even more tempting is the fact that Eric Roberts (the doctor of the Stalked By My Doctor franchise) has a small but key role as Nick’s boss. (It’s always fun to see Eric Roberts and, personally, I like the fact that he’s reinvented himself as a Lifetime mainstay.) However, the Stalked By My Doctor films tend be almost parodies of the classic Lifetime formula. Much like A Deadly Adoption, the Stalked By My Doctor franchise comments on the Lifetime style while also celebrating it. Killer Advice is a bit less meta, content to be a straight-forward story about an unlikely but dangerous stalker.

Kate Watson, Meredith Thomas, and Gigi Gustin all give good performances. Thomas stalks with style, which is really the most important thing when it comes to a film like this. The 2nd most important thing, of course, is the house where it all takes place and Killer Advice features a beautiful one. Living in a house that nice might make being stalked by a therapist almost worth it!

Lifetime Film Review: The Wrong Stepmother (dir by David DeCoteau)


“I hear that Maddie is one bad mother….”

“Shut your mouth!”

“But I’m talking about Maddie.”

“Then we can dig it!”

Actually, Maddie (Cindy Busby) is not a mother, though she would like to be.  She not even a stepmother, despite what the title says.  Instead, she’s just dating the recently widowed Michael (Corin Nemec).  If she does end up marrying Michael, Maddie will become a stepmother — perhaps even a WRONG stepmother — to his two daughters, Lilly (Calli Taylor) and Nicole (McKinley Blehm).

It doesn’t take Lilly long to realize that there’s something off about Maddie.  For one thing, she catches Maddie trying to check her social media.  Then she overhears Maddie claiming to be her mother.  And finally, Maddie changes up Lilly’s college admission essay.  See, Lilly wrote about how much her late mother influenced her.  Maddie, however, changes it into an essay about how much Lilly loves her future stepmother.

Yes, Maddie has some issues.  As we discover at the start of the film, she has a history of stalking people.  About halfway through the film, she murders two people.  Whenever you’re watching a film on Lifetime, you know someone’s going to get murdered at exactly halfway through the film.  You can set the time by it.

As with all of Lifetime’s “Wrong” films, Vivica A. Fox has a small role.  In this one, she plays Ms. Price, the high school guidance counselor who is extremely unimpressed by Lilly’s college admissions essay.  When Ms. Price confronts Lilly about how unimpressive her essay was, Fox delivers the lines with such subtle fury and annoyance that it brought back a lot of high school memories for me.  As played by Fox, Ms. Price is the type of high school counselor who scares you to death but who also changes your life for the better.  If Ms. Price had been my counselor, I definitely wouldn’t have spent so much time skipping class and shoplifting makeup at Target.

Anyway, the main complaint that you always hear about Lifetime films is that they’re all exactly the same but that’s actually their appeal.  They’re fun to watch, precisely because 1) they’re predictable and 2) the viewer is always going to be smarter than the people in the movie.  I mean, we can take one look at Maddie and say, “Okay, don’t let her in the house.”  However, Michael’s not that smart and, if he was, we really wouldn’t have a movie.  Sometimes, you just have to stop crying about plausibility and enjoy what you’re watching.

The Wrong Stepmother gets a big boost from the casting of the always likable Corin Nemec as Michael.  I mean, it’s pretty much impossible not to root for a character played by Corin Nemec, even if that character is way too trusting of someone who he met on a dating app.  Meanwhile, Cindy Busby is properly psychotic as Maddie and, of course, you’ve got Vivica A. Fox changing lives as Ms. Price.

The Wrong Stepmother is an entertaining Lifetime film.  Watch it with your snarkiest friends.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #183: The Wrong Daughter (dir by Ben Myerson)


Last night, I watched The Wrong Daughter on the Lifetime Movie Network!

Why Was I Watching It?

I think I must have missed The Wrong Daughter when it originally premiered on Lifetime.  Maybe I was out spying on the neighbors or something.  Who knows?  Fortunately, Lifetime always shows their movies about a hundred different times during the year so, last night, I got a chance to catch up!

What Was It About?

Kate (Cindy Busby) has a lot to deal with!  Not only is she trying to open up her own restaurant but she and Joe (Jon Prescott) are desperate to start a family.  In the aftermath of another failed IVF treatment, Kate promptly starts repainting the nursery and talking about how she could turn the room into an office.  (Interestingly, they live in a pretty big house so I’m kind of surprised she didn’t have an office already.)  However, Joe has a solution!  Maybe Kate could try to track down the girl that she gave up for adoption 17 years ago!

Meanwhile, 18 year-old Samantha (Sydney Sweeney) is just about to get kicked out of her group home.  Abandoned by her mother when she was born, Samantha has never been adopted.  Why not?  Well, it might have something to do with Samantha being slightly psychotic.  And while you may be thinking that Samantha is probably Kate’s long lost daughter, she’s not!  However, her roommate is!  When Samantha runs away and steals Danica’s (Sierra Pond) laptop, she discovers a message from Kate, announcing that she’s Danica’s mother and inviting Danica to come see her.

Soon, Samantha is at Kate’s restaurant, dressed demurely, claiming to be Danica, and working her way into Kate and Joe’s life.  Meanwhile, the real Danica just wants her laptop back.  Samantha, however, is happy being Danica and is willing to do anything — from bribing an old homeless woman to pretend to be the head of the group home when Kate calls to murdering anyone who turns their back on her — to remains so.

What Worked?

This was a pretty good example of the “killer imposter” genre of Lifetime films.  Movies like this pretty much live and die based on the performance of the imposter and Sydney Sweeney did a good job playing the duplicitous Samantha.  It was especially fun to watch her switch back and forth between being demure Danica and murderous Samantha.

What Did Not Work?

How naive can one person be?  That’s kind of the question that I had to ask about Kate, who was both a savvy businesswoman and yet somehow was easily fooled by even the most obvious of Samantha’s lies.  As much fun as it was to watch Kate get fooled over the phone by a crazy homeless woman, it was still hard not to wonder how that could have possibly happened in the first place.

“OMG!  Just like me!” Moments

From the minute Samantha first climbed through the window of her group home, I started having flashbacks.  That’s the same way that I used to sneak out of the house.  When you’re growing up in the suburbs, it helps to be a good climber.

Lessons Learned

Protect your laptop with you life.