Lifetime Film Review: InstaPsycho (dir by Nick Everhart)

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Social media! It’s murder!

That seems to be the main message behind Instapsycho, a Lifetime film that is designed to appeal to the fear of every mother who worries that her daughter is spending too much time online. It takes place at a high school divided by social media. Who do you follow? Who do you listen to? Who gets your likes and your retweets and your shares? Is it Sasha (Kara Royster), who is rich and popular and who seems to have her entire life ahead of her? Or is it Kelly (Makenzie Vega), who dresses in all black and has a sarcastic wit and who owns a #NoFilters t-shirt?

Me, I would probably follow Kelly because, when I was in high school, I used to dress in all black and I wrote a lot of emo poetry and I tended to toss out random quotes from books that I hadn’t read, all in an effort to make myself seem even smarter than I was. That said, I don’t think that I would be totally supportive of some of the things that Kelly does to win more followers.

For instance, Kelly poisons her stepfather and then does a video about suicide awareness, one that goes viral and wins her a lot of new fans. And it’s true that Kelly’s stepfather was a total perv who totally deserved to die but still, I don’t know if I would risk getting sent to prison for murder just to go viral. I know a lot of people disagree with me on that but …. no, no murders for me.

Of course, Sasha remains a threat to Kelly. “She’s using your own hashtag against you!” someone announces at one point. Even after Kelly manages to get all the cheerleaders to do a special “You suck, Sasha” cheer during lunch, it still appears that Kelly might need to do something extra to hold onto her social media crown. Fortunately, Kelly has plenty of other friends she could kill.

That’s bad news for Maddie (Laura Wiggins), who is Kelly’s best friend. Maddie’s a bit disturbed by Kelly’s new evil side but you have to do what you have to do….

As I said at the start of this review, InstaPsycho is specifically designed to appeal to mothers who, when they’re not watching Lifetime movies, are worrying about what their children are doing online. This is a good example of a “Social Media is the Devil” type of film but it never descends into Reefer Madness territory, largely because social media actually is the devil. Plus — and this is key — InstaPsycho actually has a sense of humor about itself. It may be campy but it’s deliberately campy.

I loved Makenzie Vega’s devilish performance as Kelly. She rips through the film like a tornado and it’s a lot of fun to watch. In fact, despite the film’s warnings about what too much social media does to people, you actually kind of find yourself hoping the best for Kelly. When she points out that her online life is the only thing that she basically has, she does have a point. Though she may have taken things a bit too far by killing people, it’s hard not to have a little bit of sympathy for her.

InstaPsycho! Watch it the next time you’re tempted to post or like something just for the clout.

Lifetime Film Review: Mile High Escorts (dir by Sam Irvin)

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mile High Escorts aired on Lifetime on July 19th. Because I was hosting the #ScarySocial live tweet of City of the Living Dead, I missed it but thanks to my DVR, I was able to record it and watch it earlier today. Seriously, will there ever be a better invention than the DVR?

Mile High Escorts tells the story of Lauren (Saxon Sharbino). Lauren is a flight attendant. She gets to fly all over the world and she’s even put in a request to be assigned to the Paris route. How could her life get any better? Well, don’t ever take your happiness for granted because reality soon intrudes on Lauren’s perfect world. The airline announces that they’re going to be cutting back on flights, which means that Lauren and her friend Ashley (Kara Royster) are going to be flying less and also making a lot less money! But Lauren needs that money because her father is on the verge of getting kicked out of his home. And Ashley needs the money because …. well, Hell, who doesn’t need money? (I totally related to Ashley.)

Fortunately, a chance meeting with Hannah (Christina Moore) might be just the solution to Lauren and Ashley’s problems. Hannah owns a private airline and she’s always looking for new flight attendants. Because her airline is exclusively used by wealthy, handsome, and single (if just for the weekend) men, her flight attendants have to be attractive and they have to be friendly. They also have to be willing to spend time with their clients even after the airplane has landed. She offers Lauren a job but Lauren, at first, is reluctant. It sounds too much like an escort service to her, largely because it is. But then Lauren’s hours get cut and her father’s unpaid bills start to pile up and soon, Lauren and Ashley are mile high escorts!

At first, everything seems great but, as we soon discover, the life of a mile high escort is not a simple one. Sure, at first, it’s a lot of fun. All of the passengers are handsome and rich and like to have a good time. Lauren even makes a connection with Thomas (Esteban Benito), who appears to be a rare nice guy. But this is a Lifetime movie so you know the fun can’t last. It turns out that the private airline business is indeed a shady one and someone is murdering mile high escorts. Can Lauren and Ashley figure out what’s going on before they become the next victims?

I absolutely loved Mile High Escorts. This movie had everything that I love about Lifetime movies. The plot was melodramatic and full of scheming and sex. The clothes were to die for. The men were handsome. Christina Moore did a great job keeping you guessing as to Hannah’s motivations and both Saxon Sharbino and Kara Royster were likable in the lead roles. This was a fun Lifetime film. You don’t watch a film like this and worry about whether or not the plot makes total sense. You certainly don’t watch a film like this because you’re hoping for a realistic portrait of what it means to be a mile high escort. You watch a film like this because it’s fun! And Mile High Escorts definitely was.

Lifetime Film Review: Most Likely To Murder (dir by Kaila York)

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh Hell Yeah! Now, seriously, this is the perfect Lifetime movie!

Welcome to Lifetime High School! It’s a school where students plot to win awards, the mean girls are at war with the one nice girl, the cheereleaders determine who is popular and who is a pariah, and where social media is both a great equalizer and a deadly weapon. It’s just like any other high school, except it’s a Lifetime high school. That means that everything is juts a little bit more extreme than usual. Whereas regular high school cheerleaders might inspire someone to develop an eating disorder, Lifetime cheerleaders plant drugs on their rivals and arrange for season-ending injuries. And, if that doesn’t work, there’s always murder….

Poor Casey (Madison McLaughlin)! She used to be popular. She used to be a cheerleader. She used to be the one making other people insecure and giving them eating disorders. But, things happens. Things change. Her father was killed in a housefire and now, Casey wears a wig to cover up her own scars. Casey’s mother (Heather McComb) now works as a waitress and is dating a loser named Harlen (Brendan McCarthy). Casey’s former best friend, Hailey (Ava Allan), is now her greatest enemy, which means that Hailey not only delights in stealing Casey’s wig but she also plots to make each and every one of Casey’s humiliations go viral.

(You can tell this is a Lifetime High School film because, whenever anyone looks at their phone, they immediately exclaim, “You’re going viral!”)

However, Reagan (Bayley Corman) wants to help Casey out. Reagan’s a cheerleader but, because she went through a lengthy “ugly duckling” phase, she still feels a lot of compassion for the downtrodden. Reagan befriends Casey. Regan encourages Casey to tell the entire school about the fire and to reveal that scars underneath her wig. Reagan defends Casey against the abuse of Hailey and she tells Casey that she shouldn’t be ashamed of her mother’s waitressing job. She even encourages Casey to believe that she might win the year-end award for “Most Inspiring” student!

Of course, Hailey and her friend, Clair (Ashlee Fuss), keep telling Reagan that Casey isn’t the perfect, shy person that she pretends to be. They say that Casey shouldn’t be trusted. Reagan refuses to believe them. After all, Clair’s just mad because she broken her ankle in a mysterious accident. And Hailey’s been upset ever since the cops discovered the stash of pills in her backpack. (Of course, Hailey swears that the pills don’t belong to her, which sounds like something a pill-popping cheerleader would say….) Reagan has no reason to believe Hailey and Clair but …. what if they’re right!?

Most Likely To Murder is a lot of fun, precisely because, for the majority of the movie, only the viewers are aware that Casey’s not as innocent as she pretends to be and there’s something undeniably enjoyable about watching her yank the wool down over everyone’s eyes. She may be a menace but she’s a clever menace and that makes her a lot of fun to watch. Madison McLaughlin does a great job in the role, making Casey not just dangerous but also sympathetic as well. I mean, as bad as Casey turns out to be, her tormentors aren’t much better. In the end, everyone’s kind of evil except for Reagan and her snarky friend, Taylor (Kara Royster). Needless to say, I’m a fan of any film where the snarky best friend is one of the heroes.

Most Likely To Murder provides exactly what you want from a Lifetime film — melodrama, murder, and high school backstabbing. It’s a lot of fun and one to keep an eye out for.