Cleaning Out The DVR: Killer Body (dir by David I. Strasser)

Posted on January 3, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I recorded Killer Body off of Lifetime on December 30th.)

Oh my God, this was a great movie!

Okay, so check this out. Once upon a time, there was a medical student named Elizabeth (Lindsay Maxwell) who felt like she was being shunned and ignored by her classmates. She had a crush on a doctor named Chris (Peter Benson) but Chris was in love with Katie Jones (Sunny Mabrey), Eventually, Elizabeth ended up having a total melt down and was forced to drop out of medical school. Elizabeth become obsessed with plastic surgery, hoping to make herself look perfect (which, in this case, meant looking more and more like Katie). Now going by the name Liz Oakley, she goes from doctor to doctor, getting work done and then suing them for malpractice. And if she can’t get your medical license taken away, she’ll just spray you with poison perfume. Seriously, this film features 4 separate attacks by toxic perfume.

One day, Liz shows up at Katie’s office and, until Liz introduced herself, Katie doesn’t even recognize her. Liz wants some minor work done and she claims that she’s been referred by one of Katie’s colleagues. Of course, Liz soon proves herself to be just as unstable as you might expect someone who regularly murders people to be. Soon, all Katie’s like, “I don’t want you as my patient anymore,” and Liz is like, “Fine, I’ll just destroy your life.”

Soon, Liz is showing up on a college campus and making a seriously awkward attempt to befriend Liz’s daughter. Katie and Chris (whose brilliant medical career has been brought to an end by a stroke) take out a restraining order but there’s nothing in that order that can stop Liz from going to another, less ethical plastic surgeon and having more work done in her quest to be perfect and to look more like Katie. Of course, when the surgery results in Liz having a barely noticeable scar on her chin, it’s not a good thing…

Obviously, the success of a film like this pretty much hinges on the actress who is cast as the stalker/psycho character and fortunately, Liz is played by Lindsay Maxwell. Maxwell turns Liz into a force of uncontrollable, narcissistic nature and one of the more entertaining aspects of the film is watching as Liz goes from smiling to screaming in just a matter of seconds. On the one hand, Liz is a complete psycho but, on the other hand, who hasn’t wanted to be perfect and who hasn’t, at least once, thought about they would do to achieve that perfection? Maxwell wisely adds just a bit of vulnerability to the character, making Liz a psycho to whom you can relate. Sunny Mabrey and Peter Benson also contribute good performance but ultimately, the film is dominated by Lindsay Maxwell and her bottle of killer perfume.

Killer Body was a killer melodrama, exactly the type of movie that we watch Lifetime to see. Between the murders and the intrigue and the attempts to fool Chris into committing adultery, this was a wonderfully entertaining look at just how far people will go to achieve perfection.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: The Christmas Pact (dir by Marita Grabiak)

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ll admit it. I get sentimental around Christmas time.

Actually, to be honest, I’m sentimental all the time but I’m even more so once December rolls around. Suddenly, the simplest little things can bring tears to my mismatched eyes. I find myself telling complete strangers about how much I relate to Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street and Violet Bickerstaff in It’s a Wonderful Life. December is the time of the year when I suddenly find myself walking up to my neighbors and complimenting them on how they decorated their house. I actually find myself spending more money on other people than on myself.

And I guess I’m not alone in that. I mean, that really is one of the big things about the holidays. Regardless of how cynical or snarky the world may be, it’s always safe to be sentimental in December. That’s something that’s certainly understood by the programmers at Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel. This month, both of those networks have broadcast some of the most sentimental films ever made.

Take The Christmas Pact, for instance. This film, which aired on Lifetime, was one of the most unabashedly sentimental films that I’ve ever seen. That’s not a complaint, of course. Or at least, that’s not a complaint in December. If the film had been released in October and called The Halloween Pact or maybe The Labor Day Pact, I might feel differently. But this is The Christmas Pact!

In this one, Kyla Pratt played Sadie and Jarod Joseph played Ben. They’ve grown up next to each other. They’re best friends. One year, they plant a tree and, every year after that, they meet at the tree on Christmas and they not only add a ormenant but they also discuss their Christmas wishes. It’s an incredibly sweet idea and, from the start, it’s pretty obvious that they’re meant to be together.

Unfortunately, the path of true love never runs clear. In this case, it’s partially because everyone swears that you can’t fall in love with your best friend. (I actually used to believe that but then I did fall in love with my best friend. Yay love!) It’s also because Sadie has big plans and opportunities, the majority of which involve leaving town for some place better. Can true love survive in a complicated world?

Of course it can! It’s Christmas!

Anyway, The Christmas Pact has a nice idea behind it, even if it is sometimes easy to get annoyed with just how unnecessarily difficult Ben and (especially) Sadie make things. In the end, though, Kyla Pratt and Jarod Joseph had enough chemistry to keep the story moving. As I said earlier, it’s December. Things that wouldn’t work in any other month do work in December.

That’s the magic of Christmas.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: Christmas Perfection (dir by David Jackson)

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For me, Christmas Perfection was about as perfect as a Christmas film can get.

It’s all about Darcy (Caitlin Thompson), who grew up dreaming of the type of perfect Christmas that she never actually got to experience. Her parents are divorced and can hardly handle being in the same room together. Her best friend has the type of dark sense of humor that doesn’t always go along with Yuletide joy. Her best friend since childhood, Brandon (James Henri-Thomas), is obviously in love with her but Darcy continually insists that he’s just a friend. She dreams of a perfect boyfriend, one who makes every Christmas special.

Every December, Darcy sets up her Christmas village. It’s a recreation of the perfect Irish village that she always used to hear about when she was younger and it’s full of figures that are based on the people from Darcy’s life. Darcy has created the perfect world in which she wishes she could live.

And then one day, through a little Christmas magic, Darcy wakes up in her perfect village!

It’s a village where every day is Christmas. Every day, Darcy wakes up and puts on a perfect Christmas sweater. Her parents, who love each other and never fight in this perfect fantasy world, start every day with a perfectly prepared breakfast. In her perfect Christmas village, everyone gathers in the pub and dances and Darcy ends up each day by making a snowman with her perfect boyfriend, Tom (Robbie Silverman).

Everything’s perfect, right?

But then, something unexpected happens. Suddenly, Brandon shows up! It turns out that, through the same magic that transported Darcy, Brandon is now a part of the Christmas village. Brandon takes one look around and tells Darcy that this is insane. She’s created a world that’s so perfect that it’s also a prison. By creating a rigidly perfect Christmas, Darcy has lost sight of what the holiday is all about!

Darcy dismisses Brandon’s concerns. But, as day after day passes, she starts to realize that a world without spontaneity isn’t a world worth living in. Tom may be the idealized guy but that also means that, at the end of every day, he’s going to make the exact snowman in the exact same way and he’s not going to listen to Darcy’s suggestions for how they could make the snowman different. I mean, everyone knows what a snowman is supposed to look like, right?

Now, I know this might sound like it’s just a Christmas-themed version of Groundhog Day and certainly, that’s a legitimate comparison. That said, I still liked the film. It even brought tears to my mismatched, multi-colored eyes. I looked at Darcy and I watched her obsessive attempts to make the holidays perfect and, as a child of divorce, I knew exactly what she was going through. Year after year, you wonder why you couldn’t keep your parents together and you fool yourself into thinking that, if you can just get them together for one perfect day, you can magically erase all of the pain and sadness of the year before. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that and sometimes, like Darcy, we spend so much time pursuing an idealized dream that we forget that there’s still joy and happiness to be found in the messiness of reality as well. It may not always be easy to find but it’s there. You just have to be willing to look for it.

The film may be called Christmas Perfection but it’s message is that Christmas and families and friends don’t have to be perfect to be special. And that’s a good message for us all.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: Jingle Belle (dir by Peter Sullivan)

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As our longtime readers know, I’ve never been one for false modesty. I know that there are things that I do well and I don’t see any reason not to brag about my natural talents. On occasion, I’ve been told that it can be a little off-putting but so what? As long as its justified, what’s wrong with a little arrogance?

That said, part of knowing what I can do means being honest about what I can’t do. And if there’s any job that I would absolutely suck at, it would be writing advertising jingles. I mean, there’s a reason why none of my poems ever rhyme. Coming up with pithy one-liners that will make you want to “buy! buy! buy!,” just isn’t my specialty. Fortunately, jingles themselves are no longer as important as they were back in the Mad Men era. In fact, off the top of my head, I can only think of one current jingle and that’s the “Liberty Liberty Liberty Lib-er-ty!” song.

(And everyone hates that!)

Fortunately, Belle Williams (Tatyana Ali), the main protagonist of Jingle Belle, doesn’t have that problem. Long ago, she abandoned New York for Ohio and she’s established herself as one of the best jingle writers around. Unfortunately, it appears that she might be losing that magic touch. As this film begins, she’s suffering from a terrible case of writer’s block. In fact, when the mayor of her hometown calls and asks her to return home and help write the annual Christmas pageant, her initial reaction is to say no. However, her boss (Loretta Devine) insists that Belle take the assignment. Perhaps a trip back home is just what Belle needs to break through her writer’s block.

Belle returns home, planning on helping the town out. What she doesn’t know is that the Christmas pageant is being directed by her ex-boyfriend and former performing partner, Michael Hill (Cornelius Smith, Jr). Can Belle and Michael set aside their differences and their complicated personal history long enough to put on a successful Christmas pageant? And how will Michael the purist react when Belle’s boss tries to turn one of their songs into an advertising jingle?

Of course, you already know the answer to all those questions. Jingle Belle is predictable even by the standards of a Lifetime Christmas movie. As I’ve said quite a bit this month, how much you enjoy this film will depend on how much tolerance you have for Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas films in general. (That’s kind of become my mantra this month.) Anyway, there’s no surprises to be found in this one but Cornelius Smith, Jr. is appropriately charismatic as Michael and the great Loretta Devine mines a lot of humor out of the role of the demanding boss.

The film’s final message is that small towns are better than big cities and you can write jingles anywhere. It’s a nice little message but, then again, it does seem like, if you work in advertising, it would be a good idea to live near the hub of the advertising industry. That said, I’ve never written a jingle in my life so I could be wrong. All I know is that, wherever Belle lives, she’ll come up with something better than the Liberty Mutual jingle and really, that’s the most important thing of all.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: A Christmas in Tennessee (dir by Gary Yates)

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How do they celebrate Christmas in Tennessee?

With a lot of down home love!

Or, at least, that’s what I learned from watching this Lifetime Christmas movie.

A Christmas In Tennessee is the latest in a long line of Lifetime Christmas movies that make a big deal about where they’re set. In the past, we’ve had Christmas in Mississippi and a Christmas in Vermont and I imagine that, at some point, we’ll have a Kansas Christmas or an Iowa Christmas. The thing that these films always have in common is a strong sense of nostalgia. These are films that tell us, “You can run off to New York, California, or Toronto but your heart will always remain in either the South or one of the smaller New England hamlets.”

In the case of the film, it’s Alison Bennett (Rachel Boston) who attempted to leave town, heading off to the big city so that she could become a big time French pastry shop. However, when she became pregnant, she moved back home and got a job working in her family’s bakery. Now, years later, it appears that the bakery is about to go out of business and her daughter, Olivia, is writing letters to Santa in which she begs Santa for money. Since the town traditionally publishes all letters to Santa in the newspaper, Alison is worried that everyone is going to realize how bad her situation is.

Meanwhile, Matthew (Andrew W. Walker) has come to town. Matthew is charming and handsome and actually rather nice but he works for a real estate developer who wants to buy the town square. Matthew is ambitious. He wants a promotion. The only way he’s going to get it is to get his hands on that property. However, to do that, he has to convince Alison to sign over the land to him. Alison could really use the money but there’s no way that she’s going to betray the town that she calls home. That’s not the way things are done in Tennessee!

And then …. okay, let me stop to catch my breath here. There’s a lot going on in this movie.

*breathes*

Okay …. and then, two mysterious strangers stop by the bakery. One of them has a white beard and a jolly manner. The other is his wife and is played by Caroline Rhea. Olivia takes one look at these two strangers and decides that 1) the man is Santa Claus and 2) Santa loves her mother’s cookies! It’s time to write another letter to Santa.

Well, of course, Olivia’s letter about Santa’s favorite cookies goes viral. (It even appears as a story on “Buzz News.”) So, can Alison use her new found fame to save the town?

A Christmas in Tennessee is okay. How you react to it will probably have a lot to do with how you feel about Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas films in general. If you like them, you’ll like this one. At heart, it’s a sweet movie and both Rachel Boston and Andrew W. Walker give sincere performances. It’s an idealized version of Christmas and who doesn’t love that this time of year?

I look forward to discovering which state we’ll visit next year.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: The Christmas Contract (dir by Monika Mitchell)

Posted on December 23, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s a very clever scene at the beginning of The Christmas Contract.

Jack Friedman (Robert Buckley) is a writer who can’t get any of the big publishing houses to even take a look at his new book. However, Jack’s agent informs him that they might change his mind if he does some ghostwriting. One can see from Jack’s reaction that this is not the first time that he’s been asked to be a ghostwriter and it’s not something that he particularly enjoys. Still, because one does have to eat, Jack agrees.

His agent tells him that he’ll be ghostwriting the latest installment in a very popular but critically dismissed series of romance novels. He’s told to go read the previous book in the series and then to basically rewrite it, just changing a few details so that it can be advertised as a totally new book. He’s given a list of plot points that the publishers want to be included in the book. Again, it’s not particularly important how the plot points are integrated into the story. Instead, they just have to be there.

Moonlight dance? Yep.

Kisses under the stars? Yep.

Oh, and the book needs to take place in Louisiana.

Now, you don’t have to be a part of the industry to realize that, in this scene, Jack is serving as a stand-in for every writer who has ever been assigned to write a Hallmark (or, let’s just be honest here, Lifetime) Christmas movie. Don’t try to reinvent the season, just make sure that the basics are there. Pick a new location and you’re ready to go!

With that scene, the makers of The Christmas Contract are acknowledging that, “yes, this is another Lifetime holiday movie.” And yes, it’s going to remind you of a lot of other Lifetime holiday movies. But, that still doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it. After all, the appeal of a movie like this is to be found in its familiarity. In an often chaotic world, there’s something to be said for the comfort of a good, if predictable, romance novel. The same can be said of a Lifetime Christmas movie.

Anyway, it’s a good thing that the publishers want the book to be set in Louisiana because that’s where Jack spends his holiday. He’s actually accompanying a recently single woman named Jodie (Hilarie Burton) back to her home for Christmas. Because Jodie’s ex-boyfriend is going to be visiting with his new girlfriend, Jodie doesn’t want her family to know that she’s single. So, Jack pretends to be her boyfriend. They even sign a contract ahead of time. And, yes, you can guess exactly what ends up happening but, again, that’s kind of the point with a movie like this.

The cast, which includes several veterans of One Tree Hill, does a good job with the material but the true star of this film is the state of Louisiana. This film makes full use of the beautiful Louisiana landscape and the celebratory nature of the state’s culture. It may have been predictable but it was still enjoyable. Spending the holidays with Jodie, Jack, and the family looked like a lot of fun.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: Christmas Lost and Found (dir by Michael Scott)

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s become a bit of a cliché that all Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas movies take place in a small town and feature someone returning to visit relatives for the holidays. Christmas Lost and Found, however, breaks with tradition. While it is true that film begins with Whitney Kennison (Tiya Sircar) returning to her former hometown so she can spend the Christmas with her grandmother (Diane Ladd), the hometown in this case is Chicago.

(Of course, in all fairness, I guess we should keep in mind that Whitney left Chicago for New York City, where she found employment as an event planner. And, from what I’ve seen, it does appear that a lot of people in New York consider almost every other city in America to be a small town by comparison. That being said, I live in Dallas and I spend my holidays in Fort Worth so, to me, both New York and Chicago are huge metropolises.

Anyway, where was I?)

Whitney is an extremely successful in event planner in New York City but her success has come at a cost Whitney is so driven to succeed and such a workaholic that she’s running the risk of forgetting about the things that make life worthwhile, things like love and family.

Fortunately, Grandma’s here with her box of ornaments!

The ornaments are several years old, each one representing a different Christmas that Whitney spent with her grandmother. (For instance, a snow flake ornament represents that Christmas when they got snowed in.) Grandma gives Whitney the box of ornaments and tells her to keep them safe until it’s time to decorate the tree. However, the very next morning, Whitney is cleaning the house and the ornaments accidentally get thrown out!

Terrified that she’s lost the ornaments and ruined Christmas foever, Whitney puts off telling Grandma what happened. However, then the notes start to show up, rhyming riddles that inform Whitney that she’s going to have to go on a scavenger hunt across Chicago to get the ornaments back. Now, this may sound like the set up for a holiday-themed horror movie but have no fear! The first riddle says that it might sound like a stunt but promises that it will be fun.

Working with the neighbor, Brian (Edward Ruttle), Whitney goes searching for both the ornaments and, in a larger sense, Christmas itself. With each ornament that she finds, she’s reminded of yet another Christmas. The unseen letter writer continues to give Whitney tasks, making her write a letter to Santa Claus at one point. While Whitney searches for the ornaments, she also tries to figure out the identity of the letter writer. And, of course, she also has to finish designing a department store display window because …. well, why not?

How you react to this movie will probably depend on how much tolerance you have for Lifetime holiday movies in general. This is an unabashedly sentimental film and it takes place in a world that’s almost devoid of cynicism. You have to be willing to accept that someone was somehow able to put together an extremely elaborate scavenger hunt and have it play out without a hitch. Is the film implausible? Kinda. And if that matters to you, you’re probably not into Lifetime Christmas movies.

As for me, I always get sentimental around this time of year so I enjoyed Christmas Lost and Found. Edward Ruttle was likable as the neighbor and he and Tiya Sircar had enough chemistry to make them pleasant to watch on screen. And, of course, you’ve got the great Diane Ladd playing Whitney’s grandmother. It’s hard to think of anyone who could have done a better job with the role.

If you’re not naturally inclined to like these type of movies, Christmas Lost and Found probably won’t convert you. But if you enjoy sentimental holiday entertainment, Christmas Lost and Found delivers exactly what it promises.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: Hometown Christmas (dir by Emily Moss Wilson)

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If there’s any lesson to be learned from Lifetime (and, for that matter, Hallmark) Christmas movies, it’s that no one should leave their hometown.

Seriously, everything’s always better in your hometown. You might find success in the big city. You might own a nice car. You might find a huge apartment. You might even have a well-paying job. But you’ll never have what you had when you’re living in a small town with good, honest people, some of whom were related to you.

Admittedly, it’s easy for snarky critics like me to poke fun at this idea and the way that it shows up in every single Lifetime Christmas film. But you know what? These films have a point. Every Christmas, my sisters and I get together and we pretty much stay together until the new year. That’s our Christmas tradition and it’s one that I look forward to every year. I always know that no matter what’s going on in our own individual lives, we’re all going to be together with the holidays and everything is going to be right with the world.

That’s certainly what I was thinking about as I watched Hometown Christmas, a Lifetime film in which Noelle (Beverly Mitchell) returns to her hometown in Louisiana for the holidays. There’s not a lot of conflict to be found in Hometown Christmas, but that’s okay. This is a film in which the nicest people in the world gather in the nicest town in the world and proceed to have the nicest holiday in the world and that’s why the film works. Save the horror for Halloween. Save the conflict for …. well, whenever the next election is. This is a Christmas movie and Christmas movies should make you feel good and happy.

When your name is Noelle, it’s perhaps to be expected that your life is going to revolve around Christmas. That certainly seems to be the case with the character that Beverly Mitchell plays in this film. One of the nice things about Hometown Christmas is that it never suggests that Noelle had to return to her hometown because she was miserable outside of it. Instead, Noelle returns because she wants to return. To be specific, Noelle has returned to stage the live Nativity, a town tradition that was started by her late mother. Of course, as soon as Noelle returns home, she runs into her old high school boyfriend, Nick (Stephen Colletti). Nick was going to be a star baseball player but injuries put an end to that. Things are a little bit awkward between Nick and Noelle at first but it’s not long before they’re working on the Nativity and Nick is proving that he’s grown up a lot since he and Noelle last saw each other. It’s a sweet relationship.

(Actually, there’s more than just one love story that unfolds over the course of Hometown Christmas. While Nick and Noelle are getting reacquainted, Noelle’s father (Brian McNamara) is falling for Nick’s mother (Melissa Gilbert). Meanwhile, Noelle’s brother is newly engaged.)

It was a pleasant Christmas love story and I enjoyed it. Hometown Christmas is full of the holiday spirit, as any hometown Christmas should be.

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: Christmas Around The Corner (dir by Megan Follows)

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Claire (Alexandra Breckenridge) is a venture capitalist who lives in the big city but dreams of visiting the same small Vermont town that her mother once loved.

Andrew (Jamie Spilchuk) is the latest in a long line of blacksmiths and he also owns an independent bookstore in the same small Vermont town where all of his ancestors have lived.

Together….

THEY SOLVE CRIMES!

Okay, not really. Christmas Around The Corner is a Lifetime Christmas movie, which means that there’s not a single crime to be committed. For that matter, there’s none of the other things that we typically expect from a Lifetime movie. There’s no seductive nannies. There’s no duplicitous best friends. No adultery. No scheming. No runaways. Nope, that doesn’t happen on Lifetime around Christmas time.

Instead, the movie opens with Claire having some sort of major career setback. I’m not really sure what the exact details were but it had something to do with the stock market and a downward pointing arrow and a party that none of her investors came to. It was financial stuff, which I’ve never really been able to follow. What’s important is that Claire decided to get out of New York and spend the holidays in that small town in Vermont.

(Yes, yes, I know. Vermont. I hate Vermont but I won’t go into that right now.)

Anyway, Andrew runs a bookstore that also rents out rooms or something like that. Apparently, when you’re staying at the bookstore, you’re also expected to work in the bookstore. I have such mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I would love to live over a bookstore. And I probably wouldn’t mind working in a bookstore, as long as I was the owner and could basically spend all day bossing people around and having them rearrange the books. I mean, that seems like it would be a lot of fun. However, I just can’t imagine going on a vacation so I could work.

When Claire arrives in the town, she’s really looking forward to the annual Christmas festival but …. uh oh! The festival has been cancelled! In fact, due to tough times and bad weather, it would appear that no one in town has the Christmas spirit! No one but Claire!

So, can Claire get the town to rediscover its love of Christmas?

Even more importantly, can she use her marketing background to show Andrew a better way to run his bookstore? Of course, she can! Unfortunately, it may all be for naught because Andrew is thinking about selling the bookstore!

Along the way, Andrew and Claire fall in love. Can you blame them? I mean, Andrews’s a blacksmith! Soot is sexy.

As you might expect from a Lifetime Christmas film, Christmas Around The Corner is more than a little predictable but, at the same time, it’s a sweet movie. The town looks beautiful and Alexandra Breckenridge and Jamie Spilchuk have a likable chemistry as the two leads. As anyone who has ever watched a Lifetime Christmas movie knows, these films always have an older voice of wisdom who helps to bring everyone together. This time, that voice of wisdom was provided by the veteran actress Jane Alexander and she did a good job with her role. It’s a likable movie, which is really the main thing that can ever be asked of a movie like this. It’ll make you feel happy and Christmas-y.

Because, after all, Christmas is right around the corner!

What Lisa Watched Last Night #196: Killer Vacation (dir by Tamar Halpern)

Posted on November 24, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime Movie Network premiere, Killer Vacation!

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was new and it was on the Lifetime Movie Network, of course!

Also, I watched it because the Christmas season has begun, which means that Lifetime is mostly going to be showing holiday movies for the next few weeks. I absolutely love Christmas movies but, even during the holidays, there are times when you just want to see an over-the-top melodrama about someone trying to go on vacation without dying. Killer Vacation offered a beak from the relentless holiday cheer so, of course, I was going to watch it while shopping online for Christmas decorations.

What Was It About?

Lindsey (Alexa Havins) is having an affair with her boss, Jake (Jacob Young). Unfortunately, Jake’s married. He swears that he’s getting divorced but Lindsey can’t help but notice that he still wears his wedding ring. When Lindsey learns that she’s pregnant, Jake suggests that they go on a vacation together. Soon, they’re at a resort in New Mexico and strange things are happening!

Could it have anything to do with the fact that Jake’s wife is wandering around the resort as well? And what about the passive-aggressive private detective who keeps popping up at the most awkward possible moments? And then there’s that handsome and overly friendly yoga instructor. Is he trying to help or does he have ulterior motives?

One thing’s for sure. This vacation is taking a deadly turn!

What Worked?

Never underestimate just how big a factor wish-fulfillment is when it comes to understanding the appeal of a good Lifetime film. When a Lifetime film has the word “vacation” in the title, that means that the film is promising you lot of pretty scenery and a nice resort. On that front, Killer Vacation definitely delivered! New Mexico looked beautiful and I really liked the hotel where Jake and Lindsey were staying.

(In fact, that hotel reminded me of Paradise Hotel. Remember that old reality show? I used to watch marathons of it on the much-missed Fox Reality Channel. The fact that we only got two seasons of Paradise Hotel is a crime!)

What Did Not Work?

At times, Lindsey seemed almost too dumb to be believed. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We’ve all been there. At some point, we’ve all fallen for the wrong guy and ignored all of our friends telling us we were making a mistake and accepted some pretty flimsy excuses for some unforgivable behavior. So, it’s not that I couldn’t sympathize with Lindsey but seriously, it took Lindsey a really long time to reach the point that most people would reach right away. Myself, I would buy a plane ticket home as soon as I suspected that my married lover had tried to push me off a cliff. Maybe that’s just me.

As well, the identity of the murderer was just a bit too obvious. The film did attempt to introduce some red herrings but it was pretty obvious who the killer was going to turn out to be.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I related to the scene where Lindsey slipped on a mountain path and nearly fell to her death. That’s one reason why I rarely go to the desert because I would totally end up being the girl who got distracted and accidentally walked over the edge of a cliff.

Lessons Learned

Never pass up the opportunity to take a free yoga class! Seriously, your life might depend upon it!