Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #6: Who Killed My Husband? (dir by David Winning)

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by Thanksgiving, November 24th! Will she make it? Keep checking the site to find out!)

I recorded Who Killed My Husband off of the Lifetime Movie Network on October 16th.

Who Killed My Husband opens with Detective Douglas Howell (Jim Thorburn) on top of the world! He’s recently married a fellow detective, Sophie (Andrea Bowen). He’s got a teenage daughter named Chloe (Yasmeene Ball) and Chloe may have extremely severe asthma and she may be having a hard time adjusting to her new stepmother but everything’s going to be okay, right? After all, it’s her birthday! All Doug has to do is drive out to the local bakery and pick up her birthday cake!

Doug’s life is so perfect that I’m surprised that he doesn’t have a personalized license plates that read, “Live4Eva.” Because, seriously, when everything’s going this perfect, there’s no way that some sudden tragedy could occur, right?

Well, if that was the case, there wouldn’t be many Lifetime movies. And, just because of this movie’s title, we already know what’s going to happen to Doug before he even steps into that bakery…

Doug picks up his cake but then he notices that a mysterious man in a hoodie is loitering inside the bakery. “Hey,” Doug says, “this place is closed.” (That’s not an exact quote and no, I’m not going to rewatch the damn film just to get the exact quote. It’s close enough.) The man turns around, draws a gun, and shoots Doug!

TRAGEDY!

Anyway, Sophie spends a while on desk duty but eventually, her brother — who also happens to be her boss — gives her an undercover assignment. Apparently, someone is embezzling money from the local cybertech company. Sophie’s given a job at the company and she’s also given an office! Fortunately, everyone who works at the company is always having incriminating conversations right outside her office. That should make it easy to solve the case. Except…

That’s right, there’s a twist! First off, the owner of the company is mysteriously blown up and his wife doesn’t seem to care. Sophie finds herself attracted to a coworker but wonders if she can trust him. Then, when she’s climbing a wall as a part of team-building exercise, she nearly plunges to her death! There’s more than just embezzlement going on at this company and somehow, it’s related to her husband’s death.

Does that sound complicated? It really isn’t. This is pretty much a typical Lifetime film and you’ll be able to guess who the bad guy is pretty easily. Probably the most interesting thing about the mystery subplot is that it gives us a chance to view Lifetime’s version of what it’s like to work for Google. You thought that the companies portrayed in Silicon Valley were cut throat? Just check out Who Killed My Husband!

I did, however, like the film’s other subplot. After her father’s death, Chloe resents her mother and Sophie struggles to connect with her stepdaughter. Chloe is taken seriously ill during the investigation and Sophie has to balance solving the mystery with taking care of her daughter. That was sweet. I have asthma and I was a rebellious teenager so I related to Chloe.

Otherwise, this was pretty much a typical and kind of forgettable little Lifetime film. If you enjoy Lifetime films, this is a pleasant little time waster. If you’re not into Lifetime movies, Who Killed My Husband probably won’t change your mind.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #4: The Watcher (dir by Ryan Rothmaier)

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Check out the couple in the picture above.

Wow, they sure do look happy, don’t they? That’s Emma (Erin Cahill) and Noah (Ed Gathegi) and they have every reason to happy! They’ve just bought a new home! It’s a nice big, house and it’s in what appears to be a perfect neighborhood. Sure, the neighbors are a little quiet and some of them occasionally appear to be giving the new couple a strange look but that’s probably nothing, right? And sure, the house was a little bit cheaper than expected because, a few years ago, there was a death. People have died in the house.

But you know what? People die every day. And a lot of them do so in a house. If you refused to live in a house just because someone died in it, you’d probably never be able to live anywhere…

Of course, this house was apparently the scene of a murder but again, these things happen.

The screenshot above is from a movie called The Watcher, which I recorded off of the Lifetime Movie Network on October 9th. Since The Watcher premiered in the Halloween month, you can probably guess what happens once Emma and Noah move into their new house. There are strange deliveries. There are strange noises. Strange notes, some delivered via a dead animal, start to show up. The notes inform the couple that they are being watched.

Who is watching them?

The Raven.

Who is the Raven? And does it have anything to do with a huge black raven that the local neighborhood boy, Mickey (Riley Baron), claims to have seen near the house? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out…

(Interestingly enough, this was all loosely based on a true story.)

Usually, I’m a bit skeptical of Lifetime horror films. You can read my review of Amish Witches to find out why but, to put it simply, the Lifetime format doesn’t always lend itself to horror. But The Watcher actually works surprisingly well. As directed by Ryan Rothmaier, The Watcher is an atmospheric and well-acted portrait of housebound horror. The film ends with a twist that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and yet it works because it is just so odd and totally out there. The implausibility of the twist actually adds to The Watcher‘s dream-like atmosphere.

I recommend watching The Watcher.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #3: Amish Witches (dir by Jake Wade Wall)

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recorded Amish Witches on October 29th, off of Lifetime. I recorded it even though I was watching it at the time. That’s my usual practice when it comes to Lifetime and SyFy films but what’s interesting is that I actually rewatched Amish Witches immediately after it ended. That’s right — I watched this movie twice in one night and yet I still could not bring myself to actually review the damn thing. In fact, the only reason that I’m reviewing it now is because I desperately need to get rid of it so that I can make room on my DVR. As far as Amish Witches goes, there’s just so little to say about it.

I attempted to live tweet this film twice. During my first attempt, the best tweet that I could come up with was:

"Aye, we have many a fine barn but no witches here, English." #AmishWitches

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) October 30, 2016

That should tell you about how uninspiring Amish Witches was.

I then did a special live feed for my friends on the west coast and, even with the advantage of having already seen the film, I still couldn’t come up with anything better than:

They should have called #AmishWitches the Real Housewives of Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) October 30, 2016

Seriously, it was a tragic state of affairs!

Anyway, I have now sat through Amish Witches three times and it’s still a struggle for me to really understand what the point of the film was. Supposedly, it’s based on a true story. In order to convince us of how truthful it all is, the film does the whole found footage thing. A film crew is shooting a documentary about an Amish sect with the local Brauchau dies. Brauchau is apparently the Amish term for witch. What’s interesting is that my closed captioning insisted that the Amish weren’t saying Brauchau and, instead, they were saying Bruja. Bruja, of course, is the Spanish word for witch and I have to admit that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why the Amish would be speaking Spanish.

(In the end, I believe it was an issue with whoever transcribed the film’s dialogue and not with the film itself.)

Anyway, because the Brauchau was being shunned, she is not buried on consecrated ground and she is also buried in black. (Apparently, Amish in good standing are buried in white.) Not even the Bishop comes to the funeral! Soon, strange things start to happen around the Amish village. It’s supposed to be scary but, for the most part, it’s just loud noises and occasionally mysterious finger prints showing up on a window pane. Could it be that the spirit of the Bauchau is upset over her unconsecrated burial!?

Well, wouldn’t you be?

Anyway (and yes, I realize that I’m using that term a lot but this is one of those films that just makes you yell, “Anyway!”), Amish Witches is a slow-moving film that doesn’t really add up to much. Lifetime premiered several horror-themed films for Halloween but, as Amish Witches demonstrates, Lifetime may not be the right channel for a true horror film. Amish Witches features a lot of people screaming and, since it’s found footage, it does the whole shaky cam thing but it never adds up to much. Since you know you’re watching a Lifetime film, you also know that nothing truly terrifying is going to happen. There’s no risk of anyone getting eaten by a zombie in between commercials for Dance Moms and AARP. There’s a shot of a hanging body at one point but that’s pretty much it.

As I mentioned, Amish Witches is a found footage film and, in many ways, its epitomizes everything that I tend to despise about that genre. It does all the usual tricks — out-of-focus shots, shakey hand-held stuff, and plenty of “Are you getting this!?” dialogue but it still never feels in any way authentic.

Speaking of authentic, you have to feel bad for the Amish. Because people assume that they’ve rejected the outside world, they’re an easy target for bad movies. After all, filmmakers tend to assume, they’re never going to see the movie so they’re not going to complain, right? If you want to see a real documentary about the Amish, I suggest tracking down a 2002 film called Devil’s Playground. It’ll change everything that you assume when you hear the word “Amish.”

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #2: Mommy’s Secret (dir by Terry Miles)

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The next film that I watched off of my DVR was yet another Canadian-produced Lifetime film. This one was called Mommy’s Secret and I recorded it off of Lifetime on October 8th. I was on vacation when Mommy’s Secret originally aired, which is why I’m only now getting around to reviewing it.

Mommy’s Secret opens with a bank robbery. The robber appears to a skinny man who wears a baseball cap and has a goat-tee. He’s not a violent robber. He doesn’t threaten people or fire guns into the ceiling or anything like that. Instead, he simply slips the teller a note, collects his money, and then flees on his bicycle. We watch as the robber skillfully avoids the police, riding his bike to a parked SUV….

Hmmmm….a bank robber driving a SUV. That’s … interesting.

After stashing his bike and the money in the back of the SUV, the robber steps out of the way and the camera zooms in on a bumper sticker. “PTA” it reads.

Hmmm…does that stand for Pernicious Thieves Association? Or, actually, could our robber be a member of the Parent-Teacher Association?

The robber gets in the SUV. He removes his baseball cap and … wow, he’s get really nice hair. He then proceeds to remove his goatee and …. OH MY GOD, IT’S CHARISMA CARPENTER!

That’s right! Charisma Carpenter plays a bank robber in Mommy’s Secret. However, it turns out that the character she plays, suburban mom Anne Harding, has a good reason for robbing all those banks. Her husband has recently died and the insurance money has dried up. Her teenage daughter, Denise (Sarah Grey), is a soccer phenom who might be able to get a college scholarship but it still costs money to keep her playing. And then there’s her son, Kyle. Kyle is addicted to gambling but, unfortunately, he’s not every good at it. He owes the local crime lord a lot of money.

So, in order to keep her son alive and her daughter playing soccer, Anne agrees to rob a few banks.

And she’s surprisingly good at it! Seriously, I don’t think I could handle robbing a bank. I would get too nervous and I wouldn’t have the patience necessary to wait for them to open up that big vault in the back. Add to that, I always like going to the bank. Part of me would love to work at a bank, just so I could see how much money everyone has. So, no bank robbing for me.

As for Mommy’s Secret, it has a few slow spots but, for the most part, it was enjoyably ludicrous. Sarah Grey, who was also in A Mother’s Instinct and The Wrong Girl, does well as the responsible and concerned Denise. I think, for most people, the main appeal of the film will be seeing Charisma Carpenter robbing a bank and Carpenter actually gives a really good performance. Between this film and Bound, Carpenter is cornering the market when it comes to playing mothers with a secret.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #1: Unwanted Guest (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The first film that I watched in my latest quest to clean out my DVR was Unwanted Guest, a Lifetime film that I recorded off of the Lifetime Movie Network on October 22nd.

Unwanted Guest tells a familiar Lifetime story. A seemingly innocent and deceptively mousey college student, Amy (Kate Mansi), is invited to spend the holiday break at the home of her best friend, Christine (Valentina Novakovic). It seems like a nice thing to do, right? After all, Amy says that her family is in Europe and Christine is still struggling to adjust to having a new stepfather. Amy gets a place to stay and Christine gets a friend. It’s a win win, right?

Well, no, not quite.

When we first meet Amy, she’s wearing glasses, no makeup, and seems to be kind of meek. It doesn’t take a psychic to know that Amy will soon take off her glasses, let down her hair, and start wandering around in lingerie. However, even beyond that, Amy is soon drugging Christine, tricking Christine’s mother into falling off a stool, and seducing Christine’s stepfather.

(When he asks her why she’s wandering around the house in just a t-shirt, Amy replies, “If my shirt bothers you, I can take it off.”)

Of course, Amy’s not just manipulative. She’s also a murderer. In fact, it’s surprising the amount of people that she kills over the course of one holiday break. I always find it kind of odd how skilled people in Lifetime movies are when it comes to killing people. I mean, Amy even knows how to disable the brakes on someone’s car! I wouldn’t even know where to begin! I mean, how do you learn stuff like that? Wikipedia, I guess.

Of course, Amy doesn’t just kill people. There’s also a really icky scene where she kills a hamster. If you didn’t already dislike Amy, you will after the hamster scene.

Unwanted Guest is not just a Lifetime film. It’s also a Fred Olen Ray film and, even by his standards, it’s deliriously and wonderfully over-the-top. One thing that I always like about Fred Olen Ray’s films is that they make no excuses for what they are. Unwanted Guest is so unapologetically melodramatic and joyfully tawdry that it’s impossible not to enjoy it. This is one of those films that you watch and you think, “Surely, they’re not going to go there…” and then, suddenly and without apology, they do! It’s a lot of fun.

Add to that, Kate Mansi does a really good job in the role of Amy. If there’s a Hall of Fame for Lifetime movie psychos, Amy deserves to be included!

What Lisa Watched Last Night #159: Best-Selling Murder (dir by Michel Poulette)

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, after I watched Little Girl’s Secret, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Best-Selling Murder!

Why Was I Watching It?

The obvious answer, of course, is that it was a Lifetime premiere and y’all know how much I love my Lifetime movies! But, even beyond that, there were two reasons why I made it a point to watch Best-Selling Murder.

1) Much as with Little Girl’s Secret, I was hoping that — by watching and live tweeting Best-Selling Murder — I could bring some joy to an otherwise depressed world. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much live tweeting done because it was late and I was kinda tired.

2) It was a murder mystery about a writer! I’m a writer and I’d love to solve a real-life murder mystery! Obviously, this would be a movie to which I would be able to relate.

What Was It About?

Hannah (Vanessa Ray) is an acclaimed author who has run out of ideas. Actually, not only has she run out of ideas, but she’s also now on the verge of running out of opportunities. Her publisher is dropping her. As they explain it, awards and accolades don’t mean anything. People wants novels about teenage vampires and middle-aged bondage.

Of course, that’s not all Hannah has to worry about. Her creep of an ex-husband has married and impregnated her former best friend. She has not one but two stalkers following her around. And she also appears to have something of a drinking problem!

However, things start to look up after she starts to channel her rage into a serialized series of stories, all of which deal with a serial killer named Bloody Mary. If you betray Bloody Mary, you get stabbed in the heart…

Suddenly, people who have betrayed Hannah start to turn up dead. And guess what? They’ve all been stabbed in the heart!

What Worked?

Everything worked! Pulpy, melodramatic, and occasionally a little silly, this movie was the epitome of everything that makes Lifetime great. Don’t worry about whether or not the plot makes any sense. Don’t worry if some of the twists come out of nowhere. Instead, just enjoy the ride.

Vanessa Ray was well-cast as Hannah. Not only was she a sympathetic protagonist but you also actually believed that she capable of being a somewhat respected author. I’m always extremely sensitive to how writers are portrayed in the movies. Vanessa Ray was never less than believable.

Considering the number of Lifetime films that I’ve seen, it’s not easy to take me by surprise but this film’s twisty plot kept me guessing.

What did Not Work?

There was nothing that didn’t work about this film. Best-Selling Murder is exactly the type of movie that we watch Lifetime for. It was a melodramatic, fun, and even surprising.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I always relate to any film about a writer, especially if that writer is dealing with the darker side of life. It’s true that I’ve never gotten to solve a murder but who knows what the future holds!

Lessons Learned

Don’t upset Bloody Mary.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #158: Little Girl’s Secret (dir by Dominic James)

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched Little Girl’s Secret on Lifetime!

Why Was I Watching It?

Oh my God, everyone’s so depressed right now!

Or, actually, I should say that almost everyone I know is depressed right now. Obviously, the entire country is not depressed about Donald Trump winning the election because 60,000,000 people voted for him and I assume that they’re all happy. But the 60,000,0000 who voted against him are all pretty depressed right now. And, even worse, a lot of them are blaming my generation because not many of us voted and quite a few of us decided to vote third party.

My twitter timeline is seriously dark right now.

So, I figured that maybe I could cheer some people up by doing one of my famous Lifetime movie live tweets! Looking to help heal a divided nation, I watched Little Girl’s Secret on Lifetime and I tweeted every single thought that popped into my head. I don’t know if I saved the world but I certainly did increase my Klout score.

What Was It About?

That’s a good question! This film left me thoroughly confused, though that may be because I’m currently spending the weekend at my uncle’s and, as I tried to watch and tweet, I was also having to deal with 100 hyperactive cousins.

As far as I could tell, here’s what was happening in the movie: Jean (Maria Bello) is an artist. Dave (Callum Keith Rennie) is a writer. Molly (Sophie Nelisse) is Jean’s teenage daughter. Heather (Isabelle Nelisse) is Dave’s daughter. Michael (William Dickinson) is someone’s son. I guess he’s Molly’s brother but it wasn’t always easy to keep track of how everyone was related. He could have been Dave’s son and Heather’s brother. It really doesn’t matter.

Anyway, in 1982, this family leaves Baltimore and moves into a new home — a former church that’s been turned into a house! There’s a cemetery out back. There are ruins nearby. There’s a ghostly apparition that appears occasionally. Heather, who doesn’t feel like she belongs in this reconstructed family, is soon spending all of her time talking to the apparition.

Meanwhile, Molly is having nightmares and she keeps seeing birds forming ominous shapes in the sky. (It’s kinda like in Take Shelter.) She also starts to hear noises in the dark and see ominous shadows in unlit rooms. Why doesn’t anyone ever turn on the lights?

What Worked?

It had its share of creepy moments. Molly’s dreams were always well-executed.

What Did Not Work?

This movie was so damn dark! I don’t mean thematically. I mean that it was often hard to see what was going on in the movie because it never seemed to occur to anyone to turn on a light! I get the point, of course. This was a horror movie and everyone’s scared of the dark. But, after a little while, the constant darkness went from being atmospheric to just being silly.

Maria Bello, a terrific actress, was pretty much wasted in a minor role.

I was going to complain about the film’s pacing but I think that has more to do with the fact that it premiered on Lifetime than anything else. It’s difficult to maintain suspense when you’re having to stop every few minutes for a commercial break.

And finally, the plot itself was overly complicated and not particularly easy to follow.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I related to Molly in quite a few scenes. I was a rebellious 14 year-old too.

Lessons Learned

TURN ON THE DAMN LIGHTS!

What Lisa Watched Last Night #157: My Husband Is Missing (dir by Brenton Spencer)

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched more than just The Crooked Man! I also watched the latest Lifetime premiere, My Husband Is Missing.

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was on Lifetime, of course! Now, I do have to admit that it was something of a disjointed viewing experience. I watched the first hour of My Husband Is Missing, just long enough to discover that the main character’s husband was indeed missing. I then switched over to SyFy and I watched The Crooked Man.

After the Crooked Man ended, I started to watch the final hour of My Husband Is Missing off of the DVR but then I noticed that I also had an episode of Cheaters on the DVR as well. Well, naturally, I couldn’t understand why I would have ever recorded an episode of Cheaters. So, I decided to watch it. I was thinking maybe it would be the episode where Joey Greco got stabbed.

Nope, no stabbing. It was just a normal episode of Cheaters. Since the show was filmed in Dallas, I saw a lot of familiar locations but I still have no idea why I recorded it.

Life is weird, y’know?

Anyway, after all that, I watched the final hour of My Husband is Missing.

What Was It About?

Dale Bradshaw (Robert Underwood) is a father and a husband. AND HE’S MISSING! He was kidnapped out of his SUV and now, his kidnappers are posting videos of him all tied up and gagged. Are his kidnappers forcing him to act in an Eli Roth movie? Agck!

Since the police are totally useless — except for Det. Matthews (Aaron Pearl), I guess — it’s up to his daughter (Nicole Munoz) and his wife (Daphne Zuniga) to figure out what has happened to Dale!

As for Detective Matthews, he wants to help but he’s struggling because of government bureaucracy. Fortunately, to help him out, he has a hacker who looks like he stepped straight out of 1998.

What Worked?

Uhmm…

Actually, I will give the film credit for two things. I loved the title. According to the imdb, this film was originally known as Abducted Love but My Husband Is Missing is a hundred times better. My Husband Is Missing just screams Lifetime.

Secondly, this is yet another Lifetime film that was obviously filmed in Canada. That’s not a problem because I love Canada. Still, I appreciated the fact that every scene seemed to have an American flag in the background. It’s as if the filmmakers were saying, “The film is too taking place in the U.S., regardless of how Canadian most of the supporting cast may sound!” I appreciated the effort.

That said, I’d like to see a Canadian film on Lifetime that proudly embraced the fact that it was Canadian. Enough of this “let’s pretend we’re in upstate New York” stuff. I want to see a Lifetime film that proudly shouts, “THIS MOVIE IS SET IN TORONTO! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT!?”

What Did Not Work?

I usually have unconditional love for Lifetime films but this one just didn’t hold my interest. Part of the problem is that I figured out the mystery after about 20 minutes. There was no big or shocking twist.

“OMG! Just like me!” Moments

There is a redhead in the film but she works for the government and that’s something you’ll never find me doing.

Lessons Learned

Canada shouldn’t have to pretend to be upstate New York.

Back to School Part II #55: Sorority Nightmare (dir by Devon Downs and Kenny Gage)

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(For the past three weeks, Lisa Marie has been in the process of reviewing 56 back to school films! She’s promised the rest of the TSL staff that this project will finally wrap up by the end of today, so that she can devote her time to helping to prepare the site for its annual October horrorthon! Will she make it or will she fail, lose her administrator privileges, and end up writing listicles for Buzzfeed? Keep reading the site to find out!)

When I was going to college, I was actually encouraged by quite a few people to join a sorority but I never did. What can I say? I fancied myself as being an artist and an intellectual. I had no interest in conformity and, to me, that’s what sororities and fraternities represented. Why would I want to waste my time with that when I could spend my time writing poems about death? (Add to that, why go through all the trouble of joining a sorority when I knew I could get into all the good parties, regardless of whether I was a member of one or not?)

Seriously!

So, I made my decision to never get involved in any of that and I think I probably made the right choice for me. But occasionally, I’ll see a film on Lifetime that will make me change my mind. It seems that every year, there’s a few dozen Lifetime movies that are about something strange happening in a sorority. In the world of Lifetime, sororities are full of dark secrets, constant melodrama, and, more often than not, a murder or two. Lifetime makes sorority life look … well, if not exactly fun, at least entertaining!

Consider for instance, the film Sorority Nightmare! Sorority Nightmare aired on July 21st and, in the best Lifetime tradition, it totally lives up to its name. All you need to know about Sorority Nightmare is right there in the title. It deals with a sorority and, oh my God, is this place ever a nightmare! (According to the imdb, the film’s non-Lifetime title is Twisted Sisters. That’s a good title because these sorority sisters sure are twisted!)

As the start of the film, first-year college student Sarah (Sierra McCormick) is a lot like me. She’s an intellectual, a free thinker. She’s not really interested in being a part of a sorority. She’d rather hang out with her snarky roommate, Jodi (Sarah Kapner). Add to that, Sarah still blames herself for the death of her older sister, Jill. Jill was driving Sarah home after Sarah got too drunk at a party. When Jill attempted to pose for a selfie while driving, she ended up crashing the car and dying in the process. Sarah survived but, for obvious reasons, she’s no longer interested in getting drunk at parties.

But, her mother was a member of Psi Kappa and she insists that Sarah actually check the place out. And since Sarah is a legacy, she’s asked to pledge. Even though it means losing whatever credibility she may have with Jodi, Sarah decides to join.

It quickly turns out that Psi Kappa is more of a cult than a sorority. The cult is led by Daisy (Cassidy Gifford), who is friendly, perky, intense, and more than a little frightening. Daisy not only decides that Sarah is her new best friend but she also suggests that maybe Sarah shouldn’t have any other friends. When Daisy isn’t trying to control everyone’s lives, she busy popping what she says are breath mints but are actually “diet pills.”

OH MY GOD, DAISY’S A SPEED FREAK!

Anyway, Sorority Nightmare pretty much plays out exactly how you would expect it to but that doesn’t matter. As played by Cassidy Gifford, Daisy is literally a force of nature. She’s a nonstop tornado of manipulation and malicousness and it’s a lot of fun to watch. Sorority Nightmare is one of those wonderfully over the top Lifetime films where it’s obvious that the cast and the crew is in on the joke. Sit back, don’t worry, and enjoy the melodrama!

Back to School Part II #53: Stalked By My Doctor: The Return (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past three weeks, Lisa Marie has been in the process of reviewing 56 back to school films! She’s promised the rest of the TSL staff that this project will finally wrap up by the end of today, so that she can devote her time to helping to prepare the site for its annual October horrorthon! Will she make it or will she fail, lose her administrator privileges, and end up writing listicles for Buzzfeed? Keep reading the site to find out!)

Oh Hell yeah!

Eric Roberts is back as Dr. Beck and, once again, he’s obsessed with a teenage girl! Believe it or not, this is a good thing because this obsession leads to Dr. Beck spending a lot of time sitting in a car that’s parked in front of Amy’s (Claire Backwelder) high school. By doing so, Dr. Beck justifies my decision to include the 2016 Lifetime film Stalked By My Doctor: The Return in my series of Back to School reviews.

Thank you, Dr. Beck!

As you may remember from last year’s Stalked By My Doctor, Dr. Beck is a neurotic doctor who has an unfortunate tendency to get obsessed with his patients. At the end of the first movie, the good doctor narrowly escaped the police and was last seen flashing a somewhat nervous smile.

At the start of The Return, we find Dr. Beck now living in Mexico. He’s done a pretty good job of avoiding arrest and has a successful career going as a beach bum but he has yet to find true love. However, it seems like that might change when, one day, he spots a teenage girl drowning in the ocean. Dr. Beck not only saves Amy from drowning but he also literally brings her back to life. Seriously, my wonderful readers, be sure to learn CPR.

(Then again, I’m not sure that I’ve ever learned CPR. I guess I should. We can’t always depend on a crazy fugitive doctor to be around.)

Both Amy and her overprotective mom, Linda (Hilary Greer), are thankful and now, Dr. Beck is now obsessed all over again. In fact, he’s so obsessed that he even risks capture by returning to the United States. Under the pretense of merely wanting to check up on his patient, Beck starts to stalk Amy. Taking a lesson from Nabokov’s Lolita, Beck starts to go out with the neurotic Linda. By marrying Linda, Dr. Beck hopes that he can get to Amy.

All together now: Ewwwwwww! Bad doctor!

Amy and her boyfriend (Mark Grossman) eventually grow suspicious of Dr. Beck. They even recruit Amy’s Uncle Roger (Christopher Crabb) to investigate the good doctor. However, Linda refuses to hear a word against him. That’s not surprising, considering that she’s just agreed to marry him…

Stalked By My Doctor: The Return is a deliberately over-the-top melodrama, one that has more in common with the snarky satire of A Deadly Adoption than the previous Stalked By My Doctor. Sprinkled throughout the film are several scenes in which Dr. Beck has conversations with the voices in his head and, as you can probably guess, Eric Roberts plays the Hell out of these scenes. In fact, Roberts is a force of nature in this film, keeping a straight face while ripping through his overwrought dialogue and only stopping occasionally to wink at the camera, almost as if Dr. Beck realizes that he’s just a character in a Lifetime movie. Roberts is obviously having a blast in the role and his demented joy is somewhat infectious. After imagining that he’s killed a dining companion, a blood-covered Roberts says, “Check please,” and his delivery of that one-liner is absolutely brilliant.

Stalked By My Doctor: The Return is a blast of over the top, Eric Roberts-inspired lunacy.