Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #16: The Cheerleader Murders (dir by David Jackson)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by July 10th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

The 16th film on my DVR was The Cheerleader Murders and what can I say other than, “Yay!” No, no — it’s not that I dislike cheerleaders. While I did frequently turn down the chance to become a cheerleader while I was in high school, that was solely because my sister, our own Dazzling Erin, was already a cheerleader and I was going through one of my “I want to be known for being myself” phases. No, I was excited about rewatching The Cheerleader Murders because I remembered that this was one of the best films to ever premiere on Lifetime!

As I started to watch The Cheerleader Murders, I found myself wondering whether it would stand up to a second viewing.

Well, it more than stood up. If anything, The Cheerleader Murders is even better the second time around!

The Cheerleader Murders plays out like an odd combination of YA fiction and disturbing horror. The film opens with a few scenes of disaster and what’s interesting is that, while all of the scenes are tragic, they’re also darkly humorous. We see a car full of cheerleaders and jocks crash, killing everyone inside. We see the prom king and queen falling to their death while trying to get the perfect selfie. As these disasters play out, we hear our narrator, Ellie (Samantha Boscarino), explaining that her hometown is cursed. It’s all so cheerfully morbid that, from the minute it began, I was in love with this film.

What’s that? Oh, you don’t believe that Ellie and her town are cursed? Well, just consider this. When Ellie was thirteen, her older sister broke up with her boyfriend. So the boyfriend broke into the house, killed her sister, and then shot Ellie’s father as Ellie watched!

THAT’S A CURSE RIGHT THERE!

Jump forward three years later. Ellie is now a 16 year-old cheerleader. She’s popular and she’s also a good student. Though you have to wonder about the standards of her high school because she goes to one of those Lifetime high schools where no one ever has to actually go to class or anything like that. Instead, everyone hangs out at the lockers and gossips. Even better, if you do go to class, you can apparently just walk out whenever you want. This happens several times during this film and we never actually hear a teacher say anything like, “Wait! You can’t just stand up and walk out of class just because your friend is motioning to you from the hallway!”

Ellie has everything but she’s still convinced that she’s cursed. If she’s not cursed then how do you explain the mysterious disappearance of two her fellow cheerleaders? Admittedly, one of the cheerleaders is found rather quickly. Or, I should say, her bloody, severed foot is found rather quickly. Someone spots it off the side of the road. (The camera zooms in on the big toe so that we can see the heart that she painted on her the nail. That’s the type of cheerfully over-the-top film that The Cheerleader Murders is.) The other cheerleader eventually shows up in orange grove, being chased by a masked man with a huge knife.

Like any good YA heroine, Ellie is determined to solve the mystery. Fortunately, she has help. Her dead father shows up occasionally and offers up cryptic advice. Ellie also has frequent dreams, some of which are rather dark and disturbing by Lifetime standards.

The more that Ellie digs into the mystery, the more obvious it becomes that she knows absolutely no one who isn’t sleazy or insane. Who killed the cheerleaders? Was it the school weirdo or the two jealous nerds who are always gossiping about the dead? Maybe it was the coach, who was apparently having an affair with both a cheerleader and Ellie’s favorite teacher. Or perhaps that teacher got jealous and decided to seek revenge! And, come to think of it, Ellie’s boyfriend seems like he might have some issues too. And, of course, there’s Ellie. Who is to say that the curse hasn’t driven her insane? It’s hard not to notice that, whenever the killer strikes, Ellie is usually riding her bicycle right past the crime scene.

One of the more interesting things about the film is that no one else at the high school seems to be that upset over the dead cheerleaders. The school year goes on. The remaining cheerleaders continue to cheer at all the football games and, with the exception of Ellie, nobody even seems to shed a single tear over all the teenagers dying in town. Along with the ghosts and the nightmares and the constant shots of Ellie intensely riding her bicycle from crime scene to crime scene, all of this conspires to give The Cheerleader Murders an oddly surreal feel.

The Cheerleader Murders is one of my favorite Lifetime film because it literally has no boundaries. There is no moment too over-the-top that this film cannot find an excuse to include it. The acting is good, the horror (and there is horror) is effective, and the mystery is cheerfully ludicrous. Make sure you catch The Cheerleader Murders the next time it’s on Lifetime because seriously, this film is a classic!

(By the way, I made Erin watch The Cheerleader Murders with me when it originally aired. She said it was actually a pretty accurate portrayal of the life of a cheerleader, except for the murders.)

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #15: Stranger In The House (dir by Allan Harmon)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 15th film on my DVR was Stranger In The House, which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network on April 10th.

Stranger In The House opens with a stab at relevance by including news reports of Wall Street bailouts and footage of Occupy protesters running around in their Guy Fawkes masks. (Though I’m sure they would probably call them V For Vendetta masks.) I have to admit that, when I first saw that footage, I was worried. I didn’t know if I could particularly take a Lifetime version of The Big Short.

Fortunately, the rest of the film has nothing to do with any of that. Instead, it’s a rather enjoyable and somewhat over-the-top Lifetime melodrama, one that makes no pretense of providing anything other than wonderfully sordid entertainment.

Super-rich businessman Wayne (John Novak) has been crippled in a car crash and, now confined to a wheelchair, he goes out of his way to make everyone else miserable. He’s nearly impossible to live with and his daughter and chief caretaker, Jade (Emmanuelle Vaugier), desperately needs a vacation from him. On top of that, she’s just married the handsome but somewhat mysterious Marco (Matthew McCaull) and they want to take their honeymoon. So, jade hires a caretaker to look after Wayne while they’re gone.

At first, Wayne doesn’t much like his caretaker. Sure, Samantha (Jordana Largy) may be attractive and enthusiastic but she’s into stuff like yoga and Wayne’s too cantankerous for all that. However, we then get a five-minute montage in which we see Wayne slowly start to lower his defenses. Soon, he and Samantha are smiling and laughing and kissing. When Jade and Marco return, they are shocked by just how close Wayne and Samantha have become…

Then Wayne mentions that he and Samantha have gotten married and all Hell breaks loose.

Jade is convinced that Samantha only married Wayne for his money and she grows even more frustrated when Marco suggests that maybe she should give Samantha a chance. Wayne certainly appears to be happy and he’s even washing his hair again! But then one day, Wayne is found dead at the bottom of a cliff and it turns out that he’s left all of his money to Samantha!

Jade believes that Samantha murdered Wayne. It doesn’t help that Samantha isn’t acting like a grieving widow. Instead, she’s laughing and drinking and constantly complaining about having to wear black all the time. If that’s not strange enough, Samantha and Marco seem to have suddenly grown very close.

How close?

Close enough that they’re ducking into a bedrooms and broom closets so that they can make out…

And that all happens in the first forty minutes! Now, I’m not going to spoil the rest of the movie but I will say that this is one of those Lifetime movies where things just keep getting stranger and stranger. In fact, it’s almost ludicrous how melodramatic things get but that’s why it’s fun! This is one of those films that is so over-the-top and fun that you would have to be a real killjoy to complain about whether or not it actually makes any sense.

After all, logic really isn’t the point here. Stranger In The House is all about style and that’s something that it definitely has. This is a sleek, fun melodrama and one for which I would suggest keeping an eye out.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #154: Where’s My Baby? (dir by David Winning)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Sunday night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Where’s My Baby?

Lochlyn Munro, the patron saint of Canadian-produced Lifetime melodrama and co-star of Where’s My Baby?

Why Was I Watching It?

Oh, why not?

Sorry, I’m trying to come a funny and/or interesting reason why I decided to watch Where’s My Baby? but the main answer is that it was on the Lifetime Movie Network and there was nothing else on. Game of Thrones is on break. Veep is on break. There’s no killer zombies on AMC and I can’t watch Preacher because I resent its inaccurate portrayal of my home state.

So, with all that in mind, I figured why not see what was premiering on LMN!

What Was It About?

Marissa Davis (Nicole de Boer) wakes up after having spent the past five years in a coma. She has no memory of how she came to be in that coma but she’s still happy to be awake. She’s especially happy to discover that her best friend, Heather (Gina Holden), is married to Congressman Cal Ward (Lochlyn Munro). Cal seems like a nice guy but he’s running for the Senate and talking about how much he believes in traditional values and we all know that, in a Lifetime movie, anyone who talks about values is eventually going to turn out to be a huge hypocrite.

Marissa is disturbed to discover that 1) she was the victim of a mysterious hit and run and that 2) she has a C-section scar. Her mother (Iris Quinn) finally tells her that she was pregnant when she was hit by the car. Her mother also assures her that the baby was delivered stillborn.

Meanwhile, Heather and Cal have a 5 year-old daughter! What a coincidence! And the baby appears to have the same hereditary kidney disorder that runs in Marissa’s family. What could that possibly mean? And, for that matter, why is a mysterious doctor suddenly so obsessed with removing Marissa’s kidney?

What Worked?

Oh my God, I so love these insane Lifetime movies. Where’s My Baby is shameless fun, the type of movie that you simply cannot stop watching once it has begun. The movie starts out crazy and it just keeps going from there!

Add to that, there’s a general rule when it comes to Lifetime films. If Lochlyn Munro is in it, the film cannot be bad. Lochlyn Munro has appeared in so many Lifetime films that, to some of us, he’s become the patron saint of the network.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked. When a film is that insanely over the top, there’s no way that it can’t work.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

To be honest, there really weren’t any “Oh my God! Just like me!” moments. I’ve never suffered from amnesia. As anyone who has ever gotten on my bad side can tell you, I never forget.

Never.

Lessons Learned

If you wake up with amnesia, don’t take anyone’s word for what happened while you were asleep. Investigate for yourself. Seriously, that’s a lesson to live by.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #153: Newlywed and Dead (dir by Penelope Buitenhuis)

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the Lifetime premiere movie, Newlywed and Dead!

Why Was I Watching It?

There were a lot of reasons why I was watching Newlywed And Dead. The main reason was that it was on Lifetime and watching, live tweeting, and reviewing Lifetime movies is one of the many things that I do!

Beyond that, I thought Newlywed and Dead was an absolutely brilliant title. That title pretty much sums everything that we love about Lifetime movies, doesn’t it?

And finally, the movie starred Shenae Grimes-Beech! Back when she was just Shenae Grimes (and before she showed up on 90210), she played Darcy Edwards on Degrassi! Darcy was always one of my favorite characters on Degrassi. Whether she was plotting to break Paige’s leg during a Spirit Squad routine, getting stalked as a result of the pictures she posted on MySpace (or MyRoom as Degrassi called it), leading prayers at Friendship Club, falsely accusing Mr. Simpson of sexual harassment, or encouraging Spinner to go to class stoned, Darcy was the best!

What Was It About?

Kristen Ward (Shenae Grimes-Beech) would appear to have the perfect life. She not only lives in a beautiful valley but she works for handsome developer, Jay Morgan (Christopher Russell). In fact, she not only works for him but she’s also married to him! Of course, some people are concerned about Kristen marrying a man that she barely knows but Kristen knows that their love is true. Even when she discovers that, 10 years earlier, Jay was arrested for assault, she doesn’t let that worry her. Who doesn’t have a criminal record?

But then Jay’s aunt, Barbara (Venus Terzo), takes Kristen to the house where Jay grew up. And Kristen sees a painting of Jay’s mother and notices that his mother looks just like her! Considering that Jay’s mother died under mysterious circumstances, Kristen starts to get worried.

Then Aunt Barbara dies under equally mysterious circumstances…

And Kristen starts to get really worried…

What Worked?

Shamelessly melodramatic and just a little bit campy, Newlywed and Dead was everything that we love about Lifetime films. I’ve often felt that the best thing about Lifetime films is knowing that people across the country are all saying, “Girl, don’t trust him!” at the same time that you are. Watching a Lifetime movie is meant to be a communal experience, whether you’re forcing your sister or your BFF to watch with you or if you’re watching with a bunch of people on twitter. Newlywed and Dead is definitely a film that should be watched with a group of your favorite people.

Beyond that, I liked the film’s look. The mansions were opulent and the scenery was beautiful to look at. There was one room that had way too much blue in it but otherwise, Newlywed and Dead was a feast for the eyes.

What Did Not Work?

As I watched the film, I kept waiting for that one unexpected twist that would transform it from being a very good Lifetime film to a great Lifetime film. All great Lifetime films have that one moment where something totally insane happens. While Newlywed and Dead features a lot of entertaining insanity, it never had the one moment.

(For example, I kept expecting Jay to reveal that he had an evil twin brother named Ray. But it never happened.)

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I always relate to any character played by Shenae Grimes-Beech.

Lessons Learned

Never marry your boss.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #13: Final Destiny (dir by Michel Poulette)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In an effort to clean out my DVR and make room for endless episodes of reality television (not to mention the Olympics), I am currently in the process of watching the 40* films that I recorded from the beginning of March to the end of June. The 13th film on my DVR was Final Destiny, which originally aired on the Lifetime movie network on April 3rd.

This will be a quick one. Usually, I try to come up with at least 500 words for every movie that I review but it’s going to be a struggle as far as Final Destiny is concerned. There’s really just not much to say about this particular film.

According to the imdb, Final Destiny was originally entitled Brace For Impact and I assume that the title was changed in an effort to fool viewers into thinking that Final Destiny had something to do with the Final Destination films. Well, Final Destiny does start out with a scenario that could be lifted from one of those films. Sofia Gilchrest (Kerry Condon) gets on an airplane with her brother, Shane (Ian Lake). Right before the plane is scheduled to take off, Sofia gets the feeling that something bad is going to happen. She freaks out and she’s kicked off the plane. The plane then takes off and crashes, killing her brother.

Unfortunately, that’s about all that this film has in common with Final Destination. The plane crash does not lead to a series of increasingly macabre accidents as death attempts to correct itself by killing Sofia. Tony Todd never shows up to talk about destiny. There’s no humor, which is a shame because Final Destiny could have used some humor.

(The only humor comes from the fact that, beyond ripping off a more successful franchise, Final Destiny makes absolutely no sense as a title! That said, Brace For Impact was kind of a crappy title too…)

Instead, Final Destiny turns into a plodding procedural. It turns out that Sofia is a flight crash investigator, which means that she now gets to investigate the crash that her killed brother. Or, at least, it would if not for the fact that all of Sofia’s colleagues are totally corrupt and have no faith in her abilities. It turns out that, in the past, Sofia has been too quick to assume that every plane crash was the result of a conspiracy. Plus, she is such a careful investigator that it sometimes takes her years to determine why a plane crashed. The government wants quick answers but Sofia would rather be right than be fast!

But here’s the problem with the movie: Sofia is a totally unlikable character. That’s a bold statement to make about someone who is investigating the death of her brother but, even with that added layer of motivation, Sofia still comes across as being shrill, self-centered, and generally unpleasant.

It also doesn’t help that the cause of the crash is pretty obvious from the start. About an hour into the movie, Sofia figures out that it was the act of domestic terrorists and then she spends the rest of the movie telling everyone that it was the work of domestic terrorists and then, at the end of the movie, she’s like, “Yep, domestic terrorism,” and that’s pretty much it.

There, of course, are a few subplots but none of the subplots are that interesting. Sofia’s mother is shocked to discover that Shane was gay. Sofia’s best friend is discriminated against because of his religion. Sofia is angry because she didn’t get a promotion. It’s all really predictable and it doesn’t add up too much.

In the end, Final Destiny didn’t even feel like a movie. It felt like a pilot for a TV show that nobody would want to watch. If ever a film needed Tony Todd to show up and start talking about life and death, it was this one.

—

*Yes, I know that I originally said I would have to watch 36 films to clean out my DVR but I recorded 4 more films since making that statement. So now, it’s 40 films but I’m still hoping to be finished with the series by the end of next week.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #9: The Perfect Daughter (dir by Brian Herzlinger)

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished watching Anne of the Thousand Days, the next film on my DVR was The Perfect Daughter. The Perfect Daughter originally aired on March 26th on Lifetime. According to the imdb, it was originally called The Carpenter’s Daughter but I imagine Lifetime changed the title so that it could fit in with films like The Perfect Teacher.

(Add to that, The Carpenter’s Daughter sounds like it should be another one of those films where Tom Hanks argues that Jesus survived the crucifixion and ran off with the Magdalene.)

Anyway, the perfect daughter of the title is Natalie Parish (Sadie Calvano). Natalie seems to have a great future in front of her. She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she’s responsible. She has the grades to get into the Ivy League college of her choice. On top of all that, despite being shy, she has just been elected student council president!

Oh sure, not everything is perfect for Natalie. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She’s frequently insecure. She idolizes a mother that she’s never met and her father, Martin (Brady Smith), may be a hunky blue-collar type of guy but he’s also extremely over protective. He worries that Natalie will grow up to be like her mother, who apparently was not the saint that Natalie believes her to be.

Martin grows even more concerned when, while driving home one night, he comes across his daughter in the middle of the road. She went to a party, she got drunk, and she had sex with popular jock Sam Cahill (Reiley McClendon)! Martin freaks out and takes his daughter to the hospital, causing her nonstop embarrassment at school. He also demands that Sam be arrested for raping his daughter.

Of course, what Martin is overlooking is that Sam did not rape his daughter. As Natalie tells him, the sex was consensual. Martin is shocked but he’ll be even more shocked when Natalie reveals that she’s pregnant.

Complicating matters is that Martin is working for Sam’s father, the snobbish Bruce Cahill (Parker Stevenson). The film also suggests that Martin may be in love with Bruce’s wife, Julie (Meredith Salenger).

What I was wondering, as I watched the film, is why Natalie was chasing after Sam when Martin’s business partner, Nick (Johann Urb), was so much hotter. And he was also single! Seriously, Sam was a nice guy and everything but Nick epitomized this sort of sweaty, manly glory, the type of sexy that otherwise seems to be limited to the guys that you see in pickup truck commercials.

ANYWAY — The Perfect Daughter may sound like a typical Lifetime film but actually, it’s not. Though there is a little bit of melodrama towards the end, The Perfect Daughter is more of a character study of an overprotective father struggling to accept that his daughter is growing up. The story has a bit more nuance than the typical Lifetime story but, at the same time, the decision to tone down the melodrama comes at a cost. The Perfect Daughter is a well-acted and intelligent film but it’s not a particularly fun movie.

In the end, it’s okay but it’s no Perfect Teacher.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #3: Mommy’s Little Girl (dir by Curtis Crawford)

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished up The Other Wife, I continued to clean out my DVR by rewatching Mommy’s Little Girl.

Mommy’s Little Girl, was premiered on Lifetime on March 19th, is a crazy little kid movie. How crazy? Well, the film is also known as Mommy’s Little Murderer and for good reason! Speaking for myself, I always enjoy a good crazy kid movie because this entire genre is built around an uncomfortable truth: Children are creepy! They’ve got those squeaky voices and they’re always staring and they don’t have a filter so you never know what they’re going to say to you. Even worse, it’s somehow considered socially unacceptable to snap at a stranger’s child, even if it’s obvious that stranger has no idea how to raise their children.

Plus, you have to consider that every serial killer was a child at some point. If a child did decide to kill you, he’d probably get away with it. You wouldn’t think to be cautious if you were alone with him because everyone assumes that children always have the best intentions. No investigator would give serious consideration to the possibility that you were murdered by a child. Even if the kid was arrested, he’d only be charged as a minor. He would ultimately end up with a clean record while you just ended up as some sort of dumbass ghost haunting the landfill where he dumped your body.

Seriously, people need to think about this stuff before they deal with children.

Consider Sadie Connell (Emma Hentschel), the title character of Mommy’s Little Girl. Sadie is only 11 years old and, as cute and innocent-looking as she may be, when we first meet her, she’s already killed at least one person. She arranged for her abusive grandfather to take a nasty tumble down a flight of stairs. In fact, not only did she kill her grandfather but she also stole his lighter. She claims that it’s a magic lighter and, despite being a non-smoker, Sadie finds many uses for that flame. For instance, she can use the lighter to threaten her dolls. And when a classmate bullies her, she uses the lighter to punish his prized action figures.

Over the course of the movie, Sadie commits a few more murders. She pushes people off cliffs. She poisons their food. At one point, she even places her hands over one unfortunate victim’s mouth and helps to suffocate her. Sadie is definitely a little bit psycho and yet, as a viewer, I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for her. Both her grandparents treated her so badly that you can’t blame Sadie for being a little bit bitter. As for her classmate with his precious action figures — well, nobody likes a bully.

At the start of the film, Sadie is finally reunited with her mother, Theresa (Fiona Gubelmann), who has issues of her own when Sadie was born and, as a result, allowed her daughter to be raised by her parents. However, Theresa now has her life together and is ready to raise her daughter! Sadie is so excited to finally have a family but she’s also extremely paranoid of losing that family. Some of the film’s best scenes come when Sadie fears that she’s about to be rejected and sent back to her grandmother. Sadie never becomes a one-dimensional villain. The end result is a Lifetime film that actually makes you think.

Keep an eye out for Mommy’s Little Girl!

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #2: The Other Wife (dir by Nick Lyon)

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, after I watched the 18th season premiere of Big Brother (that’s right, I love reality TV almost as much as I love Italian horror films, almost being the word to remember), I continued to clean out the DVR by watching The Other Wife.

The Other Wife, which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network on March 13th, is another thriller from our friends at The Asylum. The film opens on a fairly suspenseful note, with Kate Jennings (Kimberly Hewes) preparing to take a shower when she heard someone walking around her house. At first, she assumes that it’s her husband, Billy (George Stumpf). However, she then gets a text from Billy informing her that he’s on his way.

And seriously, that is such a HOLY SHIT moment that it carries the first hour of the entire film. Seriously, there is nothing scarier than suddenly realizing that you are not only not alone but that you have no idea who the other person is. That’s the type of nightmare fuel that gives birth to grisly urban legends!

Kate looks around the house and suddenly spots a hulking, bald man (Nick Principe) searching Billy’s office. Though Kate doesn’t know it, that bald man is named Ed Warwick and he’s very dangerous. He chases her through the house until she can call the police and he leaves her so terrified that she doesn’t even notice that he somehow knows her first name.

When the police arrive, they accidentally arrest Billy and Ed escapes. After getting things sorted out with the cops, Billy assures Kate that Ed was just a random burglar and that everything will be okay. But, if that’s true, why does Kate come home the next day to discover that Billy has hung himself?

With her husband dead, Kate’s seemingly perfect life falls apart. She discovers that Billy was in debt when he died and her credit has been destroyed. Even worse, she discovers that Billy was apparently seeing a woman named Deb (Tonya Key).

In many ways, Deb is Kate’s exact opposite. Kate is polite and refined. Deb is the type who will stand outside and scream at a delivery driver. Kate has been unable to get pregnant. Deb is pregnant. In fact, it would seem that the only thing that Deb and Kate have in common is that they were both married to Billy.

That’s right — Billy was a bigamist! He was also a bigamist who owed a lot of money to the mob. The mob has hired Ed to get their money. Ed delivers an ultimatum to both Billy’s wives. If he doesn’t get the money that Billy owed, Ed will murder Deb and frame Kate. From totally different world and linked only by their husband’s treachery, Deb and Kate will have to work together to get out of this mess.

There’s a great moment in The Other Wife where a police detective is talking to Deb and Kate. “Mrs. Jennings,” the detective said. Both Deb and Kate looked up at the same time and say, “yes?” In many ways, that scene epitomizes The Other Wife. Despite the announcement, during the opening credits, that what we’re watching is based on a true story, The Other Wife is not a movie that is meant to be taken all that seriously. The Other Wife is silly entertainment in the style of most Asylum films, featuring a likable cast and an enjoyably melodramatic storyline. Tonya Key especially seems to be having fun in the role of the outspoken Deb. That said, the real star of the film is Nick Principe, who is thoroughly menacing as the psycho hit man.

The Other Wife was directed by Nick Lyon, who also did the enjoyably pulpy They Found Hell. He does a good job here of keeping the action moving and encouraging the audience not to worry too much about any holes in the plot.

All in all, it’s another enjoyable melodrama from The Asylum!

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #1: The Stepchild (dir by Roma Roth)

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Two weeks ago, I finally finished my Fabulous Forties series of reviews! Yay!

I was so excited and I could not wait until I could move onto the Nifty Fifties box set from Mill Creek. However, before doing that, I decided to check the status of my DVR and guess what?

I discovered that I only had 10 hours of space left!

Basically, stating in March, I recorded so many movies that I am now nearly out of space. So, before I do anything else, it’s time for me to, once again, clean out the DVR! I have 36 films to watch and review before I can truly declare that my DVR has been cleaned out. Fortunately, I’ve recorded a good variety of films — everything from Lifetime movies to horror films to Oscar nominees. Watching and reviews all of them should be fun!

So, let’s get started! Because you know what? If I don’t hurry up and get this done, my DVR’s going to start automatically deleting my older recordings. And that means that I’m running the risk of losing not only Jesus Christ Superstar, Bend It Like Beckham, and American Anthem but the final six episodes of Saved By The Bell: The College Years as well!

The first film that I watched was The Stepchild, which premiered on Lifetime on March 12th!

As you probably tell from the picture above, The Stepchild is a movie about secrets, lies, murder, tears, and possible insanity. In short, it has everything that we have come to expect from a Lifetime movie! Even better, it has a Degrassi connection. (Degrassi, as our regular readers should be aware at this point, is my favorite Canadian TV show.) The Stepchild stars Sarah Fisher, who played a somewhat unbalanced Christian named Becky Baker on Degrassi. Becky was perhaps one of the most annoying characters in the history of Degrassi but Sarah Fisher always did a good job playing her and she does a pretty good job in The Stepchild as well.

The Stepchild opens with Ashley (played by Fisher) in a mental hospital. She spends her time talking to her therapist and occasionally having brightly-lit flashbacks to the night that she found her father’s dead body and dropped — in a slow motion, naturally enough — a snow globe on the floor. Not only is Ashley shaken over the demise of her father, but she also fears that she may have inherited her dead mother’s schizophrenia. And again, it bears repeating that Sarah Fisher does a really good job in the role of Ashley, making her a character whose outward fragility disguises more inner strength than even she realizes that she possesses.

When Ashley is finally released from the hospital, she goes to live with her stepmother, Beth (Lauren Holly). Ashley is upset because it’s obvious that, in just the short time after her father’s death, Beth has rather quickly moved on to a new man, John (Paul Johansson). John was Ashley’s father’s business partner and, like Ashley, we are immediately suspicious of him. This is largely because he’s played by Paul Johansson and anyone who has ever seen One Tree Hill knows better than to trust any character played by Paul Johansson.

Ashley is convinced that John or someone else murdered her father. But did he? Or could it be that Ashley is having another nervous breakdown? (It’s a testament to Sarah Fisher’s performance that, even though the answer is obvious, the viewer still is never totally sure.) With the help of her boyfriend, Michael (Keenan Tracy), Ashley attempts to solve the mystery.

There’s nothing really original about The Stepchild. If you’ve ever seen a Lifetime film before, you’ll be able to guess what’s going to happen. That said, their inherent predictability is part of the appeal of Lifetime films in general and The Stepchild is an entertaining-enough diversion. Lauren Holly and Sarah Fisher both do good with their ambiguous characterizations and Paul Johansson always does a good job when he’s playing a jerk. The film has a few nicely shot dream sequences and, as we all know, dream sequences are always fun!

The Stepchild may not be a classic but it’s a perfectly enjoyable way to waste two hours.

(For those keeping track of my progress in cleaning out the DVR, that’s one down and thirty-five to go!)

Film Review: Mother, May I Sleep With Danger (dir by Melanie Aitkenhead)

Posted on June 18, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier tonight, I turned over to Lifetime and I watched the much hyped remake of Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? Having watched, what can I say about it?

*sigh*

Seriously, I had such high hopes. My hopes for this film were almost as high as I was the day I graduated from high school. That’s pretty freaking high!

And really, can you blame me? First off, the film was a remake of one of my favorite Lifetime films. And, while I usually hate remakes, the original Mother, May I Sleep With Danger was so over-the-top and melodramatic that it practically demanded a Deadly Adoption-style remake. The idea of mixing the original’s stalker plot with lesbian vampires just sounded so promising! And, on top of that, James Franco was involved!

Up until I saw the movie tonight, I was under the assumption that James Franco would actually be directing the remake. Well, he didn’t. Mother, May I Sleep With Danger was directed by Melanie Aitkenhead and, considering that this was her feature debut, she actually did a pretty good job. The film is full of atmospheric shots and Aitkenhead gets a surprising amount of mileage out of simply showing the movie’s vampires moving across the screen in slow motion.

Instead of direcing, James Franco served as executive producer and is credited with coming up with the film’s “original story.” (The actual screenplay is credited to Amber Coney, who also plays one of the vampires.) Franco also plays a theater professor who directs a production of Macbeth. In his production, Macbeth is played by a woman and you know what? That’s a great idea! In fact, there were times that I found myself thinking that, if I had to choose between watching Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? and James Franco’s Macbeth, I would definitely pick Macbeth.

As for the rest of the film — well, it actually has absolutely nothing in common with the original Mother, May I Sleep With Danger. The original film’s stars — Tori Spelling and Ivan Sergei — both show up in different roles but it would have been a lot more interesting if they had been playing the same roles. What if Sergei’s psycho stalker actually didn’t drown at the end of the original and ended up teaching a college class on Victorian literature? And what if his favorite student just happened to be the daughter of his former obsession (played, of course, by Tori Spelling)? That would have been interesting! Instead, Sergei is playing just any professor and Spelling is playing just any mother.

The majority of the film deals with Spelling’s daughter, Leah (Leila George), attempting to work up the courage to tell her mom that 1) she’s a lesbian and 2) she has a new girlfriend, named Pearl (Emily Meade). What Leah doesn’t know is that Pearl is actually a vampire and is being pressured by her blood-sucking friends to turn Leah into a vampire too. As well, nerdy and creepy Bob (Nick Eversman) has an unrequited crush on Leah. When Bob discovers that Leah has a girlfriend, he starts plotting to break them up.

And there’s a lot that I liked about Mother, May I Sleep With Danger. I liked that the film, unlike a few other Lifetime films that I’ve seen, was unapologetic about being sex positive. I liked that the film presented an unambigiously positive portrayal of a same-sex couple. I liked that the vampires were all stylish and enjoyed hanging out in cemeteries. The film’s best scenes featured the vampires infiltrating frat parties and feeding on the date rapists within. These were hugely satisfying scenes and I would have been happy if the entire movie had just been scene after scene of vampires attacking Brock Turner.

But despite all that worked about the movie, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger left me feeling disappointed. After all the hype and the raised expectations and the commercials promising us a masterpiece from “the twisted mind of James Franco,” there was really no way not to be disappointed by the final product. Unlike last year’s A Deadly Adoption, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger never managed to establish a consistent tone. It didn’t seem to be sure whether it wanted to be a comedy, a drama, a horror film, or an elaborate send-up of the Lifetime aesthetic. Whereas A Deadly Adoption was clearly a labor of snarky love, I couldn’t help but feel that Mother, May I Sleep With Danger had probably been made by people who don’t particularly like Lifetime films. As such, it worked as neither an homage nor a parody. Instead, it was just another movie about vampires and not a particularly original one at that.

And, hey, I like movies about vampires! I’ve seen a few hundred of them. I’ve certainly seen enough to know that Mother, May I Sleep With Danger didn’t bring anything new to the genre.

That said, I still love James Franco! Seriously, how can’t I?