Tag Archives: Lifetime

Lifetime Film Review: Psycho Sister-In-Law (dir by Jake Helgren)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When one of your in-laws is a psycho, it’s going to lead to some tense family gatherings.  There’s just no way to get around it.  Have you seen those Vrylar commercials where people are screaming at random strangers or the mother is locked away in the kitchen and sobbing all the way through her daughter’s birthday party?  Well, that’s nothing compared to what it’s like to have a murderer drop by a wedding, a reunion, or even a funeral.

From the start of Psycho Sister-in-Law, we know that Zara Downes (Lydia Hearst) is not the ideal in-law.  This is largely due to the seeing Zara murder a woman in Las Vegas.  Now, admittedly, the woman that Zara murdered was kind of mean and she was keeping Zara from finding success as an actress but it’s 2020 and there are other ways to deal with an annoying co-worker.  Murder is never the answer!

Zara, of course, claims that she has had a difficult life.  Her father was very rich man but Zara grew up without him.  Instead, he gave most of his attention and affection to his son, Nick (Brando Eaton) and his fiancée, Callie (Diora Baird).  That’s largely due to the fact that Zara was the result of an affair that he had while married to Nick’s mother.  Still, when Mr. Downes dies, Zara is invited to the reading of the will.

When the will is read, Zara is annoyed to discover that she’s inherited less than both Callie and Nick.  So, Zara sets out to ingratiate herself with Nick and his pregnant wife, Haley (Andrea Bowen).  Zara also goes out of her way to try to upset Callie. When Nick says that he’s considering giving their father’s mansion to Callie, Zara puts her evil plans into overdrive.

And really, who can blame her?  It’s a really nice house!  I mean, I know I say that about almost every Lifetime film but Psycho Sister-In-Law really does feature one of the nicest mansions that I’ve ever seen.  Obviously, I don’t want to compare myself to Zara because she does kill a few people over the course of the movie but still, I’m not totally sure that I wouldn’t go a little bit crazy over that house myself.

Most Lifetime films do require a certain suspension of disbelief.  That’s something that we’ve all come to accept about the Lifetime genre and I’m certainly not going to complain about it.  The fact that people in these movies often make stupid mistakes is one of the things that make them so entertaining.  (And before we get too judgmental regarding fictional characters, who among us hasn’t made a stupid mistake or two?)  That said, Psycho Sister-In-Law really stretches that suspension of disbelief to its breaking point.  I mean, it’s nice that Haley wants everyone to get along but, at some point, you really do have to be willing to put your foot down and say, “Hey, if you’re obviously plotting on killing everyone in the house, you’re going to have to leave.”  Zara’s villainy was so obvious that you really did have to wonder if Haley and Nick were just being intentionally blind to it.

That said, the melodrama is certainly embraced and the house is really nice.  There’s a neat and unexpected twist towards the end of the movie and Lydia Hearst appears to be having a blast playing her murderous role.  It’s a fun movie, even if Nick and Haley’s naiveté will have you rolling your eyes until you’re dizzy.

Lifetime Film Review: The Killer In the Guest House (dir by Tony Dean Smith)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s an old saying.  If it seems too good to be true, it’ll probably end up trying to murder you.  I think that’s how it goes.

For instance, it may seem like a good idea to make some extra money by renting out your guest house.  And sure, it might seem like a good idea to pick the first handsome pilot who steps through the front door.  And it might seem like it’s a good thing that he’s tall and sexy and in shape and that he likes to take his shirt off whenever he’s doing the gardening.  And that first time that he defends your honor against your sleazy ex, you may be thinking to yourself, “This guy is perfect!”

Actually, Mark James (Marcus Rosner) would be perfect if not for the fact that, along with being charming and handsome, he’s also a total sociopath who has control issues and a habit of installing hidden cameras all over the place.  When Gina (Chelsea Hobbs) lets Mark move in, it seems like a perfect idea but soon, people are disappearing and Mark is failing to respect her personal space.  Gina is a struggling photographer who is still looking for her first big break and Mark has the looks of a model but is having a model paying you rent really worth having a dead body buried in your garden?  That’s a question that everyone must answer for themselves.

I’ve seen a lot of killer houseguest films on Lifetime.  Actually, even though Lifetime is known for being the “killer husband” network, you’re actually more likely to get murdered by a houseguest than by your husband.  Or, at least, that appears to be the case in the world of Lifetime cinema.  The best Lifetime films are the ones that connect with a real-life fear, like your mother marrying a con artist or your daughter refusing to listen to you when you tell her that the boy across the street with the shady past is up to no good.  The Killer In The Guest House gets at one of my main fears, which is that you’ll invite someone into your house and then they’ll just start hanging around.  Unfortunately, most unwanted houseguests don’t look as good as Marcus Rosner.

Anyway, you can probably guess what happens once Mark moves in with Gina.  It’s all obsession, lies, and murder.  As I’ve said countless times on this very site, we love Lifetime movies because they’re predictable.  They’re like trashy paperbacks that you read whenever you’ve got some time to kill.  The fun is being able to say, “I knew that was going to happen!”  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any surprises to be found in The Killer In The Guest House, of course.  Mark has a lot of difficulty killing one of his victims and the film does a good job of playing up Mark’s exasperation as the victim just keeps coming back to life.  It shouldn’t be funny but it kind of is and I think it’s meant to be.  It’s not easy being a charming sociopath.

Marcus Rosner and Chelsea Hobbs both do a good job in the lead roles.  My favorite performance came from Matthew Kevin Anderson, as the hilariously sleazy Levon.  Whoever put together Levon’s wardrobe deserves an Emmy.

I guess the main lesson to be learned from Killer in the Guest House is that we should be careful we let move in to our home.  But seriously, when a guy says that he loves to garden and that he flies a plane for a living …. I mean, who can resist?

Lifetime Film Review: Sleeping With Danger (dir by David Weaver)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that when I first saw that Lifetime was going to be airing a film called Sleeping With Danger, a lot of really stupid jokes came to mind.

I mean, it’s true that the title was also the title of the Ann Rule story that served as the basis of the film’s plot but still, Sleeping With Danger just has such a Lifetime-y ring to it.  If you were making up a fake Lifetime movie, you’d probably give it a title like Sleeping With Danger.  And then you’d spend a while coming up with silly tag lines.

“Sleeping with Danger means a morning of regret!”

“Mother, may I sleep with danger?”  (Wait, a minute, that one’s for real….)

I also found myself imagining the MyPillow guy shooting a commercial specifically for the movie.  “If you’re sleeping with danger, you’ve got to have support for your neck and back.  MyPillow is made right here in my home state of Minnesota, where we sleep with danger every winter….”

Then I watched the movie and, to be honest, I ended up feeling a little bit guilty.  Yes, the title might sound a bit campy but the film itself is actually very serious.  It’s probably one of the most serious films that I’ve ever seen on Lifetime.  Of course, it probably helps that it’s based on a true story and not a particularly happy one at that.

Elisabeth Rohm plays Grace Tanner, a directionless, 38 year-old flight attendant who thinks that she’s found love when she meets Dr. Paul Carter (Antonio Cupo), a charming and handsome nutritionist.  Grace and Paul have a whirlwind courtship, which soon leads to them living in a cabin out in the wilderness.  Needless to say, it is never a good thing, in a Lifetime movie (or in real life), when you end up isolated in a wilderness cabin.

Paul, it turns out, has a possessive streak and a rather shady history.  (One should note that this story takes place in the 90s, a.k.a. the time before Google.)  Grace comes across a restraining order.  She comes across evidence that Paul has been in trouble with the police before.  When she tries to question Paul about it, he hits her.  Even after Grace leaves him and goes to a shelter, she continues to deny that she’s in an abusive relationship.  No, she says, she and Paul are just having troubles.

Inevitably, Grace goes back to Paul.  Paul, for his part, always has an excuse to explain away his abusive behavior.  They settle into cycle, one that finds Grace a virtual prisoner.  Eventually, it all leads to murder….

It’s a pretty grim movie but it’s well-made and, even more importantly, it’s a realistic portrait of an abusive relationship.  Like so many victims, Grace is fooled into thinking that Paul is going to change or that it’s even her fault.  Sleeping With Danger shows all of the ways that someone like Paul will manipulate and hurt those around him.  Antonio Cupo and Elisabeth Rohm both give believable performances in the lead roles.  The film may be grim and a bit of a downer but it’s message makes it worth seeing.

Lifetime Film Review: The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate (dir by Mark Gantt)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, put yourself in this situation.

You’re an aspiring writer, which is a really nice way of saying that you don’t have much money.  Because you haven’t paid your rent in four months, you’ve just gotten kicked out of your apartment.  As bad as that is, you can take some comfort from the fact that your incredibly hot boyfriend owns a really nice and really big apartment and he probably won’t have any issue with letting you live there.  I mean, he’s always eager for you to sleep over so why not just move in?  So, you head over to his place to give him the news and….

….some blonde that you’ve never seen before opens the door and asks you who you are!

Okay, now you’re in trouble.  Not only do you not have an apartment but you also don’t have a boyfriend.  You have no money and you have no family to fall back on.  While many writers wrote some of their best work while living in boxcars and drifting across the country, you’re not sure that’s what you want to do with the next few years of your life.  So, you get on social media and you let the world know that you need a job.  ANY JOB!

That’s what happens to Olivia (Carrie Wampler), the character at the center of The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate.  It all happens during the first 10 minutes or so of this movie and it does make Olivia into an instantly likable character.  There’s no way that you can’t sympathize with her because everything that could go wrong in her life has gone wrong in just the course of a few hours.  When Olivia is contacted by Cassidy (Jordyn Aurora Aquino) and told that there is a job opportunity for her but that it requires Olivia to be discreet, you can’t blame Olivia for jumping at the opportunity.  What else is Olivia going to do?  Starve?

It turns out that Cassidy works for Ava (Brianne Davis) and Hayden (Carl Beukes) von Richter, a celebrity couple who, after Ava’s last few films flopped at the box office, are now mostly famous for being famous.  Ava and Hayden hire Olivia to act as a surrogate to carry their child.  Olivia will get $150,000 once the baby is born and she’ll get to stay at Ava and Hayden’s fabulous mansion.  The main conditions seem reasonable: Olivia will have to be discreet and she’ll also have to stay healthy and be regularly checked out by Ava’s army of doctors.  Olivia agrees.

And, at first, everything seems okay.  Ava and Hayden are charming, even if Ava is a bit high-strung and Hayden often seems like he’s lost in thought.  Olivia bonds with Cassidy and chef Peter (Kenneth Miller).  Ava can be demanding but that makes sense and …. wait, a minute, did Ava just do cocaine in a public restaurant?   And what exactly is Hayden doing with that hypodermic needle?

Needless to say, Ava and Hayden are not as perfect as they initially seem and Olivia soon starts to have doubts about whether or not they should even be parents.  Hayden, especially, seems to get creepier (and more and more gropey) with each passing day.  Soon, that fabulous mansion starts to feel like a prison and Olivia comes to realize that her employers are even more dangerous than she originally suspected….

The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate is a film that’s very much of the moment.  We live in a society that is obsessed with celebrities, even faded ones like Ava and Hayden.  We also live in a world where ordinary people — like Olivia — can actually connect with celebrities via social media.  At the same time, though people may not always be quick to admit it, we all secretly suspect that most celebrities are actually crazy and probably have a dungeon underneath their mansion.  Even our favorites are often suspected of harboring dark secrets, as seen by the eagerness of the twitter mob to cancel their former heroes.  As such, we can all relate to Olivia’s willingness to be a part of Ava and Hayden’s seemingly glamorous life while, at the time, Ava and Hayden’s “quirks” serve to confirm what we’ve always suspected about what goes on behind closed doors in Beverly Hills and on Park Avenue.

The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate strikes a good balance between thriller and satire.  It embraces the melodrama while also retaining enough self-awarness to be fun.  Brianne Davis and Carl Beukes are both entertainingly sleazy as the celebrity couple from Hell while Carrie Wampler is sympathetic and likable in the role of Olivia.  This is an entertaining Lifetime movie that will be enjoyed by anyone who has ever looked at a celebrity tweet and thought to themselves, “What a weirdo.”

Lifetime Film Review: A Murder to Remember (dir by Robin Givens)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s been a murder.  Or has there?

Two people emerge from the wilderness, both with a story to tell.  Sam Turner (T.C. Matherne) lives in the backwoods.  He’s a country boy, right down to his accent and the gun that he carries with him.  He’s the type who can lead you to the best places to fish but he gives off a vibe that says that you don’t want to turn your back on him for too long.  Accompanying Sam is Robin (Maddie Nichols), a young woman who appears to be shell-shocked.  They’ve spent the last few days in the woods.  Sam claims that he’s been caring for and protecting Robin as they made their way back to civilization.  Robin …. well, Robin doesn’t quite seem to remember exactly what’s been going on.

What both Sam and Robin both agree on is that Robin’s husband, Javier (Kevin Rodriguez), is dead.  Javier and Robin were celebrating their first anniversary by going on a camping trip.  Javier was an experienced camper.  Robin was not.  When Sam approached them and offered to show them the best place to fish, they followed him deeper into the forest.  According to Sam, he accidentally took a wrong turn and got them lost but is he telling the truth?

Sam says that he accidentally shot Javier.  At first, Robin backs up his story but later she says that Sam actually murdered Javier in cold blood and then proceeded to brainwash the shocked Robin to such an extent that Robin couldn’t remember what was true.  Sheriff Watkins (Leslie Hendrix) is inclined to believe Robin over Sam.  However, things are complicated when the two of them each take a polygraph test.  Sam passes.  Robin does not.

So, is Sam telling the truth?  Sam may have passed the polygraph but he’s so obviously sleazy that it’s hard to believe that he didn’t intentionally kill Javier.  Was Robin in on the murder or is she suffering from the after effects of Stockholm Syndrome, the phenomena in which the victim of an abduction will come to trust and, at the times, even help their abductor?

Based on a true story, A Murder To Remember makes it pretty clear from the start who is to be trusted and who isn’t.  Sam is obviously guilty and Robin is obviously telling the truth but, for most of the movie, there’s no way to prove any of it.  Unfortunately, because the truth is so obvious, the film is never as suspenseful as it could be.  Instead of trying to figure out what actually happened, the viewer instead just waits for Sam to finally slip up.  It takes a while as this is a rather slow movie, especially by the usually quick paced standards of Lifetime.

The film is at its best when it’s in the wilderness.  The film does a good job of capturing just how frightening it can be to be lost when there’s no hint of civilization anywhere around.  Maddie Nichols does a great job of capturing the fear that any of us would feel in her situation.  She’s not even an experienced camper and now, suddenly, her husband is dead and she’s going to have to depend on her husband’s murderer to survive.  That would be enough to send anyone into a state of shock and Nichols effectively portrays the gradual process that leads to Robin remembering what actually happened to Javier.

A Murder To Remember was uneven but, if nothing else, it reminded me of why I don’t go camping.

Lifetime Film Review: Abducted On Air (dir by Philippe Gagnon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Whenever I find myself in need of motivation, I remember the words of Britney Spears:

You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti?
You want a Maserati? You better work bitch
You want a Lamborghini? Sippin’ martinis?
Look hot in a bikini? You better work bitch
You wanna live fancy? Live in a big mansion?
Party in France?
You better work bitch, you better work bitch
You better work bitch, you better work bitch
Now get to work bitch!
Now get to work bitch!

As my fellow TSL writers can tell you, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t, at some point, shout out, “Get to work, bitch!”  And while that habit has occasionally gotten me a few strange looks around the office, it definitely works.  For instance, I didn’t know if I’d have the strength to write 24 film reviews in one day.  I didn’t even know if it was worth the trouble.  But I just thought to myself, “You better work, bitch!”

Unfortunately, that technique doesn’t work for everyone.  Abducted on Air is about Sasha Bruder (Kim Shaw), a television news reporter who wants to make it to the top without actually having to actually earn it through hard work.  Unfortunately, even though she has an on-air job at a local news station, it doesn’t seem like she’s heading anywhere.  Her boss, Gavin (Bruce Dinsmore), doesn’t respect her and lead anchor Diane Baldwin (Perry Reeves) is the one who gets all the attention.

But then, one day, Sasha does not come into work.  An investigation reveals that she was apparently abducted from the station and that her kidnapping was caught on video!  For days, Sasha and her disappearance dominates the news.  Where is Sasha Bruder and can she be rescued in time?

Of course, what the public doesn’t know is that Sasha set up her own kidnapping and is currently hanging out in a warehouse.  Even though she insists that her co-worker, lover, and collaborator, Aidan Ferguson (Gord Rand), actually blindfold her and tie her up, that’s just so she’ll be able to bring some authenticity to her story when she eventually resurfaces.

Eventually, Sasha does decide to leave the warehouse.  She emerges with a harrowing tale about how she was abducted and everything that she’s been through over the past couple of days.  Sasha becomes a celebrity and is promoted to co-anchor of the morning newscast.  Diane is not particularly happy about that but Gavin doesn’t care.  All Gavin cares about are ratings and Sasha’s bringing them in.

However, faking a kidnapping is not as easy as it may look.  When it looks like the truth about Sasha’s abduction might finally be revealed, Sasha has no choice but to take matters into her own hands….

I enjoyed Abducted On Air.  Admittedly, a lot of that had to do with the fact that I tend to distrust television journalism,  (In many ways, this was a film that seemed like it was specifically designed to appeal to my every bias.)  This is a film about people obsessively trying to climb to the top of one of the the most superficial professions in existence and the fact that everyone in the movie is so obsessed with finding success in a dying industry actually gave Abducted On Air a bit of a satirical edge.  Perrey Reeves and Kim Shaw both gave good performances as the two rival journalists, making this film a fun one to watch whenever you want to imagine what’s going on behind the scenes of your local news broadcast.

Lifetime Film Review: A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2 (dir by Colin Theys)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Look who’s back!

At the end of the 2017 Lifetime film, Stalker’s Prey, it appeared the psycho Bruce had been eaten by a shark.  Normally, that’s not a fate that I wish on anyone but Bruce ….. well, Bruce really was a psycho.  In fact, Bruce even fed several people to the sharks so it seemed kinda appropriate that a shark would eventually take him out.  Like a lot of Lifetime movie psychos, Bruce was also the obsessive type.  He was the type who would save your life (after, of course, arranging the accident that put you in danger in the first place) and then decide that you belonged to him.  Bleh.  Go, shark, go!

However, amazingly enough, Bruce apparently survived that shark attack.  A Predator’s Obsession finds Bruce — now known as Daniel and played by Houston Stevenson — working at a local marina.  He looks a bit different now, which I guess would make sense after everything that he’s been through.  He’s got a few scars from being attacked by that shark but he also has all of his limbs.  Most importantly, Bruce still loves sharks and they apparently love him.  I guess it makes sense, seeing as how he’s named after the shark that starred in Jaws.

When Bruce saves a child named Kevin (Brayson Goss) from a shark, the media proclaims him a hero.  Kevin’s family invites Bruce over for dinner.  When they find out that Bruce has just gotten kicked out of his apartment and doesn’t have anywhere to live, they open their house to him.  It’s supposed to only be a temporary thing but Bruce has no intentions of leaving.  Bruce has fallen for Kevin’s older sister, Alison (Julia Blanchard).  Despite the fact that her rich, no-good boyfriend, Carson (Jackson Dockery), is not happy about her living with another man, Alison tries to make Bruce comfortable.  She even sets Bruce up on a date with her fun-loving best friend, Rhiannon (Sarah Wisser).

(It wouldn’t be a Lifetime film without a fun-loving best friend!)

However, Bruce is only interested in Alison and you know what that means.  It’s time for Bruce to start feeding people to the sharks.  It’s kind of sad, really.  Bruce is handsome, charming, athletic, and he’s a good swimmer.  It seems like he should be able to get a date without having to resort to feeding people to sharks.  But I guess Bruce has his issues and, as a result, he never really got beyond the “feed my enemies to wild animals” stage of personal growth.

I absolutely loved Stalker’s Prey and I enjoyed the sequel as well.  The great thing about A Predator’s Obsession is that it doesn’t take itself seriously at all.  It fully embraces the shark-filled melodrama and the resulting action is just as over-the-top and joyfully outlandish as you could possibly hope for.  In the previous film, Bruce was content to just push people over the side of a boat.  In this film, he uses a crane to suspend someone over the water.  He traps another person in a cage.  The film understands that a good sequel has to be bigger than the original film and it’s so entertaining that I can’t wait for Stalker’s Prey 3.

I mean, with SyFy no longer showing original movies, there’s a whole lot of shark fans out there looking for a new home.  Go get ’em, Lifetime!

Lifetime Film Review: Deranged Granny (dir by Jennifer Liao)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Over the course of the last few years, Lifetime has been showing a lot of movies about psychotic grandmothers.

These movies usually follow the same pattern.  A woman, who is either divorced or widowed and who has at least two young children, meets a handsome man who doesn’t like to talk about his past.  After a whirlwind courtship, they get married.  Though it’s a struggle at first, the new blended family finally starts to come together.  Suddenly, the doorbell rings and …. IT’S GRANNY!

Where has grandma been?  Sometimes, she’s been in a mental hospital.  Sometimes, she’s been in jail.  Sometimes, she’s recently escaped from a retirement community.  The important thing is that she’s back and she’s suddenly ready to be a part of the family.  The kids lover her and her daughter-in-law feels threatened.  Everyone tells the new wife that she’s being paranoid and that grandma might be a little eccentric but she’s harmless.  However, the viewers know that the grandma is actually a psycho because we’ve seen her murder at least two people by the fourth commercial break.

The appeal of these films is pretty easy to understand.  It comes down to two things.

Number one, like many Lifetime films, it features a very universal fear at the heart of its melodrama.  Every parent worries about how they’re going to live up to (or, in some case, improve upon) the example of the grandparents.  Kids tend to love their grandparents, largely because they provide an escape from having to deal with mom and dad and all of their hangups about going to bed on time, not watching too much TV, and doing their homework.  The grandparents get all of the good parts of parenting without any of the bad parts, or so it seems.  Even more importantly, there’s always the fear that grandma is silently judging everything that her daughter-in-law is doing.  This is something that almost everyone can relate to.

Number two, these films always manage to find the best actresses to play grandma.  Usually, these are actresses who, because Hollywood is a terrible place, no longer seem to get the type of roles that they deserve.  In the tradition of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in almost every film they made after Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, these actresses usually give wonderfully over-the-top performances as the psycho grandma.

Wendie Malick is the latest actress to star as one of Lifetime’s psycho grandmas.  In Deranged Granny, she plays Barbara.  Barbara never really recovered from the death of her son’s first wife and her grandchild.  Now that Ethan (Josh Ventura) has remarried and has two stepchildren, Barbara is determined to be a part of their lives.  Unfortunately, Barbara’s new daughter-in-law, Kendall (Amanda Righetti), comes to feel that Barbara is trying to push her out of her family’s life.  Is Kendall being paranoid or is she correct in her suspicion that the main reason that Barbara is always cooking is because she’s obsessed with poisoning people?  You can probably guess the answer to that question by the fact that the movie is called Deranged Granny and not Deranged Daughter-in-Law.

Not surprisingly, the main reason to watch Deranged Granny is for the performance of Wendie Malick.  That we usually tend to associate Malick with comedic roles only makes it all the more effective when she suddenly starts poisoning everyone who looks at her the wrong way.  Even when she’s not specifically trying to kill people, Malick delivers all of her faux friendly lines with just the perfect amount of passive aggressive condescension.  What I especially liked about the film is that Barbara seemed to be having a lot of fun with her evil schemes.  She may have been the granny from Hell but she still came across like she would be the fun grandma as well.  Just don’t eat her cookies, especially if you have a food allergy.

Disgruntled Granny was a fun deranged grandma film.  Watch it the next time you feel like you’re being silently judged.

Lifetime Film Review: Poolboy Nightmare (dir by Rolfe Kanefsky)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After 10 minutes of watching Pool Boy Nightmare, I called Erin into the living room and I told her that, even though I don’t swim and I actually have a morbid fear of drowning, I felt we definitely needed to get a pool put into the backyard.

I mean, the film just made getting a pool look like such a brilliant idea.  Not only do you get an aesthetically pleasing addition to the exterior of your house but, once you get a pool, everyone suddenly wants to be your friend and, more importantly, they want to do stuff for you.  And, even though I don’t swim, I still enjoy going outside and pretending like I’m capable of getting a tan (I’m a redhead.  We burn but we don’t exactly tan) and I look cute in a  bikini so I could definitely get some use out of the pool while everyone else was splashing around.

Add to that, getting a pool apparently also meant getting a totally hunky pool boy, the type of guy who has a lot of tattoos and who has obviously just gotten out of prison so he’s got those hungry eyes going, if you know what I mean.

About an hour after watching the film, I called Erin back into the living room.  “We’re going to have to cancel getting the pool,” I told her.

“We weren’t getting one,” she told me.

“I don’t want it anymore.  Contact whoever you need to contact and tell them to rip up the contract because the pool’s been cancelled.”

“Uhmmm …. okay.”

Seriously, owning a pool is a lot of work!  Apparently, if you don’t keep it full of water, your best friend will show up in the middle of the night and and just walk right over the edge and end up breaking her leg.  Plus, if you put too much chlorine in the pool, someone could end up burning their skin and having to go to the hospital.  There’s also always the risk of a dead rat showing up in your filter.  And, of course, there’s the drowning risk.  It just seemed like too much.

Of course, in Poolboy Nightmare, the main problem with the pool was that Adam the pool boy (played by Tanner Zagarino) turned out to be a total psycho with a Norman Bates-style mother obsession.  Complicating things was that Adam ended up sleeping with Gale (Jessica Morris) and then dating Gale’s teenage daughter, Becca (Ellie Dacey-Alden)!  Gale knows that Adam is totally bad news but, if she tells Becca that, it’ll mean confessing that she slept with Becca’s boyfriend.  You can see how that might get awkward.

Anyway, Poolboy Nightmare is …. well, it’s alright.  It get a lot of entertaining mileage by playing into all of the stories that you hear about bored women in the suburbs who end up sleeping with their pool boy.  The film’s first third is fun, with its emphasis on Adam walking around shirtless and every woman in the house ogling him.  You almost expect to hear a 70s bassline on the soundtrack whenever anyone catches sight of him.  Once Adam goes psycho, the film becomes a standard stalker film where everyone is, unfortunately, required to do the stupidest thing possible.  Fortunately, there’s enough hints that the film is meant to be something of a parody that it remains entertaining until the final credits.

Seriously, though, don’t get a pool.  They’re dangerous.

Lifetime Film Review: Sinfidelity (dir by Tamar Halpern)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, imagine that you’re living the life of Angela (Jade Tailor).

You’re married to a successful businessman.  You’ve got a nice house.  You’ve got attractive friends.  Really, you’ve got everything that most people are conditioned to want out of life.  And yet, you can’t shake your suspicion that something is not right.

Part of the problem is that your husband, Greg (Mark Jude Sullivan), has cheated in the past.  And even though he says that’s all in the past, it’s hard for you to trust him.  Your anniversary is approaching and Greg doesn’t appear to have made even the slightest of plans to celebrate it.  Instead, he’s spending all of his time at work.  Plus, you instinctively mistrust his assistant, Lisa (Caroline Cole).  Maybe you’re being silly but then again, deep down, you know that no one can resist someone named Lisa.

(That’s just the burden that we Lisas have to deal with.)

You notice that Lisa is wearing expensive earrings.  The next day, you find one of those earrings in your house.  You immediately decide that Greg and Lisa must be having an affair.

What do you do?  Do you file for divorce?  Do you change the locks and kick your husband out of the house?  Do you blow up his car?

Those are all good options but Angela decides that the best way to get back at Greg is to have an affair of her own.  She ends up hooking up with Franco (Aidan Bristow), a handsome photographer.  Angela does this despite the fact that Franco gives off obsessive stalker vibes from the minute that she meets him.  Then again, it’s not like Angela’s looking for a relationship.  Angela’s looking for revenge and you do strange things when you’re looking for revenge.  Still, I would have gotten out of Franco’s place as soon as I saw all of the pictures he had taken of a woman who superficially resembled me.  Franco claims that the pictures are of his sister, who died under mysterious circumstances years ago and …. yeah, it’s time to leave.

Still, Angela doesn’t leave.  She spends the night with Franco.  When she leaves the next morning and returns home to confront Greg, Grey can’t understand why she’s so upset.

“I know!” Angela says.

“About the trip to Italy?” Greg asks.

Yes, that’s right!  Greg was actually being a good husband.  He bought Angela earrings and a trip to Italy for their anniversary and he’s been working late to make sure that they would have enough money to afford it.  He had Lisa set up the trip and he also had her deliver the earrings.  Lisa thought it would be fun to wear the earrings before dropping them off which …. well, okay, that doesn’t make much sense but hey, whatever.  What’s important is that Greg is not cheating and that they’re going to Italy and their marriage is not in trouble!  Yay!

The only problem, of course, is that Angela’s already had a one night stand with Franco and Franco is not only obsessive but apparently a bit psychotic as well.  That means that Franco’s not just going to take no for an answer….

You can probably guess where all of this is heading.  This is a Lifetime film and any fan of Lifetime knows what happens when you get an obsessed stalker.  Sinfidelity doesn’t exactly break any new ground as far as Lifetime thrillers are concerned but Jade Tailor gives a good performance as Angela and the film opens with an genuinely creepy sequence that’s set at a roller disco.  Any film that features a roller disco is automatically going to be better than any film that doesn’t have a roller disco.  That’s always been my philosophy.

In the end, Sinfidelity has a worthwhile message.  Don’t cheat on your spouse unless you have all the facts first.  Otherwise, your act of revenge might lead to you getting stalked by a psycho photographer.  Seriously, the more you know, right?