Matthew Kevin Anderson | Through the Shattered Lens

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?

After I finished watching The Bridge on The River Kwai, I decided to watch a more recent film that was on my DVR. I selected My Sweet Audrina, a film that made its debut, this January, on Lifetime. Would My Sweet Audrina prove to be as good a film as The Bridge on the River Kwai? Read on to find out…

I have to admit that, despite my well-known love for over-the-top Lifetime melodrama, I was not particularly enthusiastic about watching My Sweet Audrina. Though I missed the film when it was originally broadcast, I did see the commercials leading up to it. “From the author of Flowers In The Attic,” the commercials announced, which led me to believe that My Sweet Audrina would be yet another installment in the Flowers saga. And don’t get me wrong — I enjoyed Flowers In The Attic and I thought If There Be Thorns had some good moments but, after four movies about that messed up, incestuous family, I was ready to move on.

However, once I started watching the film, I quickly discovered that — despite some definite similarities — My Sweet Audrina has nothing to do with Flowers in the Attic. True, it does deal with family secrets and sexual repression and a young woman who is never allowed to leave her family’s Victorian mansion but other than that, it has absolutely nothing to do with Flowers In the Attic.

Audrina (India Eisley) believes that she is nine years old but she is actually a teenager. She spends almost all of her time isolated from the rest of the world. Her father (James Tupper) refuses to let Audrina interact with the outside world, convinced that she will suffer the same fate that happened to a mysterious figure known as “the first Audrina.” Audrina’s older sister, Vera (Toni Atkins), is jealous of the attention that their father devotes to Audrina. She deals with her anger by intentionally injuring herself and having sex with everyone she meets and then taunting the repressed Audrina with the details. When a handsome piano teacher shows up to give her lessons, Audrina is ashamed when she feels attracted to him and then is angered when Vera steals him away.

Fortunately for Audrina, a very understanding neighbor named Arden Lowe (William Moseley) has fallen for in love with her. (In what world does a handsome young man fall in love with a strange girl who has no friends, no understanding of the world, and is totally terrified of sex? The world of Lifetime, of course!) However, even after marrying Arden, Audrina is still haunted by disturbing nightmares and is incapable of enjoying sex.

Of course, it all comes down to the mystery of what happened to the first Audrina. And fear not! All questions are eventually answered. Of course, the answers don’t really make any sense but I guess that’s kind of the point. The melodrama of My Sweet Audrina is so pure and unapologetically over the top that it doesn’t have to follow any logic other than its own.

Visually, My Sweet Audrina follows the lushly gothic pattern previously established by Flowers In The Attic. The sets are elaborate, the clothes are to die for (even Audrina’s supposedly drab outfits have a definite flair to the,), and all of the performers are nice to look at. India Eisley does a good job as Audrina but, for me, Toni Atkins stole the entire film as the obsessively self-destructive Vera.

For lovers of over-the-top melodrama, My Sweet Audrina is a lot of fun.

And if you’re not a lover of over-the-top melodrama … well, then you probably wouldn’t be watching Lifetime in the first place!

(But, to answer the question I asked at the start of this review, My Sweet Audrina is not as good as The Bridge on The River Kwai. But it’s still pretty entertaining!)