Last night, as I attempted to drift off to sleep, I turned on the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched the Canadian thriller, Deadly Hope.

Why Was I Watching It?

First off, it was on the Lifetime Movie Network and that’s always a good sign.  Secondly, how can you not watch something called Deadly Hope?

What Was It About?

So, Joanne (Alana De La Garza) is an obstetrician whose life is turned upside down when her partner at the fertility clinic is murdered by a mysterious assailant.  Joanne deals with her grief by having a one-night stand with a random stranger and soon, that random stranger is also murdered by a mysterious assailant.  Could the two crimes be connected and will the audience notice that all the locations in the film look rather Canadian?  That’s up to Detective Denise Landers (Sandrine Holt) to figure out.

What Worked?

Oh my God, this movie was scary!  Now, I know what you’re doing.  You’re laughing at me because you’re all like, “C’mon, Lisa — it’s a Canadian Lifetime movie!”  Well, all I can say is that you weren’t there.  Okay, the killer doesn’t just strangle or shoot people — instead, he stabs them with this little hypodermic needle that he carries around with him and it just looks like a really painful way to die.  Add to that, the killer just keeps popping up out of nowhere, much like the murderer in Dario Argento’s underrated giallo Opera.

Though she might not be a household name, Sandrine Holt is one of my favorite actresses, mostly because she always seems to be so unimpressed with everything happening around her.

What Did Not Work?

Actually, most of the film didn’t work and it was largely because Joanne was such an unsympathetic character and it didn’t help that quite a few otherwise likable  characters ended up getting killed just because they made the mistake of knowing her.  As played by Alana De La Garza, Joanne seems to be more annoyed by the inconvenience of having to deal with multiple murders than anything else.

Add to that, even by the standards of a Canadian movie, the film’s final twist kinda came out of nowhere.

“Oh My God!  Just like me!” Moments

I’m tempted to say that there were absolutely no “Oh my God!  Just like me!” moments in this film but that’s not quite true.  For instance, Joanne gets annoyed when her annoying neighbor just wanders, unannounced, into her living room and I would have the same reaction.

And, of course, every time Joanne has a one-night stand, it ends in a bloody murder.  That’s nothing like me … or is it?  *Cue ominous music*

Lessons Learned

Not everything made in Canada is as good as Degrassi.