Horror on the Lens: Robot Monster (dir by Phil Tucker)

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there and welcome to October! This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is our annual horrorthon! For the past several years (seriously, we’ve been doing this for a while), we have celebrated every October by reviewing and showing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music. That’s a tradition that I’m looking forward to helping to continue this year.

Today’s horror film is a true classic of its kind, the 1953 science fiction epic Robot Monster.

Now, I should admit that this is not the first time that I’ve shared Robot Monster in October. I share it every year and, every year, YouTube seems to pull the video down in November. That sucks because Robot Monster is one of those weird films that everyone should see. So, I’m going to share it again. And, hopefully, YouTube will let the video stay up for a while.

As for what Robot Monster is about…

What happens with the Earth is attacked by aliens? Well, first off, dinosaurs come back to life. All of humanity is killed, except for one annoying family. Finally, the fearsome Ro-Man is sent down to the planet to make sure that it’s ready for colonization. (Or something like that. To be honest, Ro-Man’s exact goal remains a bit vague.)

Why is Ro-Man so fearsome? Well, he lives in a cave for one thing. He also owns a bubble machine. And finally, perhaps most horrifically, he’s a gorilla wearing a diver’s helmet. However, Ro-Man is not just a one-dimensional bad guy. No, he actually gets to have a monologue about halfway through the film in which he considers the existential issues inherent in being a gorilla wearing a diver’s helmet.

Can humanity defeat Ro-Man? Will Ro-Man ever get his intergalactic supervisor to appreciate him? And finally, why are the dinosaurs there?

Despite the film’s reputation for being borderline incoherent, most of those above questions actually are answered if you pay attention to the first few scenes of Robot Monster. In fact, one could even argue that Robot Monster is maybe a little bit more clever than it’s often given credit for. Of course, it’s still a zero-budget mess of a film but it’s also undeniably fun and, in some sections, unexpectedly dark. If you’ve never seen it before, you owe it to yourself to set aside an hour and two minutes in order to watch it. You’ve never see anything like it before.

Finally, I should note that Robot Monster’s hero was played by George Nader, who actually did go on to appear in several mainstream films. Despite his good looks and talent (which may not be obvious in this film but which he did have), George Nader struggled to get starring roles in Hollywood, where he was often dismissed as just being a member of Rock Hudson’s entourage. (It’s been theorized that Nader struggled because the studios feared that giving him too big of a role would lead to the gossip magazines writing about Nader’s relationship with Hudson, though the two were just friends. Nader was in a relationship with Hudson’s private secretary, Mark Miller, from 1947 until Nader’s death in 2001.) Nader finally left Hollywood and went on to have a pretty successful career in Europe. He was perhaps best known for playing secret agent Jerry Cotton in a series of films in the 60s.

Happy October and enjoy Robot Monster!

(On another note, this movie was a favorite of TSL Contributor Gary Loggins. Gary passed away a year ago today so this showing is dedicated to his memory. We miss you, Gary!)

Horror TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.6 “On the Inside” (dir by Greg Nicotero)

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Who is Connie?

I have to admit that, when I started watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead a few days ago, I had absolutely no idea who Connie was. As I’ve stated before, I actually stopped watching the show after Carl Grimes shot himself during season 8. With Carl dead, it really didn’t seem like it was going to be worth following the show to whatever bleak destination it was heading towards. So, I sat out two and a half seasons. I missed the final appearance of characters like Rick Grimes and Michonne. I missed the death of Jesus during season 9, which was unfortunate since that was one character who really got on my nerves. And, most importantly, as far as this week’s show was concerned, I missed the introduction of Connie.

And yet, despite not really knowing who she was, I was enthralled by her storyline. Connie (played by Lauren Ridloff) and Virgil (Kevin Carroll) spent the majority of this week’s episode trapped in a house. On the outside of the house, there were Walkers. On the inside was something even more frightening, a group of feral human beings who, though still living, had reverted to mindless cannibalism. For the first time in a long time, The Walking Dead was genuinely scary. The Walkers, who are far too often treated as an afterthought on this show, were a legitimate threat and the feral people made me jump every time they emerged from the shadows. I was frightened for Connie and Virgil, despite not being totally sure who they were. For once, I cared about whether or not the film’s human characters would survive and it’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that about The Walking Dead or, for that matter, any other zombie-themed show or movie.

Director Greg Nicotero deserves a lot of credit for this episode. He did a wonderful job maintaining suspense and an atmosphere of impending doom. The scenes of Connie and Virgil in the house felt a bit like an homage to the Dead films of George Romero. Beyond the location, the twin threats of the Walkers and the Ferals brought to mind one of the main themes of Romero’s work — i.e., there’s not that big of a difference between the dead and the living. One could argue that the Ferals are just getting an early start on their eventual fate.

The Connie/Virgil storyline was so intense that I was actually happy for the somewhat more subdued scenes involving Darryl and the Reapers. They have me a chance to catch my breath, even if the Reapers themselves still haven’t really established themselves as anything more than just this season’s group of misdirected bad guys. Naturally, I felt bad for Frost but, at this point, I can’t really say that I’m surprised by his fate. There’s been many Frosts over the past few years of The Walking Dead.

On The Inside was definitely a triumph. It reminded me of why, way back in 2010, people were so excited about this show in the first place. Hopefully, this will bode well for the rest of season 11.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Bad Girl (dir by Fin Edquist)

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When is a Lifetime film not a Lifetime film?

When it’s an Australian film, of course!

Bad Girl takes place in rural Australia. A family has just bought a new home. Peter (Ben Wispear) and Michelle (Felicity Price) are minor celebs, the type whose houses are often featured in magazines. They have a 17 year-old, adopted daughter named Amy (Sara West). When the film begins, Amy is the bad girl of the title. She has a bad attitude, she dressed in all black, she considers smoking crack as soon as they arrive at the news house, and she’s continually told that she’s being given “one more chance.” Amy takes one look around the house and decides that she doesn’t want that chance. Soon, she’s trying to run away.

Fortunately, it appears that Amy has made a new friend! Chloe (Samara Weaving) says that she lives next door. Chloe appears to be everything that Amy isn’t. Chloe is polite. She’s respectful. She doesn’t smoke crack cocaine. She doesn’t try to run away. She doesn’t regularly threaten to commit suicide. I mean, is she even a teenager!? At first, Peter and Michelle are happy that Chloe is Amy’s friend. Chloe might just be the good influence that Amy needs. But — wait a minute! What if …. what if Chloe is the bad girl!?

Well, you can probably already guess the answer to that one. Here’s one thing that I’ve learned from both the movies and real life: anyone who appears to be perfect is secretly screwed up. Chloe appears to be such an idealized friend that she might as well have psycho written across her forehead. In other words, it’s no spoiler to tell you that Chloe has an agenda of her own and soon, Amy is going to be faced with the unenviable task of trying to convince her parents that the perfect girl is actually the bad girl.

There’s a lot about Bad Girl that’s predictable and the parents aren’t particularly sympathetic. Even though Amy has, admittedly, given them reason to be concerned, they’re still way too quick to side against her as far as I’m concerned. It’s totally possible that may have been intentional on the part of the filmmakers but it still makes it difficult to really care about what happens to Peter and Michelle.

That said, Bad Girl does work when it just focuses on the relationship between Amy and Chloe. They have an interesting dynamic. Chloe wants to live what she believes Amy’s life to be while Amy secretly wants to be the person who she initially believes Chloe to be. However, neither Amy nor Chloe are really who everyone assumes that they are. Trapped out in the middle of nowhere, Amy and Chloe have both built up fantasies about what life is like out in the rest of the world. The only difference is that Amy, for all of her problems, can tell the difference between reality and fantasy while Chloe is so determined to live the fantasy that she’s willing to destroy reality. Sara West and Samara Weaving both do a great job of bringing Amy and Chloe to life. In fact, they do such a good job acting opposite each other that you kind of regret that their friendship is going to have to end. You find yourself wishing that all of their fantasies could have come true.

Bad Girl has its flaws but it worth watching for the performances of West and Weaving.

Insomnia File #48: Malice (dir by Harold Becker)

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night around 12 midnight, you could have turned over to the Cinemax and watched the 1993 thriller, Malice. And then you could have spent the next few hours trying to figure out what you just watched.

Seriously, there’s a lot going on in Malice. The screenplay is credited to Aaron Sorkin and Scott Frank and while it has enough overly arch dialogue and untrustworthy women to plainly identify it as being a product of Sorkin’s imagination, it’s also filled with a mini-series worth of incidents and subplots and random characters. This is also one of those films where no one can simply answer a question with a “yes” or a “no.” Instead, it’s one of those movies where everyone gets a monologue, giving the proceedings a rather theatrical feel. It’s the type of thing that David Mamet could have pulled off. (Check out The Spanish Prisoner for proof.) Harold Becker, however, was a far more conventionally-minded director and he often seems to be at a loss with what to do with all of the film’s Sorkinisms (and, to be fair, Frankisms as well).

The film starts out as a thriller, with a serial rapist stalking a college campus and Prof. Andy Safian (Bill Pullman) becoming an unlikely suspect. Then it turns into a domestic drama as Andy and his wife, Tracy (Nicole Kidman), talk about starting a family. Then Andy meets a brilliant surgeon named Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin) and the film turns into a roommate from Hell story after Jed moves in with them. Then it becomes a medical drama after a mistake by Dr. Hill leaves Tracy unable to have children. Then it returns briefly to the campus rapist story before then turning into a modern-day noir as Andy discovers that Tracy has secrets of her own. (Whenever one watches a film written by Aaron Sorkin, you can practically hear him whispering, “Women are not to be trusted….” in the background.) Even as you try to keep up with the plot, you find yourself distracted by all of the cameos. George C. Scott glowers as Jed’s mentor. Anne Bancroft acts the Hell out of her role as a drunken con artist. Peter Gallagher is the lawyer you distrust because he’s Peter Gallagher. Tobin Bell shows up as a handyman. Gwynneth Paltrow, in one of her first roles, plays dead convincingly

It’s a big and busy and messy film and it too often mistakes being complicated for being clever. Bill Pullman is a likable hero but you have to be willing to overlook that the script requires him to do some truly stupid things. Nicole Kidman is always well-cast as a femme fatale but again, the script often lets her down.

Surprisingly enough, it’s Alec Baldwin who comes out of the film unscathed. Watching Baldwin in this film, it’s hard to believe that he’s the same actor who has since become something of a bloated self-parody. Yes, he’s playing an arrogant character (which is pretty much his trademark) but, in Malice, he actually brings a hint of subtlety and wit to his performance. Baldwin does very little bellowing in the film, despite playing a role that one would think would naturally appeal to all of his bellowing instincts. Malice is a mess but it’s nice to see the type of actor that Alec Baldwin once was.

Previous Insomnia Files:

Film Review: Out of Bounds (dir by Richard Tuggle)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just a country boy

Born and raised in South Des Moines

He took the midnight bus to anywhere….

That’s the story of Darryl Cage, the protagonist of the 1986 film, Out of Bounds. Played by Anthony Michael Hall, Darryl is an Iowa farm boy who goes to Los Angeles to live with his brother. Unfortunately, when his flight lands, Darryl’s suitcase is switched with another one that’s full of cocaine! Darryl becomes an accidental drug mule and end up getting his brother killed! WHAT A DUMBASS!

So now, Darryl is on the run. He’s a small town farmer in the big city, trying to avoid bad guy Roy (Jeff Kober) and the police, led by Lt. Delgado (Glynn Turman). Fortunately, Darryl meets an aspiring actress named Dizz (Jenny Wright). Dizz gives him a makeover and introduces him to the Los Angeles club scene. Siouxsie and the Banshees make a cameo appearance at one club. They perform one song and fortunately, it’s Cities in the Dust. Unfortunately, they don’t actually get involved in the plot of the film. I would have liked to have seen Siouxsie beat up Jeff Kober. But it doesn’t happen.

Out of Bounds is one of the many films that came out in the mid-to-late-80s in which the actors who were (somewhat unfairly) considered to be Brat Packers attempted to prove that they were capable of doing more than just projecting teen angst. Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy, for instance, starred in a forgettable neo-noir called Blue City. Andrew McCarthy starred in an interesting but ultimately uneven film called Kansas. Emilio Estevez not only starred in Wisdom but he directed it too. And Anthony Michael Hall starred in Out of Bounds.

Anthony Michael Hall was best-known for playing nerdy characters in Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club and it’s probable that he was attempting to escape being typecast when he took his role in Out of Bounds. This was Anthony Michael Hall’s chance to play an action hero! Unfortunately, Anthony Michael Hall made the same mistake that many of his peers made while trying to give the performance that would allow them to break free of the Brat Pack label. He tried too hard. While Glynn Turman, Jeff Kober and Jenny Wright obviously understood the type of rather silly movie that Out of Bounds was going to be and they modified their performances accordingly, Anthony Michael Hall apparently tried to duplicate the method intensity of Marlon Brando or James Dean. In other words, Hall took the film far more seriously than it deserved to be taken.

Out of Bounds get off to a bad start as soon as it opens with Anthony Michael Hall on the farm in Iowa. There’s absolutely nothing about the young Anthony Michael Hall that leaves on with the impression that he’s ever spent any time on a farm. Everything about him screams Hollywood before he even lands in Los Angeles. Hence, it gets difficult to really buy him as being the wide-eyed innocent that everyone else views him as being. Since a good deal of the film’s plot is dependent upon Hall being naïve, that’s a problem. He may be a farm boy but he certainly doesn’t freak out after shooting someone. He’s also somehow learned how to throw a knife straight into someone’s gut. Out of Bound‘s director, Richard Tuggle, directed two films for Clint Eastwood so he obviously knew how to frame a fight scene but Hall is so miscast that it’s impossible to really get into the movie.

The film is pretty much stolen by Jenny Wright and Jeff Kober. Kober is properly menacing and, just as she did in Near Dark and I, Madman, Jenny Wright works wonders with a role that could have just been formulaic. Jenny Wright has apparently retired from acting. Jeff Kober still shows up in movies and on television, usually playing villains. (Earlier this year, he played yet another drug trafficker on General Hospital.) Watching them give compelling performance in a film like Out of Bounds, it’s hard not to feel that both of them deserved bigger career than they had (or, in Kober’s case, still have).

The film is also stolen by its soundtrack, which is very 80s but in the best possible way. Adam Ant, The Smiths, the aforementioned Souixsie and the Banshees, they all make an appearance and provide the film with a bit of narrative momentum that it would otherwise lack. Watching the film, 80s Los Angeles comes across like a fun place. No wonder Darryl Cage wanted to stay even though everyone was trying to kill him.

Out of Bounds is ultimately pretty forgettable and it didn’t make Anthony Michael Hall into an action star. But, that’s okay. Like a lot of former Brat Packers, he’s proven himself to be a reliable character actor. There is life after high school. Even more importantly, there’s also life after Iowa.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Psycho Intern (dir by Ann Forry)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here at the Shattered Lens, we have a very simple but very important rule.

DON’T SLEEP WITH THE INTERNS!

Of course, we also don’t have any interns so I’ve never really had to go out of my way to enforce that rule but still, if we did have interns, the rule would definitely be to not sleep with them. Seriously, I’ve seen enough Lifetime films to know better. Anytime you see a Lifetime film with the word “Intern” in the title, you know that the intern is going to be attractive, you know that the boss is going to be dealing with a difficult divorce or some other personal issue, and you know that one night of passion is going to leave to at least 40 minutes of trouble.

That’s certainly the case when it comes to Alex Prescott (Madison Smith), the handsome young man who works as an intern for Maya (Emmanuelle Vaugier). At first, Alex just seems like an overly earnest college student who is oddly eager about making coffee. But then, after Maya’s assistant is injured in a mysterious accident, Alex becomes an indispensable part of the office. In fact, Alex is so helpful and so supportive and so handsome that it doesn’t seem to matter that he never brought in the information necessary for the company to run a background check for him. And when he’s asked to offer up some proof that he actually is a college student, he claims that university’s server has gone down and it’ll be a while before he can get that proof.

That all sounds pretty suspicious to me but one can’t really blame Maya for not paying to much attention. She’s got a lot to deal with. Not only is her daughter coming by for a visit but Maya also has a big presentation coming up. Unfortunately, she also has to deal with a misogynistic coworker. Fortunately, that coworker is sent to the hospital, the result of another mysterious accident! There certainly do seem to be a lot of mysterious accidents and incidents whenever Alex is around. Maya would probably notice that if she wasn’t busy having a one night stand with him in the office.

Afterwards, Maya is all like, “We have to transfer you to another office!” But Alex …. well, the title of the movie is Psycho Intern, afterall!

This is hardly the first movie about a psycho to air on Lifetime, nor will it be the last. Hell, it’s not even the first Lifetime movie about a psycho intern! For whatever reason, interns are always bad news on Lifetime, which leads me to wonder what life is like at corporate headquarters. One of the main themes of Lifetime movies that take place in the corporate world is that executives should never trust anyone who makes less money than them because those people will always end up trying to kill them. That’s certainly the case here but, what the film lacks in originality, it makes up for in entertaining melodrama. Madison Smith does a good job of switching back and forth from being charming to being batshit insane. Emmanuelle Vaugier is a veteran of these type of films and she bring her usual flair to the role. It’s a Lifetime movie that promises a psycho intern and it keeps its promise.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Driven to Kill (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ever since she was little, Brittany Green (Shelby Yardley) has wanted to become a professional race car driver. She just loves cars and who can blame her? Her fiancé, Kevin (Devante Winfrey), wants her to help him run his family’s hotel, despite the fact that a hotel is nowhere near as exciting as the Indy 500. And Andrew James (Phillip Boyd) …. well, he just wants Brittany.

Andrew used to be a hotshot race car driver, until a serious accident left him with vision problems and a slightly obsessive personality. Andrew now makes his living by teaching other people how to race cars. Guess who his latest student is? It’s Brittany! Unfortunately, Andrew has a former former rival named Mario (Justin Berti), and he also wants to teach Brittany and he’ll do everything in his power to pull her away. (He’ll even point out that he actually won his race, something that Andrew rarely did.) Unfortunately, what Mario doesn’t realize, is that Andrew will do anything to keep Brittany as a student.

That’s something that Kevin discovers as well. When a sudden death (once that Andrew had a little something to do with) forces Kevin to spend more and more time working at the hotel, he starts to pressure Brittany to give up her dream. Soon, it’s not just a question of whether or not Kevin and Brittany’s relationship will survive. It’s a question of whether or not Kevin and Brittany will survive as well!

Driven to Kill is a classic Lifetime film, an entertaining movie about obsession, fast cars, and a time bomb. (Listen, it’s just not a car movie without a time bomb.) Philip Boyd is convincingly unhinged as Andrew while Shelby Yardley is likable in the role of Brittany and even manages to make you care a little about whether or not she’s ever going to get to hit the NASCAR circuit. Justin Berti is enjoyable eccentric in the role of Mario and provides some nice comedic relief to all the melodrama.

The key to understanding a film like Driven to Kill is that it’s not a film that you’re meant to take seriously. It’s a film that celebrates everything that we love about Lifetime — i.e., the melodrama, the obsessiveness, and the message that you can have both do what you love and love the one you’re with. Yes, Andrew is obviously unhinged but that’s what makes a film like this fun! We know that Brittany’s in danger long before she knows it. This is the type of movie that you watch with a group of friend who enjoy talking back to the screen. It’s a fun movie and it features a lot of race track action and really that is what’s important. It’s a film that delivers exactly what it promises.

Driven to Kill was directed by Doug Campbell, who is responsible for many of my favorite Lifetime films. Some will undoubtedly notice that Driven to Kill feels a bit like a companion piece to Campbell’s previous film, Deadly Mile High Club, but so what? I enjoyed that movie too.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Malicious Motives (dir by Mike Hoy)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How far would you go to be popular?

Would you take a volunteer job at the hospital in an attempt to show everyone that you actually are a good person?

Would you lie about the terrible circumstances of your home life?

Would you try to become best friends with the most popular girl in school?

Would you donate an organ?

Would you….

Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly. I did say, “Donate an organ.” I realize that may sound somewhat extreme but that’s exactly what happens in the Lifetime film, Malicious Motives! When Katie (Juliana Destefano) learns that the most popular girl in school, Ashley (Revell Carpenter), desperately needs a live transplant and that they share the same blood type, Katie agrees to be the donor! They only problem is that, since Katie is a minor, she needs to get the permission of a parent or a legal guardian. Unfortunately, her legal guardian is her trashy sister, Sasha (Briana Femia). Knowing that Sasha will never agree, Katie forges Sasha’s name.

Yay! The operation is a success! Ashley is going to live and it looks like Katie has a new best friend! However, when Sasha finds out that Katie donated part of her liver to someone else, Sasha is livid. Katie lies and says that Ashley’s family is going to pay them for the transplant but that it’s going to take a few months for the money to go through because it’s like super illegal. Sasha’s like, “Fine, just get the money!” Katie starts to make plans to become a part of Ashley’s family….

Seriously, poor Katie! I mean, Katie is technically the obsessive danger in this particular film but it’s still hard not to feel that life just hasn’t given her a fair chance. She has absolutely the worst sister on the planet! Not only does Sasha refuses to pick Katie up from the hospital but she also sells all of Katie’s pain killers! Imagine trying to recover from a major surgery with no pain killers. Making it even worse is that Sasha’s boyfriend, Brett (Conner Floyd), is a total perv who thinks that organ donation scars are totally hot. AGCK! You really can’t blame Katie for going a little bit overboard in her attempts to escape from that situation.

Still, donating an organ does seem like an extreme solution. But, then again, this is a Lifetime film and a part of the fun of Lifetime is that everything’s extreme. No one does the sensible thing, like calling the police. Instead, they donate an organ and then try to force their way into someone else’s family. The implausibility of it all is a part of the fun. If you can’t embrace the melodrama, these films will never be for you,

Ultimately, what matters is that Juliana Destefano gives a good performance as the sympathetic but unhinged Katie while Briana Femia goes wonderfully over-the-top as the sister from Hell. As I watched the film, I found myself appreciating my own sisters. They would never have treated me as badly as Sasha treated Katie. I will always be thankful that, because of them, I made it through high school with all of my organs intact.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Imperfect High (dir by Siobhan Devine)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What do you do when the pills your popping only give you an imperfect high?

Take more!

That’s the philosophy followed by the majority of the characters in Imperfect High, a Lifetime film that serves as a follow-up to Perfect High. In Imperfect High, Nia Sioux of Dance Moms fame plays Hannah, a teenager who wants to be an illustrator. When her mother (Sherri Shepherd) gets a new job in Chicago, Hannah suddenly finds herself going to a new school (the same school from Perfect High) and struggling to fit in with her new classmates. Fortunately, the school has an arts program. Hannah works on her graphic novel and becomes friends with Rob (Anthony Timpano), an artist with a rebellious attitude who compares social media to Chernobyl. (Rob was previously in Perfect High, though he was played by actor Ryan Grantham.) She also meets Dylan (Gabriel Darku), who helps out when Hannah has a panic attack during an active shooter drill.

Rob tries to get Hannah hooked on art but Dylan and his wealthy friends get her hooked on Xanax. Xanax, they assure her, is a great high, it helps out with anxiety, and it’s totally legal. Ever better, if you’re in a hurry, you can smash the pill into a power and just snort it! (They’re not wrong, of course. In college, I once did a line of Xanax in the back booth of the local IHOP. The person I was with kept saying, “I love Zan,” which I found really funny at the time. Of course, snorting drugs at IHOP is not something I would even consider doing today but college was a time for trying new things.) Soon, Hannah has got a prescription of her own and she also has a drug problem! Well, we knew that was coming….

Having now watched both Perfect High and now Imperfect High, I think it might be time to shut down that school because, seriously, nothing good seems to happen there. If you’re artistic or shy, you’re pretty much doomed to end up getting hooked on drugs. And the teachers and the school administrators apparently can’t do anything about it. Perhaps there will be a third film — Rapidly Declining High, perhaps — that will explore whether or not the school itself is cursed. Somewhere, someone is watching these films and saying, “It’s the art program, I tell ya! Ya let these kids get involved with the artistic types and ya know what’s going to happen!”

During its first hour or so, Imperfect High feels a bit overwritten. Everyone is snarky. Everyone has a quip. Rob is perhaps the worst offender. This is one of those films that sometimes seemed to be trying too hard to capture the way that teenagers talk. Things got a little better once Hannah got hooked on pills, if just because the focus went from Hannah and her friends to Hannah and her mother and Nia Sioux and Sherri Shepherd were very believable as mother and daughter. That said, the film approached its subject with a bit of a heavy hand. I think that’s always a mistake when it comes to making movies about drug addiction. I mean, the truth of the matter is that, if you want to guarantee that someone is going to do something, just tell them not to. It’s a bit of a rule that every film about drugs has to end with an overdose but, in the real world, there are negative consequences to drug use that have nothing to do with overdosing. Sometimes, I think anti-drug films would be more effective if they would focus on those negative effects instead of just automatically jumping to a melodramatic overdose.

Obviously, my feelings on Imperfect High were mixed. They were mixed on Perfect High, as well. But Nia Sioux gives a good performance in her starring debut. I always thought she was one of the better dancers on Dance Moms (and certainly, her mother seemed to be the least insane of the moms) so it’s good to see that there’s life after the Abby Lee Dance Company.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Pom Poms and Payback (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is it! Pom Poms and Payback is quite possibly the great Lifetime cheerleader film ever!

We start with a dream-like sequence in which a teenager named Sally Crumb walks down the street while three cheerleaders stalk behind her, chanting her name and accusing her of being “a bum” and “a cheater.” Reaching her house, Sally turns on the cheerleaders and shouts at them to leave her alone. The main cheerleader laughs at her. Sally threatens to kill all of the cheerleaders. Again, the cheerleaders don’t look particularly concerned. Meanwhile, barely noticed, Sally’s little sister glares at all three of them….

Jump forward 25 years! Three new cheerleaders — Sharlene (Shaylaren Hilton), Jessie (La’Priesh Roman), and Annabelle (Jazlyn Nicolette Sward) — are all looking forward to next school dance! They’ve all got wonderful boyfriends and all the reason in the world to be happy. But something goes wrong for all three of them. Sharlene sees a picture of her boyfriend making out with another girl. Jessie discovers that her grades have been altered, apparently be the somewhat nerdy but adorable guy that she’s dating. Meanwhile, Annabelle’s boyfriend goes to college out-of-state. Despite having promised to fly home for the dance, he never shows up. He claims that his flight was cancelled but obviously, he must have been cheating!

Under Sharlene’s direction, all three of the cheerleaders get revenge on their boyfriends but then Sharlene realizes that it’s all a bit too convenient. All three of their boyfriends turned out to be jerks on the same night? And all three of them claim that they were set up? Could it be that someone is trying to destroy the happiness of the school’s cheerleaders? And could that person be the new cheerleading coach, Denise Evergreen (Emily Killian)!?

Well, I’m not going to spoil too much of the plot, other than to say that it’s full of twists and turns. It’s also full of plenty of inentionally humorous moments because Pom Poms and Payback is not a film that’s meant to be taken too seriously. It’s a film that’s meant to be fun and that means that we not only get a science experiment gone wrong (“Watch out for that rocket!”) but we also get a scene where a character is taken down by a cheerleader doing a flip in slow motion. Pom Poms and Payback is a film that was specifically made for those of us who have seen countless Lifetime cheerleader films and who know all of the usual plot points and tricks. Pom Poms and Payback pokes some affectionate fun at the genre. Consider it to be Lifetime’s gift to all of us loyal viewers.

Doug Campbell, who is responsible for some of the best films to ever air on Lifetime, directs with his customary flair and the entire film is full of enjoyably weird characters and details. Emily Killian has a lot of fun with the part of the scheming Coach Killian while Carrie Schroeder, playing the mother of one of the cheerleaders, brings a lot of conviction to her role. It’s a film that comments on the Lifetime cheerleader genre and which also finds time to include an important message of bullying. Be carful who you taunt because high school is not forever.