Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Ominous (dir by Peter Sullivan)

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished writing my review of Lavalantula, it was time to bitch about my sprained foot to anyone who would listen. After that, it was time to have dinner and then it was time to lay on the couch and try to get some rest and finally, after all that, I got back to the task of cleaning out my DVR. The film that I ended up watching was Ominous, a SyFy film which was originally broadcast on October 10th.

Ominous opens with recovering alcoholic Michael Young (played by Barry Watson) putting his car into reverse and promptly running over his six year-old son, Jacob (Gavin Lewis). Michael and his wife, Rachel (Esme Bianco), rush Jacob to the hospital but it’s too late. Jacob dies. Later, as they’re driving back from the funeral, Rachel demands to know if Michael was drunk when he ran over Jacob. Michael says that he wasn’t drinking and that it was just an accident and then, as if to prove that he really is the worst driver in the world, Michael promptly runs over a dog.

When they arrive home, a man is waiting for them. Known only as The Stranger (and played, in properly sinister style, by Mark Lindsay Chapman), the man says that he can bring Jacob back to life. All Michael and Rachel have to do is dig up their son and bring his body back to the house. And then, to prove his point, the Stranger brings the dog back to life.

So, of course, Michael and Rachel go out to the cemetery and dig up Jacob. They bring him back to the house. The next morning, Jacob is suddenly alive. Yay! Of course, Jacob promptly re-kills the dog, which is our first clue that Jacob is not quite himself.

We then jump forward a few months. The Youngs have moved to a new town and appear to be living as normal a life as you can when your six year-old son is demon-possessed hellspawn. (Actually, he’s the Antichrist and don’t even pretend like that was a spoiler.) Michael fears his son, especially after Jacob has a seizure in church and causes a priest to burst into flames. Rachel continues to make excuses for her son, even when he does stuff like summon a sudden dust storm that manages to kill everyone on a playground.

There’s a scene early on in the film in which Jacob asks his mother if they can get a cat.

“I don’t think so,” Rachel replies, “Daddy’s allergic.”

“What about when Daddy’s dead?” Jacob cheerfully asks.

That scene pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Ominous. This is an unapologetically over-the-top demon child film, one that doesn’t make much sense but which is never boring. It’s easy to recognize which films are being ripped off — The Omen, The Visitor, The Birds — but the film is so shameless in its thievery that it’s easy to be forgiving. Is Ominous a rip-off or an homage? How about both?

Barry Watson actually does a pretty good job as a recovering alcoholic and his performance is reminiscent of some of Patrick Muldoon’s better work. Mark Lindsay Chapman is properly intimidating as the Stranger. Full of gore, melodrama, metaphysical posturing, and children with creepy demon eyes, Ominous is more entertaining than you might expect.

Adventures in Cleaning Out the DVR: Lavalantula (dir by Mike Mendez)

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The SyFy film Lavalantula opens in Los Angeles and we immediately know what that means. If it’s a day of the week ending with a y, it means that Los Angeles is about to attacked by some sort of giant monster. In this case, it’s due to a series of volcanic eruptions that lead to a swarm of gigantic, fire-breathing tarantulas being released into California.

Now, if Schwarzenegger was still governor of California, these spiders probably wouldn’t have been much of a problem. But have you seen the current governor of California? Seriously, I take one look at Jerry Brown and my first thought is that he’s not someone I would call if I needed someone to come over and kill a giant spider for me. I just wouldn’t. Sorry, Jerry.

(Incidentally, y’all love to make fun of people in Texas for loving guns but when was the last time we had a giant spider invasion get out of hand like the one in Lavalantula?)

When the spiders do show up and promptly start burning Los Angelenos alive, the police, the military, and the fire department all prove to be pretty much useless. Fortunately, L.A. is also the home of the film industry and, as has always happened whenever America has faced a monster-related crisis, the unsung heroes of the movie industry are willing to step up and save the day. Actor Colton West (Steve Guttenberg) may not know much about spiders. And, as we’re told at the start of the film, it’s been a while since he had a hit movie. But none of that matters. All that matters is that, back in the day, Colton starred in enough action movies that he now has a unique set of skills that can be used to defeat giant, fire-breathing tarantulas.

Of course, while saving California, Colton also has to save his wife, Olivia (Nia Peeples) but fortunately, Olivia is totally capable of kicking ass on her own. In fact, the entire film industry is shown to be capable of kicking ass, as Colton recruits the crew from his latest movie to help him save Los Angeles.

(Ian Ziering also pops up for a funny cameo. He can’t help Colton save Los Angeles becase he’s too busy trying to save the rest of the country from flying sharks. It’s a cute scene that works a lot better than you might think.)

Now, I have to admit that when I went to the DVR to track down and rewatch Lavalantula, I was shocked to discover that I didn’t record Lavalantula when it originally aired on July 25th! Usually, I both watch and record but, in the case of Lavalantula, I just watched. This review has been written from memory but that’s okay because Lavalantula‘s an extremely memorable film. Much like director Mike Mendez’s previous giant monster film — the beloved Big Ass Spider — Lavalantula is an enjoyably over-the-top B-movie that succeeds because, while it never takes itself too seriously, it does take itself just seriously enough to remain interesting. It expertly walks the fine line between tribute and parody. Regardless of how silly the film may get, the entire cast brings a lot of commitment to their roles and the end result is a genuinely fun movie.

One final sidenote: Apparently, this film was full of inside jokes about the Police Academy franchise. Having never seen any of the Police Academy films, I have to admit that the majority of the references probably went right over my head. I did, however, recognize Michael Winslow, the guy who does all the sound effects. He was one of the heroic crew people and he did a damn good job protecting California.

In fact, they all did.

Thank you, Hollywood.

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Lake Placid vs. Anaconda (dir by A.B. Stone)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished watching Stolen Daughter, I decided to take a break from watching Lifetime films. So, for my next DVRed movie, I watched Lake Placid vs. Anaconda. Lake Placid vs. Anaconda premiered on the SyFy Channel on April 25th. It was the first original SyFy film of the year and so, of course, my friends, the Snarkalecs, and I had to watch and record it.

Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is a bit of a tribute to such classic monster movies as King Kong vs. Godzilla and … well, any other movie where Godzilla ended up fighting another big monster. In this case, it’s a battle between the giant crocodiles from the Lake Placid films and the giant snakes from the Anaconda films. However, it’s not really much of a battle. The crocodiles don’t really meet the snakes until the last 20 minutes of the film and the battle pretty much ends in a draw.

Instead, the majority of the film deals with the typical collection of SyFy character types trying to escape from the beach and surrounding wilderness without getting devoured. There’s a group of sorority girls, all of whom are basically slaves to the hilariously bitchy Tiffani (Laura Dale, who appears to be having a lot of fun with her role). There’s the tough, no-nonsense Sheriff (Yancy Butler), who always seems to be on the verge of declaring that she’s “too old for this …. shit!” There’s the forest ranger (Corin Nemec) who is trying to rescue his daughter, who happens to be one of the sorority girls.

My favorite group, however, was a group of mercenaries hired by Sarah Murdoch (Annabel Wright), the evil CEO of Wexel Pharmaceuticals. Sarah is so evil that she even talks about her evil plans while casually undressing in front of her subordinates. Now, I have to be honest. I have sat through this movie twice and I’m still not quite sure what Sarah’s evil plan actually was. It involved a blood orchid and capturing an anaconda. But, regardless of what the actual scheme was, Sarah and the mercenaries were so melodramatic that it was impossible not to be entertained by them.

Anyway, Lake Placid vs. Anaconda takes way too long to get the creatures on screen together and the final battle is a bit of a let down. Fortunately, however, Robert Englund is there to joyfully chew up all the scenery until the crocodiles and the snakes arrive. Englund is playing a crocodile hunter. He drinks too much, he talks too much, and he’s missing an eye, a leg, and an arm. Englund appears to be having a lot of fun playing the role and he’s the best thing in the movie.

Lake Placid vs. Anaconda really can’t compare to any of the excellent shark films that would later premiere on SyFy in July but it’s worth seeing for Annabel Wright and Robert Englund.

Review: Ash vs. Evil Dead Season 1 Episode 3 “Books From Beyond”

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The adventures of Ash Williams, humanity’s only hope, continued last night on Starz. The third episode of Ash Vs. Evil Dead found Ash going to an occult book store and essentially screwing things up and getting at least one person killed.

That’s not really a big shock. That’s pretty much what Ash Williams does. He’s been fighting the Evil Dead for longer than I’ve been alive and he still doesn’t quite seem to know what he’s doing. I mean, let’s be honest — if Ash would stop reading aloud from that book, the entire world would have been saved a lot of trouble. Really, we should all hate Ash but how can you hate Bruce Campbell?

It’s undeniably true that for many of us, Ash and Bruce Campbell pretty much are interchangeable. That’s a bit unfair to Bruce, who seems to be a much more intelligent person than Ash and I also assume that Bruce is probably less likely to indulge in as much casual racism as Ash. That said, I have a feeling that if I ever meet Groovy Bruce in person, I will be disappointed to discover that he actually has two hands.

And really, Bruce-as-Ash is the main appeal of a show like Ash vs. Evil Dead. Don’t get me wrong. I think Dana DeLorenzo is great as Kelly and Ray Santiago has his moments as Pablo. So does Jill Maries Jones, even if the character of Detective Jones feels a bit underwritten. Lucy Lawless was in last night’s episode, playing the mysterious Ruby Knowby and I can’t wait until she and Bruce actually get to share some scenes together because I think the Ruby/Ash confrontation is going to be amazing.

But, ultimately, we’re all watching for Bruce-as-Ash. There’s a reason why Ash gets his name in the title.

As for last night’s episode, Ash took his copy of The Necronomicon to Books from Beyond, so he could get the store’s owner, Lionel Hawkins (Kelson Henderson), to read from it and hopefully find a way to send the Deadites back to Hell. There was something really endearing about how excited Lionel was to see The Necronomicon and discover that he hadn’t been wasting his life. Of course, unfortunately, Lionel ended up getting killed but not before he got the best line of the night: “The book is harmless except when wielded by someone very evil or very stupid.”

Ash’s bright idea, of course, was to summon another demon that would presumably then defeat the Deadites. (Somehow, Ash got it into his head that this was actually Pablo’s idea.) From the minute the demon showed up and Lionel warned Ash not to break the circle, I knew that Ash was going to break the circle.

As a result of Ash being Ash, Lionel was killed. Fortunately, Kelly was there to somehow vanquish the demon by hitting it over the head with The Necronomicon. Also there was Detective Fisher, who was still investigating her partner’s mysterious death. Ash ended up handcuffing her to a shelf and apparently forgot about her. Either that or Ash seriously didn’t realize that Lionel would come back as a Deadite and that the handcuffed Fisher would apparently have no way to escape him.

So, will Fisher escape? Things didn’t look good for her at the end of last night’s episode but I have a feeling Lucy Lawless will show up and save her.

As for Ash — well, as he put it last night: “At heart, I’m an alone wolf.”

You certainly are, Ash. You certainly are.

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Lost Boy (dir by Tara Miele)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After watching River Raft Nightmare, it was time to finish watching Lost Boy. I say finish because, if I am remembering correctly, I actually watched the first hour when Lost Boy had its Lifetime premiere on July 25th. However, after 60 minutes, I turned over to SyFy and I watched Lavalantula. At the time, I probably said, “I’ll finish watching this on the DVR.” And it only took me 3 months to get around to it!

Lost Boy opens with every parent’s worst nightmare. Six year-old Mitchell Harris is flying a kite in the park when he’s abducted. Eleven years later, Mitchell is still missing but his mother, Laura (Virginia Madsen), is convinced that he’s still out there. She continues to put up flyers and, every time the police call to ask her to identify another body, Laura fears that it will turn out to be her son.

In the 11 years since Mitchell vanished, Laura has become a successful and influential advocate for missing persons but it’s come at the cost of her family. She is separated from her husband, Greg (Mark Valley). When Greg’s new girlfriend, Amanda (Carly Pope), gets pregnant, Greg asks Laura to finalize the divorce. Laura is hesitant, not wanting to end their marriage while Mitchell might still be out there and looking for them. For his part, Greg seems to have moved on and accepted that his son his dead. Meanwhile, Mitchell’s twin sister, Summer (Sosie Bacon), deals with her guilt and anger by rebelling.

(It wouldn’t be a Lifetime movie without a rebellious teenage daughter.)

One night, a 17 year-old boy (Matthew Fahey) emerges from the shadows and stares at one of Laura’s flyers. Soon, the boy shows up at the high school, watching Summer. And then, one night, the boy suddenly appears at Laura’s front door. When Laura sees him, she is immediately convinced that Mitchell has returned home.

But has he? Both Greg and Amanda are suspicious of “Mitchell.” For one thing, Mitchell doesn’t seem to have many clear memories of his family. As well, he refuses to tell anyone who kidnapped him or where he’s been. He encourages Summer and his younger brother, Jonathan (Jacob Buster), to do dangerous things and then threatens to hurt them if they tell on him. Though Mitchell makes a big show of having nightmares about his ordeal, he’s actually awake while he’s tossing and turning.

Perhaps most damning of all, when Mitchell, Greg, and Jonathan take a DNA test, Mitchell switches his DNA with Jonathan’s and again threatens to kill Jonathan…

So, yes, it’s pretty obvious that Mitchell is not who he says he is. However, whenever anyone points out how strangely he’s acting, Laura makes excuses for him. She’s so happy to have her son back that she’s willing to overlook all of the inconsistencies in his story. Or, at the very least, she is until she finds out that Mitchell has been threatening Jonathan. But, by that point, Greg is convinced that Mitchell is his son and now, suddenly, he’s the one who is making excuses for him…

I liked Lost Boy, even if it did ultimately get somewhat predictable. Moodily shot and featuring an excellent lead performance from Virginia Madsen, Lost Boy made me wonder what I would do if I ever found myself in a similar situation. Hopefully, I won’t ever have to find out.

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: River Raft Nightmare (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there! As I write this, I am couch-bound with what I’m pretty sure is a sprained toe. With that in mind, I’ve decided to continue my efforts to clean out the DVR. I just finished watching River Raft Nightmare, which premiered on Lifetime on September 5th. That was Labor Day weekend and, like a lot of people, I was too busy hanging out with my family to watch a movie about a mother and daughter navigating rapids while being menaced by three criminals.

River Raft Nightmare, which was directed by the amazingly prolific (and, by B-movie fans, beloved) Fred Olen Ray, tells the story of Sharon (Brigid Brannagh) and her teenage daughter, Cassie (Leah Bateman). They are looking forward to spending a nice relaxing weekend trying not to drown while river rafting. The only things they have to worry about are the possibilities of Cassie going into diabetic shock, a sudden wilderness fire breaking out, and maybe running into three criminals who are searching for some stolen money that has been hidden somewhere in the wilderness.

True, it’s easy to imagine that one of those things could happen. After all, all vacations have their obstacles. And maybe you could even see two of those things happening because, sometimes, it’s just a mistake to leave the house. But who would have guessed that all three of those things would end up happening!? That’s right — Sharon and Cassie have to deal with fire, diabetic shock, and criminals!

The head criminal is named Frank. He’s played by Ivan Sergei. From the minute he showed up, I thought he looked familiar and then, about an hour into the movie, I realized that he previously played the psycho boyfriend in another Lifetime mainstay, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? Incidentally, that movie also featured Ivan Sergei nearly drowning in a river. Maybe Ivan should stay away from the water from now on…

Frank continually assures Sharon and Cassie that he’s not going to kill them and that he just wants to find his money. However, Cassie has already seen Frank kill a man. That’s one reason why River Raft Nightmare was originally called Eyewitness, Personally, I think River Raft Nightmare is a better title. Eyewitness is a bit generic but River Raft Nightmare — hey, it’s got the word nightmare in it! You can’t go wrong with that.

River Raft Nightmare is a thoroughly predictable film. You will not be taken by surprise. But, with that in mind, it’s enjoyable enough. One thing that I appreciate about Fred Olen Ray is that he is a director who is almost totally lacking in pretension. A Fred Olen Ray film doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t. River Raft Nightmare is a low-budget B-movie and it’s totally content with being a low-budget B-movie and you really have to admire that. Add to that, I always love movies about moms and daughters bonding while kicking ass and Ivan Sergei was hot even when he was killing people.

(By the way, Fred, if you’re reading this, I’ve got an idea for a film called Red River Nightmare….)

One funny thing about the DVR is that it really does work as a time machine. When you watch something that you recorded two months ago, it’s like stepping back in the past and sometimes, you’re shocked to discover what you had forgotten about. In the case of River Raft Nightmare, I was shocked to be reminded that — for a few weeks — Lifetime experimented with having Erin Foley pop up during the commercial breaks and attempt to be snarky. A typical Erin Foley comment would be something like: “So, they’re being hunted by killers but their makeup and hair are still perfect.” (To which those of us at home would say, “No shit, haven’t you ever watched one of these movies before? We all got over that a long time ago…”) Having been reminded of its existence, all I can say is that I’m glad Lifetime ended that experiment. No offense to Erin Foley but nothing she said ever came close to topping what the live tweeters were saying on twitter.

Seriously, Lifetime, those of us watching provide more than enough snark without it being necessary for you to bring in a “ringer.”

Sorry, Erin Foley, you were not necessary…

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Stolen From The Suburbs (dir by Alex Wright)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I watched 16 and Missing, it was time to continue cleaning out my DVR by watching Stolen From The Suburbs. Stolen From The Suburbs is a Lifetime film that originally aired on August 30th and I’m not sure why I missed watching it the first time that it aired.

If I had to describe Stolen From The Suburbs in one word, it would be intense. From the opening scene, in which two homeless teenagers are forcibly abducted by a man who pretended to be from a charitable organization to the film’s final violent stand-off, this is one intense film. While it has all the usual Lifetime tropes — rebellious daughter, overwhelmed single daughter, untrustworthy men, and hints of real-world significance — Stolen From The Suburbs is a hundred times more intense than your average Lifetime film. Indeed, this is one of the rare Lifetime films that ends without the hint that everything is going to be okay. While there are hugs at the end, there is no reassuring coda. The emotional and physical damage inflicted in Stolen From The Suburbs feels real and has real consequences.

Widowed Katherine (Cynthia Watros) and her teenager daughter, Emma (Sydney Sweeney), has just moved to the suburbs. Katherine is a loving mother and Emma is a good daughter, the type who even turns down a beer on the beach because she told her mother that she wouldn’t drink. However, when Emma meets the cute (and asthmatic) Adam (Nick Roux), she starts to resent her mother’s overprotectiveness. When Katherine finally says that she doesn’t want Emma hanging out with Adam, Emma responds by sneaking out of the house and never returning.

Desperately searching for her daughter, Katherine goes down to the mall and finds Emma’s cell phone tossed away in a dumpster. When she calls the police, Katherine tells them that Emma has been kidnapped. The unsympathetic detectives ask her if Emma has a history of running away and basically prove themselves to be useless. (The cops are always useless in a Lifetime film.) Katherine teams up with Anna Fray (Brooke Nevins), a missing persons activist, to find Emma.

What Anna tells Katherine is terrifying. Anna explains that teenage girls have been vanishing all over town. The police assume that they are runaways and make no effort to find them. In reality, though, the girls are being sold as sex slaves.

And that’s exactly what happened to Emma. Emma and several other teenage girls have been abducted and are now locked in a cage. In just a few days, they will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Overseeing the entire operation is Milena (Oliva d’Abo).

As played by d’Abo, Milena is one of the great Lifetime villains. As she explains it, she was kidnapped herself and sold as a sex slave. However, she has now managed to take over the operation and takes obvious pleasure in putting others through the same torture that she suffered. Playing the role with an ever present smirk and a haughty cruelty, Olivia d’Abo is absolutely chilling as Milena.

Also giving a great performance is Cynthia Watros. (You may remember her as Libby on Lost.) Watros makes Katherine’s pain and desperation feel incredibly real and when she finally confronts Milena, it’s absolutely riveting.

Stolen From The Suburbs is an excellent Lifetime film. Keep an eye out for it!

Adventures in Cleaning Out the DVR: 16 and Missing (dir by Michael Feifer)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing my efforts to clean out the DVR, I followed up A Teacher’s Obsession by watching 16 and Missing. 16 and Missing originally aired on the Lifetime network on October 24th. On that particularly Saturday, I was haunting a Halloween party (booooo!), so I set the DVR to record it.

In many ways, 16 and Missing is a quintessential Lifetime film. It’s about a rebellious teenage girl who has a loving (and underappreciated) mother and a stepfather who is trying way too hard to serve as a replacement patriarchal figure. It also features an initially charming man who later turns out to be a complete psycho. There’s a lot of driving, an important life lesson, and a lot of gunplay. At the end of the movie, the mother is proven right and everyone hugs and strangely enough, nobody seems to be all that traumatized by all of the truly terrible things that have just happened to them. None of that, by the way, is meant to be a criticism. Lifetime movies are a genre all their own and part of the fun comes from their familiarity.

16 and Missing also deals with a common Lifetime movie theme — i.e., that the internet is an evil place that exists only to lead teenage girls astray. In this case, spoiled rotten Abbey (Lizze Broadway) has been using her social media accounts to carry on a two-year, online affair Gavin (Mark Hupka), who claims to be a 23 year-old cop. After Abbey has a fight with her mother, former FBI agent Julia (Ashley Scott), Abbey decides to run away from home. She sneaks out of the house, gets in her car, and drives off to Arizona…

And what immediately bothered me was the fact that Abbey didn’t pack anything before she ran way. Admittedly, this probably says more about me than the movie. I’m just saying that if I had ever run away from home and headed for a different state, I would have brought along a change of clothes.

But anyway, Abbey meets up with Gavin and is shocked to discover that Gavin is a little bit older than 23. And he might not be a cop. And his name might actually be Wesley. And, as soon as she shows up, Gavin/Wesley immediately starts pressuring her to have sex…

Okay, so it’s pretty obvious that Gavin/Wesley wasn’t everything that he said he was and, to the film’s credit, Abbey quickly figures this out. As opposed to a lot of similar Lifetime films (in which the teenage girl is always presented as being far too naive to be believable), 16 and Missing makes it clear that Abbey is a girl who made an impulsive mistake, who understands that she made an impulsive mistake, but who has now found herself trapped by that impulsive mistake.

However, Abbey and Wes-Gavin do have one thing in common. They both lost their fathers in the most violent and disturbing ways possible. Gavin’s father was a cop and Gavin claims that he was shot in the head by his partner. Abbey’s father was abducted and murdered while a 6 year-old Abbey helplessly watched. Could the two events be connected? It wouldn’t be a Lifetime film if they weren’t.

But don’t worry! After breaking into her daughter’s social media accounts, Julia is on the road to Arizona and she’s got a gun…

Anyway, 16 and Missing was an entertaining Lifetime film. If you’re into Lifetime films, especially ones that present the internet as being the root of all evil, you should enjoy this one. And if you’re not into Lifetime movies, you probably wouldn’t be watching in the first place.

Adventures in Cleaning Out the DVR: A Teacher’s Obsession (dir by Blair Hayes)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing my adventures in cleaning out my DVR, I followed up Girl Missing by watching A Teacher’s Obsession, a batshit crazy little film about … well, about a teacher’s obsession.

A Teacher’s Obsession originally aired on September 6th on the Lifetime network. Now, usually, whenever you see a Lifetime movie called A Teacher’s Obsession, you assume that the film is going to be about a teacher having sex with (or trying to have sex with, depending on the film) a student. But, in A Teacher’s Obsession, the teacher wants to be a student’s new BFF.

The student in question is Bridgette (Mia Rose Frampton), who is your typical spoiled upper middle class brat. Her mother, Candace (Molly Hagan), is a local politician. Bridgette makes it a point to always call her mother by her first name and always does so in the snarkiest tone imaginable. Bridgette attends a prestigious academy, where she’s the captain of the school lacrosse team. (What’s the deal with rich people and lacrosse?) However, Bridgette is failing her English class. As the film starts, Bridgette has just been put on academic probation. That means no lacrosse! And, even worse, Candace has forbidden Bridgette from seeing her boyfriend, Bobby (Dillon James).

Fortunately, there’s a new English teacher at the Academy. Her name is Jane (Boti Bliss) and — oh my God, Jane sure is crazy! In fact, Jane is so totally and completely crazy that you can’t help but root for her. That may sound strange but seriously, all the other teachers at the school are so boring and Bridgette is such a spoiled brat that you can’t help but think, Yay! Jane’s here to fuck things up!

The painfully boring (and bearded) calculus teacher, Mr. Jeter (Eric Curtis Johnson), has a crush on Jane and, when she has to, Jane has no trouble leading Mr. Jeter on. But the thing is, Jeter starts to get a little bit too needy and it all leads to this great scene where Jane totally goes off on Mr. Jeter in the teacher’s lounge. While the rest of the teachers sit around and listen like mummified relics of a past era, Jane tells Jeter that he’s overweight, that he has bad breath, that his beard is disgusting, and “your penis is miniscule.” Jeter sits there and listens, unaware that he has soup in his beard.

Jane may occasionally spend time with Mr. Jeter but she is far more interested in being Bridgette’s best friend. She encourages Bridgette to continue to see Bobby and even gives her birth control pills. She tutors Bridgette in English class. She conspires to help Bridgette cheat her way through Mr. Jeter’s class. Jane excitedly makes plans to get a tattoo with Bridgette. (“Do you think I’m too old for a tattoo?” Jane asks with a giggle.) When Bridgette gets a tattoo without inviting Jane to come with her, Jane goes crazy and accuses Bobby of trying to rape her.

And through it all, Candace has secrets of her own to hide. It turns out that Candace and Jane knew each other in the past. Jane used to be obsessed with Candace. Now, she’s obsessed with Bridgette…

A Teacher’s Obsession is one of those batshit crazy Lifetime movies that’s so unapologetically over-the-top that I couldn’t help but love it! Seriously, it was a lot of fun to watch Jane make spoiled Bridgette’s life difficult and Boti Bliss attacked the role of Jane with a ferocity that was truly admirable! Meanwhile, the underrated actress Molly Hagan brought unexpected depth to her role and the end result was an unexpectedly entertaining Lifetime melodrama.

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Girl Missing (dir by Joel Soisson)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I recently turned on the TV, checked the guide to see if there was anything on worth recording, and discovered, to my horror, that I only had about 5 hours of recording space left on my DVR! Making matters ever worse was that the DVR was threatening to erase the two oldest recordings in order to make more space. Terrified at the thought of losing both Bend it Like Beckham and Jesus Christ Superstar, I realized that it was time to borrow a page from the Gary Loggins playbook and starting cleaning out my DVR!

I started things off by watching Girl Missing, a film which I recorded off of Lifetime on October 25th. (What was I doing on the 25th that required me to record the movie? I was at a Halloween party, dancing in my underwear and then getting soaked while running through the rain on the way back to the car. Or, at least, that’s what I think I was doing. My memory of that weekend is hazy, at best.)

ANYWAY — according to the IMDb, Girl Missing was originally entitled Forgotten but I imagine Lifetime changed the title to remind viewers of Gone Girl. The film opens with two hunters wandering across a frozen wilderness in the snow. I point this out because the film’s opening few minutes really are impressive and visually striking. The image of those two hunters wandering across that desolate landscape have an otherworldly feel to them. Eventually, the hunters come across something unexpected — a ten year-old girl has been abandoned in a ditch.

Flash forward ten years and that girl has grown up to be Jane (Francesca Eastwood). Jane has no memory of her life before she was found in that ditch. However, that starts to change when she’s contacted by Sylvia, a wealthy New York widow who claims to be her mother. Sylvia is played by Kiersten Warren, who once played Alex in Saved By The Bell: The College Years, a series that my friend Derek and I are currently reviewing over on PrimeTime Preppie.

After traveling to Sylvia’s mansion, Jane is at first excited to finally be reunited with her mother. However, it quickly becomes apparent that not everything is as it seems. Sylvia is nervous and evasive, especially when talking about her husband’s suicide. Her boyfriend, Carlo (the wonderful Federico Dordei), gives off a vibe of pure sleaze and Jane is not happy to discover that Carlo and Sylvia’s affair started while Sylvia was still married. Soon, Jane is having sepia-toned nightmares of past violence and she starts to see a mysterious little girl wandering through the gray hallways of the mansion…

As I watched Girl Missing, with its chilly visuals and twisted storyline, I thought to myself, “This movie must be Canadian.” (And, just so there’s no misunderstandings, I totally meant that as a compliment!) However, I then checked with the imdb and discovered that no, this was not a Canadian film. Instead, it was filmed in Minnesota, which might be close to Canada but is still definitely a part of the United States.

But no matter. Whether the film’s snow was Canadian snow or Minnesota snow, director Joel Soisson still made good visual use of the frozen and desolate landscape. He also made good use of Sylvia’s shadow-filled mansion and the entire film had an enjoyably gothic feel to it. In the end, Girl Missing felt like a fun little Young Adult mystery. It was the epitome of an enjoyable Lifetime film.