2020 In Review: The Best of Lifetime


As chaotic as 2020 may have been, one thing remained unchanged!  Lifetime provided me with a lot of entertainment!  Below, you’ll find my picks for the best Lifetime films and performances of the past year!

(For my previous best of Lifetime picks, click on the links: 2014201520162017, 2018, and 2019!)

Best Picture:

  1. Mile High Escorts
  2. Escaping My Stalker
  3. Sleeping With Danger
  4. Beware of Mom
  5. Abducted On Air
  6. Killer Competition
  7. Remember Me, Mommy?
  8. A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  9. Cheer Squad Secrets
  10. Deadly Mile High Club

Best Director:

  1. Jeff Hare for Beware of Mom
  2. Sam Irvin for Mile High Escorts
  3. David Weaver for Sleeping With Danger
  4. Linden Ashby for Escaping My Stalker
  5. Colin Theys for A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  6. Doug Campbell for Deadly Mile High Club

Best Actress:

  1. Wendie Malick in Deranged Granny
  2. Elisabeth Rohm in Sleeping With Danger
  3. Sydney Myer in Remember Me, Mommy?
  4. Ezmie Garcia in Escaping My Stalker
  5. Anita Brown in Cheer Squad Secrets
  6. Crystal Allen in Beware of Mom

Best Actor:

  1. Houston Stevenson in A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  2. Antonio Cupo in Sleeping With Danger
  3. Panos Vlahos in Psycho Yoga Instructor
  4. Nick Ballard in Psycho Escort
  5. Andrew James Allen in Escaping My Stalker
  6. T.C. Matherne in A Murder to Remember

Best Supporting Actor

  1. Damon K. Sperber in Deadly Mile High Club
  2. Jim Klock in Secrets in the Woods
  3. Gord Rand in Abducted on Air
  4. Brandon Howell in Beware of Mom
  5. Mark Jude Sullivan in Sinfidelity
  6. Jeff Schine in A Mother Knows Worst

Best Supporting Actress

  1. Cristine Prosperi in Killer Competition
  2. Perrey Reeves in Abducted on Air
  3. Mariette Hartley in Escaping My Stalker
  4. Christina Moore in Mile High Escorts
  5. Christie Burson in Ruthless Realtor
  6. Cristina Rosato in No Good Dead Goes Unpunished

Best Screenplay:

  1. Stephen Romano for Escaping My Stalker
  2. Richard Blaney and Gregory Small for Sleeping with Danger
  3. S.L. Heath for Beware of Mom
  4. Barbara Kymlicka for Abducted on Air
  5. Daniel West for Killer Competition
  6. Adam Rockoff and Zachary Valenti for Remember Me Mommy

Best Score:

  1. Andrew Morgan Smith for Sinfidelity 
  2. David Findlay for Revenge For Daddy 
  3. Christopher Cano for The Pom Pom Murders
  4. Fantom for Mile High Escorts

Best Editing:

  1. Maxime Chalifoux for Abducted on Air
  2. Seth Johnson for The Pom Pom Murders
  3. Bryan Capri for A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  4. Kelly Herron for Sleeping With Danger

Best Cinematography:

  1. Branden James Maxham for A Predator’s Obsession: Stalker’s Prey 2
  2. Nate Spicer for Mile High Escorts
  3. Thomas M. Harting for Sleeping With Danger
  4. David Dolnik for Deadly Mile High Club

Coming up next (tomorrow at the latest — maybe sooner, depending on how much time I can devote to watching 6 movie today): My picks for the best films of 2020!  Finally!

TSL Looks Back at 2020:

  1. 12 Good Things I Saw On Television in 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  2. Lisa Marie’s Top 8 Novels of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  3. Lisa Marie’s Top 8 Non-Fiction Books of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  4. Lisa Marie’s 20 Favorite Songs of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  5. Lisa Marie’s 16 Worst Films of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  6. My Top 20 Albums of 2020 (Necromoonyeti)
  7. 25 Best, Worst, and Gems That I Saw In 2020 (Valerie Troutman)
  8. Top 10 Vintage Collections (Ryan C)
  9. Top 10 Contemporary Collections (Ryan C)
  10. Top 10 Original Graphic Novels (Ryan C)
  11. Top 10 Ongoing Series (Ryan C.)
  12. Top 10 Special Mentions (Ryan C.)
  13. Top Ten Single Issues (Ryan C)

 

Lifetime Film Review: Ruthless Realtor (dir by Devon Downs and Kenny Gage)


So, imagine this scenario.

You’re young, you’re attractive, you’ve got a great career, and you’ve got a partner who is also young and attractive and who has a great career.  You’ve just arranged to buy a new home and it’s a big, beautiful, and surprisingly affordable house.  Of course, you suspect that the house has a history but then again, what house doesn’t?  It’s a little bit annoying that the lights keep randomly going out but that’s what you get for living in California.  So, you move into the house and it seems like everything’s perfect.

Except….

Your realtor simply will not go away!  It’s not enough that she showed you the house and arranged for you to purchase it and that she also apparently lied to the bank on your behalf (even though you certainly didn’t ask her to do that).  She also wants to be your best friend.  She wants to be a part of your family.  You simply cannot get rid of her….

That’s the situation in which Annie (Lily Anne Harrison) and her husband Ralph (Brian Ames) find themselves.  Annie’s a successful lawyer.  Ralph’s a photographer.  Annie’s pregnant with their first child.  The house is lovely.  Everything should be great.  But Meg (Christie Burson) simply won’t stop coming by the house!

Annie thinks it’s strange to come home and find her realtor cooking dinner in the kitchen.  Ralph thinks that it’s nothing to worry about but then, during a photography session, Meg tries to kiss him.  Ralph and Annie tell Meg to stop coming around but Meg keeps showing up.  The increasingly distraught Meg insists that someone was trying to break into the house and that the house itself has a dangerous history that Annie and Ralph need to know about.  Soon, Meg ends up in jail.

Problem solved, right?

Well, no.  Not only does Meg escape from jail but it turns out that there’s even more to Meg’s story than Annie and Ralph originally suspected….

I’ve always felt that one of the best things about Lifetime movies is that they always seem to take place in big houses and Ruthless Realtor proves my point.  The house really is gorgeous, regardless of how many have died inside of it.  When Annie tells her friend Lynette (Alexandra Peters) that she plans on staying in the house regardless of all the craziness going on around and inside of it, you can hardly blame her.  A big house like that?  A few murders are worth the risk!

Along with the big house, the other thing that I liked about Ruthless Realtor is that, as played by Christie Burson, Meg is literally the only likable character in the film.  Even though she’s obviously unstable and tries to break up a marriage, it’s impossible not to sympathize with her.  Annie and Lynette are both extremely self-righteous and full of themselves.  Ralph is painfully goofy.  But Meg actually believes in something and you have to feel sorry for her as she vainly tries to convince Annie that something terrible has happened at the house.  It should be noted that the film seems to fully understand that Meg is a hundred times more likable than any of the other characters and it takes good advantage of that fact with a few twists during the final half of the film.

Ruthless Realtor is an entertaining-enough Lifetime film.  If nothing else, it deserves to be seen for Christie Burson’s performance as Meg and for that beautiful house.