Sarah Butler | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, Revenge for Daddy!

Why Was I Watching It?

Well, first off, you may not have heard but the entire world is kind of shut down right now so basically, watching TV is about as wild as my Thursday night is going to get….

Then again, I would have watched it even if we weren’t on lockdown. It’s a new Lifetime movie and you know that I love those! I especially love Lifetime movies that have words like “Fatal,” “Wrong,” or “Revenge” in the title. Those are usually the best.

What Was It About?

It’s been a tough year for Lisa (Sarah Butler). Her father died under mysterious circumstances. Her boyfriend, Bobby (Charlie Gorilla), got drunk and slept with one her co-workers, Bethany (Eva Hamilton), leaving Lisa suddenly single. Her mother (Joely Fisher) keeps pressuring her to start dating again. Finally, just to keep her mom happy, Lisa photoshops herself into a picture with a handsome man on a dating site. All she wants to do is send it to her mom so her mom will get off her back. Instead, it leads to the man in the picture, Michael (Clayton James), tracking her down. Soon, Lisa and Michael are dating for real!

But can Michael be trusted? It turns out that Michael has a somewhat shady past which includes at least one mysterious death. Michael says he’s innocent but when one of Lisa’s co-workers shows up dead (and, even worse, when it appears that someone is trying to frame Lisa for the murder), Lisa starts to have her doubts….

What Worked?

This one was fun. I mean, let’s be honest. When it comes to most Lifetime melodramas, you’re not exactly looking for a realistic examination of all the world’s troubles. You’re looking for twists and turns and melodrama, preferably taking place in a nice house where everyone is either handsome or pretty and everyone wears nice clothes. Revenge For Daddy delivered all of that with the style.

The cast was uniformly good and the film actually did a pretty good job of keeping you guessing as to whether or not Michael was who he said he was. The film even managed to work in a few moments of intentional humor in the middle of all the drama and the mystery. All in all, this was one an enjoyable and entertaining Lifetime film.

I really liked the office where Lisa and her friends worked. It was nicely designed and, even more importantly, it didn’t seem like anyone really had to do much work. It seems like it would be a fun place from which to collect a paycheck.

What Didn’t Work?

It all worked! To repeat, this was an enjoyable and entertaining Lifetime film.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

The main character was named Lisa! You don’t get much more like me than that.

Lessons Learned

There were definitely lessons learned but I can’t really share them without spoiling the film’s ending. So, you’ll have to watch and learn for yourself!

Earlier tonight, I watched Nightmare Nurse, the latest thriller to make its premiere on Lifetime.

Let’s just start with an obvious point. Nightmare Nurse is a great title. It’s a title that screams melodrama and danger. It’s a title that says, “You must watch, you must watch!” If there was a TV series called Nightmare Nurse, I would watch and review every episode. If a character named Nightmare Nurse ever shows up in a Marvel comic book movie, I guarantee that she will become the most popular character since that talking raccoon. Nightmare Nurse is a title that epitomizes everything that we love about Lifetime movies.

The other point I would like to make is that, according to the imdb, Nightmare Nurse was filmed in Los Angeles. I was actually shocked to discover this because everything about it screamed, “Canada!” As I watched the movie, I just naturally assumed that it was filmed in either Montreal or Toronto, like so many other Lifetime films. But no, Nightmare Nurse was actually filmed in the U.S.

As for what the film is about … well, this is an odd one. It starts out like a normal Lifetime film and, for the first 75 minutes or so, it plays out like a normal Lifetime film. And then suddenly, things get really weird and, for the final 15 minutes, it’s like you’re watching an entirely different movie. This is one of those Lifetime films that has a big out-of-nowhere twist that really doesn’t make much sense. After you find out about the twist, you find yourself obsessing on how little sense it makes. In order for the plot of Nightmare Nurse to work, you have to believe that someone would come up with the most needlessly complicated plan necessary to accomplish a relatively simply goal.

But look, I’m not going to spoil things. If you want to talk about the ending, do so in the comments. But for this review, I will stay try to stay true to the no spoiler rule.

Nightmare Nurse tells the story of Brooke (Sarah Butler) and her boyfriend, Lance (Steve Good). One night, Lance is driving Brooke home from her job as a sous chef when, suddenly, a man wanders out into the middle of the street. Lance loses control of the car. The man is killed and Lance ends up with a broken leg. At the hospital, both Brooke and Lance are taken care of by Nurse Barb (Traci Lords). But, since Barb can’t go home with them, they have to hire a home nurse once they’re discharged from the hospital.

Brooke ends up hiring Chloe (Lindsay Hartley) and, as soon as Chloe showed up at the house, I was just like, “No! Stop! No way would I ever hire someone who looks like Chloe to take care of my boyfriend!” Seriously, if I’m hiring a nurse to spend all day with my boyfriend while I’m at work, you better believe that I am going to hire the ugliest nurse that I possibly can.

And you know what else I would probably do? I would probably run a background check or at least ask for references. Brooke doesn’t do any of this so should she really be all that surprised when Chloe turns out to be totally batshit crazy? Soon, Chloe is flirting with Lance and subtly suggesting that he and Brooke really aren’t that compatible. Meanwhile, Brooke is stuck working for a British chef. (Julian Stone does an okay job in the role but I would have loved to have seen a Gordon Ramsay cameo here.) Seriously, people — do a background check.

So, Chloe’s crazy, right? Well, yes but that’s not all! There’s a whole other layer of conspiracy going on. It’s all revealed during the final 15 minutes of the movie and it pretty much comes out of nowhere. This is one of those films where the mystery is solved largely through coincidence and luck as opposed to any use of intelligence on the part of anyone in the film.

I never though I’d say this about a Lifetime film but Nightmare Nurse is almost too implausible for its own good. On the positive side, Lindsay Hartley is properly unhinged as Chloe and Steve Good is likable as couch-bound Lance. Nightmare Nurse may not be the best Lifetime film that I’ve ever seen but I would definitely watch Nightmare Nurse II because a good title is a good title.