Stephen Snedden | Through the Shattered Lens

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 187 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded The Wrong Mother off of Lifetime on April 8th, 2017!)

(aka The Wrong Mother)

The Wrong Mother is a pretty typical example of a type of Lifetime movie that I like to call a “Trust No One Film.”

These films always deal with the same basic plot. Take a perfect family, consisting of a perfect wife, a perfect husband, at least one perfect kid, and a perfectly outspoken best friend. Open the film by establishing that they all live in a perfect house. Then, the wife makes the mistake of inviting a seemingly friendly person into the house and suddenly, things aren’t so perfect anymore. Suddenly, the husband is being tempted. The wife is being deceived. The children are being brainwashed. And the best friend usually ends up either dead or in the hospital. It all happened because the wife trusted someone. If only she had been willing to embrace her paranoia.

In The Wrong Mother, the perfect wife is Kaylene (Vanessa Marcil), who is run down by a SUV one day while she’s out jogging. The perfect husband is Drew (Stephen Snedden), who works as an airline pilot and is often not home. The perfect best friend is Samantha (Elizabeth Bond), who immediately realizes that the key to Kaylene’s recovery will be Kaylene washing her hair and not spending too much time in bed. The two perfect children are twins and they’re just adorable. And the perfect stranger is a nurse named Vanessa (Brooke Nevin). After meeting Kaylene and Drew in the hospital, she talks them into hiring her as a home care giver. Soon, Vanessa is lounging around the pool in a bikini and forcing Kaylene to take all sorts of pills. Vanessa is so dangerous that she even wears Lolita-style sunglasses. Samantha suspects that Vanessa might be hiding something…

And she’s right!

For one thing, Vanessa isn’t actually a nurse. She’s just someone who was hanging out around the hospital. For another thing, she knows that Kaylene had the twins via in vitro fertilization. In fact, Vanessa donated the eggs. Now, Vanessa wants the children for her own and she’s willing to go to any lengths to get them, even murder.

The lesson here? TRUST NO ONE!

Anyway, The Wrong Mother is a fairly typical Lifetime film. Once you’ve seen enough of these films, it becomes fairly easy to predict everything that’s going to happen and that certainly was the case with The Wrong Mother. (At this point, I can usually guess how many commercial breaks will pass before the best friend has an unfortunate “accident.”) The main reason to watch this movie is for the performance of Brooke Nevin, who delivers her snarky asides and rolls her eyes with such enthusiasm that she provides The Wrong Mother with a few enjoyable sparks.

Earlier tonight, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Megachurch Murder!

Why Was I Watching It?

First off, it was on Lifetime. And secondly, I had read that the film was supposedly based on Hamlet!

What Was It About?

Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark … Denmark, Georgia that is. Shortly after resisting the efforts of Michael Beach to expand his church, Pastor Malcolm Jamal-Warner dies under mysterious circumstances. Soon, Beach is having an affair with the pastor’s widow (Tamala Jones) and the pastor’s daughter (Shanica Knowles) is convinced that there’s been a murder. Complicating things: Knowles is dating Beach’s son, Romeo Miller.

What Worked?

To be honest, the best thing about Megachurch Murder were the tweets. This is one of those films that seemed to bring out the best of twitter.

I appreciated that the film pretended to be based on Hamlet, even though the story itself had next to nothing in common with Shakespeare’s play. That said, two youth group leaders did show up as the Megachurch Murder equivalents of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Most of the actors seemed to just be going through the motions but Michael Beach did a good job in the role of Clay King. He made for a great villain.

What Did Not Work?

All through the movie, whenever Hannah had to get away from it all, she always went to the exact same bridge. At first, it was funny that she was always standing on that bridge. But, after the 20th scene on that bridge, I started to wonder why nobody else in the town of Denmark ever seemed to use the bridge. Finally, by the time that Clay was demanding to know where Hannah was, I found myself shouting at the TV, “She’s on the bridge! She’s always on the damn bridge!”

Plus, Romeo Miller … actually, to be honest, I think Romeo Miller could give a good performance if cast in the right role. But, in this film, I kept expecting him to start talking about ICDC college. Whenever he was comforting Hannah, I kept waiting for him to say, “You can major in criminal justice or homeland security…”

Finally, I was surprised to discover that, at the end of the film, people were still attending the church. After three violent deaths, I’d probably change parishes.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

To be honest, and no one is more shocked by this than me, this is probably the first Lifetime film that I’ve ever watched that featured absolutely no moments that made me go, “Oh my God! Just like me!” I guess it’s because I was raised Catholic and didn’t have to deal with any murders while I was growing up.

It is true that, much like Hannah, I did go through my rebellious phase and I would snap at any adult who tried to speak to me. However, Hannah had an excuse. She was dealing with her father’s murder whereas, in my case, I was just a brat. So, it really doesn’t count as a “OMG! Just like me!” moment.

Lessons Learned

Big church = murder.