Spa Day of the Dead

Some people get goosebumps at the classic Universal logo that rolls out before the opening credits. Others cheer at Marvel's new collage. Me? I hear the calming oceans of Marvista and say, "oh yes, this will be something special."

Quick Plot: An unnamed woman steps into the sauna at Serenity Gardens, fancy spa, expecting to sweat out her troubles. Instead, she sweats out...her LIFE.

One year later, we're led back to Serenity Gardens via Stella, a business consultant brought in by owner Ivy to help take things to the next level. The staff bristles at the interference of an MBA. Crystal healing specialist Jett worries her lack of clients will get her fired. Trainer Boxer is a creepy stalker-in-the-making. Yoga heartthrob Kilman follows his own rules, while his casual girlfriend Zoe is the office manager one wheatgrass shot away from pure insanity. 

Unbalanced employees can certainly create an unhealthy work environment, but it ultimately comes down to management. Ivy is an incredibly toxic boss. She pits her team members against one another and punishes meeting misbehavior with forced planks. THIS WOMAN IS THE DEVIL. 

Despite her business sense and education, Stella proves herself to be quite an idiot. Red flag after red flag waves in front of her face and yet she hangs on to her consulting gig, even after obsessive customers are stalking her house, drunken employees threatening her safety, and she becomes the prime suspect in a spa-set murder.

Killer Co-Worker is a tubi original, and that my friends, is a beautiful thing. Lifetime has long held a special place my heart as a reliable source of satisfying melodramatic cheese. tubi seems to have stolen its template, made a copy despite the machine being low on ink, then filled in the outline with whatever spilled wine product was near. 

This is a zany, zany little thriller. Everyone is operating at an 11 save for our 'normal' lead, who instead operates as if 11 was her IQ score. Somehow it all balances out. Director V.T. Nayani gets all her actors on the same page of stupid and by golly, it works. 

High Points

As an actor, it takes a fair amount of bravery to just GO FOR IT (particularly when the material doesn't necessarily support IT), and I have to call out Kendra Williams for taking Zoe to glorious heights of insanity

Low Points

Obviously, Killer Co-Worker isn't working on Titanic (or possibly even Titanic 666) levels of budget, but to establish its main setting as a thriving business with a huge waiting list, it probably would have been more effective to show more than one client

Lessons Learned

Laughter inhibits the power of crystals

MBAs speak fancy language, using terms like 'value adds'

Never trust a woman in a blazer

Rent/Bury/Buy

Like I say anytime I review a Lifetime thriller, you know just by the words "Lifetime thriller" if it's going to work for you. Killer Co-Worker reads exactly the same way, and I had a blast. Keep 'em coming, tubi!

I'm Your Number One (Swim)Fan

 

We all have our favorite films, but some of us have our favorite film studios. A24, Lionsgate, MGM, The Asylum...all have their merits, but let's be real: the warmer of my heart is none other than Marvista Entertainment.

Never heard of them, you say? Do you not spend hours watching Lifetime movies and Tubi content? 

What, my friend, is WRONG with you?

Quick Plot: Chelsea Angel is a celebrated musician who traded her bubble gum '90s pop career for a more unplugged style. Now five months pregnant, she decides to take a hiatus from performing but before she can announce that to her adoring fanbase, her private jet home crashes in the mountains.

Her manager and pilot are found dead, but Chelsea is luckier: she awakens to find herself in chains next to the young flight attendant. Who could have done such a thing?

Yes, obviously, the flight attendant! Who also happens to be Chelsea's number 1 fan. What a fine stroke of luck!

Evelyn King, you see, had a troubled life and the only bright spot was Chelsea's early music. Therefore, logic dictates that Chelsea should make MORE music. A baby is just going to mess that up, right?

Elsewhere, Chelsea's partner Nick is trying desperately to find her, which is a problem when the authorities seem less trained than the officers in Last House On the Left. He's far more successful teaming up with Frank, Chelsea's #2 fan. 

As you can guess, this film has a lot of mixed messages.

And as you probably already figured out, it's also not very good.

I love a Lifetime stalker tale, particularly when it's shameless about its source material. The medium may be different but make no mistake: The Follower is writer/director Damian Romay's take on Misery, a movie I might enjoy a bit (if my most recent Halloween costume is any indication). 

Which should be a lot of fun! Casting Erika "Tell me you love me, I know it!" Christensen as a former pop star now being Swimfanned? Brilliant! 

The movie? Not!

As someone who does an entire podcast on Hallmark holiday movies, I fully understand that most of these network films are made for pennies and in days. In no way do I expect cinematic brilliance or innovation. But energy? That's free.

Christensen plays the most levelheaded kidnapping victim you ever met. On one hand, I suppose it's refreshing to have a hero act rationally in the face of insanity. On the other, it's way less interesting. As Evelyn, Bethany Lauren James has some fun tapping into a fallen manic fangirl, but the actual filming feels so rushed that some of her grander moments just don't connect the way they can, even on this level. A scene where a very pregnant Chelsea waddles away as Evelyn attacks her with a guitar feels more like it was the blocking rehearsal for fight choreography than the climax of the film. 

High Points

Yes, the fact that I just said "Erika Christensen waddles away as her stalker beats her with a guitar" SHOULD make you say, "well that sounds fun" and yes, some of it is

Low Points

The utter lack of self-awareness about why casting Erika Christensen in an obsessive fan movie is funny in itself is such a wasted opportunity that for the many misses this movie makes, this is the biggest

Lessons Learned

Details matter in every act of creation, whether you're writing a song or sewing a creepy doll

The hardest part of any plan is knowing how to manage the rohypnol doses

Picking a lock is as easy as watching a youtube video

Rent/Bury/Buy

On paper, The Follower should have been spectacular (for me). Unfortunately, it's just not nearly as much fun as it should be (for me). If you're not me, have a go at it on Peacock.

She Bakes. She Knits. She KILLS.

 

The world we occupy can be a tough, challenging place. War, cancer, 5-day work weeks, inefficient supermarket line systems, economic unrest...all that terrible jazz that adds up to our minds being torn in a dozen directions. Sometimes, we need to trust a certain form of order, a code, if you will, that offers a stability we know will never let us down.

For me, that constant is the Lifetime thriller. 

Quick Plot: We open, Mikey-style, on the slow motion drowning of young Megan under the ill-advised supervision of her barely older brother Tom, now a grown, Lifetime-handsome architect living in an impeccably white house with his equally white wife Melissa and child Annie. Melissa is about to launch her online jewelry business so as you can imagine, life is TOUGH for the beautiful Ferridays.

Excuse me, I should be more specific: Melissa's company makes bracelets. That's it. Beaded or gently welded bracelets built in her luxury bonus room that includes its own wine cellar.

Do Lifetime movies save a few bucks by turning using flipped rooms in home renovation reality shows as their set? Such are the questions I ponder, and folks, we haven't even met the TITULAR KILLER GRANDMA.

Played by the insanely perfectly named Nana Visitor, Grandma Yvonne is of course the same mother who watched her daughter die in the prologue. It seems she's been spending most of the last 30 years institutionalized, in part voluntarily, although additional flashbacks reveal she's been racking up a body count and eager to continue if it means getting full custody of her Megan stand-in, Annie.

Before you can write a thank you card for that hand-knit blanket, Grandma has smothered Annie's regular babysitter with a throw pillow (which she dutifully fluffs before leaving the scene of the crime) and stabbed Melissa's suspicious pal Courtney. Somehow, the young detective (fresh from the scene of a clearance sale at Journey's) makes no connection. 

With her summer camp friendship bracelet business about to hit it big, Melissa has no choice but to trust her husband's estranged, knife-wielding mother with the full care of her kid. Yvonne does what I would probably do in her position: replace Annie's stuffed unicorn with a creepy Beavis-faced doll and dress the kid up like a zombified Wednesday Addams.

Naturally, it takes Tom and Melissa far too long to draw connections between the timing of the many dead people in their sphere and the return of Yvonne. Knives are drawn, stairs tumbled down, and through it all, the Ferriday household remains so impeccable that you could lick the walls just to clean your tongue.

You don't come to Killer Grandma for logic, nor do you expect deep characterization to challenge your brain. This movie is exactly what its cover art and title promise: ridiculously attractive and well-made-up people saying they have to put on makeup before solving the world's most obvious crime. It's stupid, it's pretty, it's weirdly paced...

It's perfect.

High Points

Clearly, director Danny J. Boyle (right, not that one) had to film Killer Grandma quickly, but one must appreciate his attempts to replicate the Vivika A. Fox/Uma Thurman Kill Bill kitchen fight on a dime

Low Points

Is it me, or do we never REALLY learn the details of Grandma's institutionalization? We see one flashback showing her murdering her husband, but despite some extreme exposition-heavy conversations with her therapist (I ask with my shoulders shrugged) it's incredibly cloudy as to how much is known about Yvonne's crimes, and Tom's noncommittal attitude about just how dangerous his mother might be doesn't help. I know this is the type of movie that has to be cut within a hair of the right timing for a shampoo commercial, but it still feels weirdly un-detailed 

Lessons Learned

Girlfriends are supposed to say goodbye

There's a big market out there for non-Etsy based ugly bracelet makers

Sharks don't do boundaries

Head trauma and suffocation are easily interchangeable to modern coroners 

Rent/Bury/Buy

It's really very simple: if the statement "there's a Lifetime movie on Hulu called Killer Grandma and it's exactly what you think it is" doesn't make you immediately turn on Hulu to watch Killer Grandma, then Killer Grandma is simply not for you. Have at it, or don't. 

Babysitters In Glass Houses Most Definitely Throw Stones

Something that has become endemic to me during the pandemic: turning on LMN (the Lifetime Movie Network) in the background only to find myself rearranging my day to make sure I can finish watching a random filmed-in-a-week thriller.

See, the Lifetime movie has evolved over the last few years in rather fascinating ways. This is a network that employs more women behind the camera than any other, and while many a story feels like a simple boildown of madonna vs. whore, the truth is, a lot of these stories are secretly celebrating female agency. 

Thus, when a title like "The Babysitter's Revenge" rolls in front of my eyeballs, I now know that I'm either getting campy trash or surprising smart commentary. Either way, the kitchens will be immaculate.

Quick Plot: Carrie is a frustrated 17-year-old with some real concerns. Her single mother was ousted from her city council office following a scandal that suggested she had sexually harassed an employee. To help make ends meet, Carrie works hard as the go-to neighborhood babysitter, staying busy after the kids go to sleep by snooping around their wealthy parents' things. 

Such a hobby proves handy: when Carrie catches one of the town moms sorting coke, she's able to raise her rates without protest. If only she could find similar dirt on her sworn enemy: Madeline Cooper.

Played by Bree Turner, Madeline is a queen bee who grew up to be a participation trophy wife. She's perfectly fit and beautifully dressed, but it seems like aside from a fairly whiny toddler named Daniel and handsome-enough husband, she hasn't quite reached the heights she aimed for. 

Naturally, she's decided to take that out on her neighbors. After Carrie's mom refused to take Madeline's request to gate the neighborhood seriously, Madeline cleverly framed her to strip the city council position away. The war continued in more passive aggressive ways, from Madeline having Carrie's friend's car towed to Carrie staging a temporary kidnapping of Daniel to make sure Madeline's only responsible babysitter is the very teenager trying to take her down.

The Babysitter's Revenge, also known (perhaps more fittingly) as Glass Houses, is the perfect example of how a simple LMN quickie, when made with a tad more thought, can actually be something interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if this was greenlit in an old fashioned Roger Corman manner of some content manager throwing out "The Babysitter's Revenge" as a movie title and screenwriter Barbara Kymlicka (Lifetime veteran responsible for EIGHT titles in 2019, and SIX and counting in 2020) decided to do something a little more interesting.

Directed by newcomer Sarah Pellerin, The Babysitter's Revenge is purely about women: Carrie's frustrations with the unfairness of her and her mother's life, and Madeline's attempts to mask her unhappiness by presenting herself as the perfect suburbanite mom. The few men that pass through are mere accessories to the story, which is, at its heart, a power play between a sharp teenager and a bitter, type-A adult. There's far more going on than expected (or often needed) in a movie like this. 

High Points

The fact that this movie opens on five minutes of dialogue about events that have already happened with characters we've yet to meet is a weird vote of confidence in its audience, trusting that we're willing to listen and learn about the two women whose story we're going to be following

Low Points

Bree Turner is glorious as Madeline and gets a wonderfully rich finale freakout, but it's incredibly unsatisfying that we don't get anything of her future in the coda. This woman can still take on the world! Give us a hint at where she's setting her sights!

Lessons Learned

Cell phone volume has come a long way, so much so that you can blast music one house away and get a noise complaint

Always assume that your babysitter is snooping

It's very easy to get away with murder (in an LMN world), providing it's of your real target's more promiscuous best friend*

*FUN FACT: Promiscuous best friends die so often in movies that I write about that when I don't properly discard previously used blog images, I get messages like this when saving:

Rent/Bury/Buy

Like most LMN originals, The Babysitter's Revenge isn't necessarily worth investing energy into finding, but if it floats on your screen when you've got time to spare, it's a fun, surprisingly clever way to pass the time. 

Plus, kitchen porn. 

Diamonds Are a Suburban Teenager's Best Friend

In times like these, it's our civic duty to ourselves to ensure our mental and emotional health needs are being properly met. Hence, it would be a crime for me NOT to watch Doug Campbell's latest Lifetime thriller.

Quick Plot: Joanie is the new girl at her LA high school, finishing off her senior year with dreams of going to MIT. Her doe-eyed innocence catches the attention of Anabel and Olivia, two typical mean girls who have been making extra tax-free cash smuggling blood diamonds. 

When I was 17, I worked at Chuck E. Cheese.

Joanie is initially horrified when she discovers she's been used as a mule, but everything changes when her tex-mex loving little brother is diagnosed with cancer of the small intestines. With a single mom in debt and inadequate health insurance, Joanie's only choice is to immerse herself in this TSA foolery and hide the money in a crowd funding website. 

The benefits of such an extracurricular activity? Jet setting green screened SELFIES!

Smuggling In Suburbia is a special little film, finding a place smack in the center of a Venn diagram filled with Lifetime's "...In Suburbia" series and Lifetime's lifetime employee Doug Campbell's ouvre. Better known for directing five (and counting) movies with titles that begin "Stalked By," Campbell is a pro at the genre who goes a step further by embracing its inherent campiness while maintaining full sincerity. It's a tricky balancing act, but when you direct four such films a year, you get pretty darn good at it. 

How do you know you're in the hands of a master? Take Tucker, Joanie's boyfriend and a key player in the blood diamond business empire. Tucker would love to live a straight life, and naturally, his real passion, like any good Hallmark Christmas movie hunk, is architecture. 

These people know their stuff.

We're not 20 minutes when Campbell spoils us with the greatest of all cinematic treasures: the shopping montage. Eventually, we get 9/11 references that somehow equate Joanie's activities to terrorism. Crazy that a girl can be smart enough to dream of going to MIT but not understand how she's betraying her country or how any part of an FBI investigation works. The credits forego the classic "Cast" list for "The Players," because...why not?

Smuggling In Suburbia is trash, but it's fun, smartly made trash that understand exactly what it's supposed to do and does it with an added dose of clever trickery. It's a dumb good time. 

High Points

It's easy to make a self-aware Lifetime thriller with actors choking on their own winks (while I adore Eric Roberts in Campbell's Stalked By My Doctor series, he's definitely having too much fun). What works about Smuggling In Suburbia is the very cautious line its cast toes, playing everything earnestly with a very careful, barely there glint that says, "we know exactly what we're doing"

Low Points

It might just be that I've grown so accustomed to the Lifetime 90 second happy time coda that I found Smuggling In Suburbia's weirdly bleak ending a downer, but I mean, SPOILER ALERT: she goes to jail now, RIGHT?!

Lessons Learned

All girls like diamonds

Transplant of the small intestine is the most expensive elective surgery in the USA, but it's the treatment you need to beat enchiladitis

Look, as a loud talker, I'm not one to loud talk shame another woman, but ladies in Lifetime movies, PLEASE: speaking full volume in public about something as sensitive as, say, an ongoing FBI investigation that will compromise your friend who happens to regularly be in the same public space where you are SPEAKING FULL VOLUME

There comes a point in every single mother's life when she has to do what it takes to make sure her firstborn doesn't throw her future away for a handsome failed architect turned diamond smuggler

Rent/Bury/Buy

Smuggling In Suburbia is streaming on Amazon Prime, and it will bring joy to your for just under 90 minutes. Heat up a plate of burritos and enjoy.