Mommy Dearest

Ah, Amazon Prime and your recommendations for me. A 1994 made-for-TV thriller about a psychotic woman who tracks down the adult daughter she gave up for adoption and infiltrates her family, Hand That Rocks the Cradle style? BE STILL MY HEART.

Quick Plot: Susan is happily married with a baby and stepson, as well as a live-in nanny who's totally hip to the raving fashion trends of the early '90s. One day, she receives a call from a private investigator telling her that her birth mother is looking to reconnect. Because it's only 1994 and the term "Lifetime Movie" didn't quite have the same meaning, poor Susan goes for it.

At first, everything is all warm cups of tea, museum trips, and floral patterned business suit joy. Edie (Diane Ladd), Susan's birth mother, seems truly sweet and caring. 

Thank goodness there's a super duper heavyhanded musical score in place to tell us the truth.

It doesn't take long for Edie to hitch a ferry ride back to Susan's isolated island home and have gloriously awkward dinner with the adoptive parents who sense what the piano/flute duet has already banged us over the head with. Count down from 20 to when Susan's mother mentions being diabetic to Edie calling in a perilous prescription of insulin and casually injecting it into her rival's daily supply. 

Yes folks, this is THAT kind of movie. 

A great one.

The kind of movie that has the friendly nanny comment to Edie that the baby is shy around strangers, only for the soundtrack to crescendo with the force of Bette Davis chugging Coca Cola and smashing the cans on Joan Crawford’s head as the camera cuts to a sharp closeup of the spurned grandmother. Naturally, said nanny is buried in the backyard two scenes later. 

Susan’s husband Martin and stepson Dylan are reasonably suspicious, though it takes them a little too long to put two and two (dead people) together. It’s really not until Edie mounts one of the weirdest attempts at son-in-law seduction that Martin walks out. It takes a strong man to resist a middle-aged woman draping her cozy bathrobe over her shoulders as she shaves her inner thigh without cream.

Edie is a delight, and I don’t just say that because her recipe for martinis is simply a huge pour of gin with an olive dropped in the glass. The way she vacillates between loving mother and insane murderess is the kind of high camp only television movies can nail. Toss in an incredible dummy death and you’ve got yourself a winner. 

High Points

I get that Diane Ladd earns her top billing as unhinged Edie, but the real star of Hush Little Baby is the incredibly aggressive instrumental soundtrack. A glorious thing to behold, that there is

I DARE YOU TO RESIST THAT COME HITHER LOOK

Low Points

Considering this movie gave me everything it promised in 90 minutes, I have nothing to say here

Lessons Learned

Food is primarily designed to go in the mouth

There's just never a right time to tell your daughter that her mother isn't dead

Oatmeal cookies are the perfect high fiber breakfast

Sharing a drag with your newfound step-grandmother is a much better idea in theory than execution

Rent/Bury/Buy

Along with dozens of other cheddary confections of the early ‘90s television movie boom, Hush Little Baby is currently streaming on Amazon Prime in full fuzzy glory. Those with access and a softness for well-aged cheese will have a fine fine time. 

The Sitter That Rocks the Cradle

What can I say? I'm an easy sell.

Quick Plot: Attractive college graduate Abby takes a job as a live-in babysitter* to the Eastmans, an upper middle class with a working PR mom (played by Lifetime vet Gail O’Grady), struggling lawyer dad, sweet daughter and sullen son. Before you can say Julianne Moore dead in a greenhouse, Abby is slashing through nosy neighbors who threaten her odds at becoming the new Mrs. Eastman.

Save for an Ernie Hudson stand-in and cry wolf molestation subplot, The Sitter (aka While the Children Sleep) is essentially The Hand That Rocks the Cradle for a 21st century Lifetime audience. 

How Hand Rocks the Cradle is it, you ask? There’s a hard-edged best friend whose face meets a plastic bag JUST as she’s about to warn the family about its ne’er do well nanny. A close-knit friendship that makes you wonder if the eldest daughter will indeed choose Abby over her mother. Just enough paranoia on Mrs. Eastman’s part to cause a minor marriage rift. Heck, there’s even a subtle Fatal Attraction throwback when Abby threatens to skin a school bully like a rabbit. 

As you do when aiming for Babysitter of the Year.

There’s virtually nothing original about The Sitter, directed by Russell Highlander Mulcahy. It’s the kind of film that insists on underscoring 80% of its runtime with ominous instrumental music, so that when what should be a perfectly innocent conversation with Abby and her charge occurs, all we hear is eviiiiiiiiil musical cues to ensure we KNOW not to trust this seemingly friendly young woman. 

The camera and soundtrack work extra hard to inform us that Mariana Klaveno’s Abby is a baaaaad girl, so much so that by the time she’s standing in the pouring rain and replaying conversations in her head and waving a shovel over a lecherous lawyer’s face, we’re ready to rock...

the cradle.

High Points

For a Lifetime original, The Sitter offers a surprising amount of violence via everything from knife to ax to shovel to stairs

Low Points

If you watched this year’s Halloween episode of the It Better Be Renewed Community, then you might have chuckled at Abed’s insistence that hearing a relevant news broadcast at the exact moment of turning on the radio is unbelievable. Well, so is turning the TV on in the middle of a conversation about your missing friend only to IMMEDIATELY notice that hey, doesn’t that car on the newscast look like the car of your missing friend?

Lessons Learned

Multiplication tables suck

Everybody loves free booze

Before spilling family secrets or discussing the suspiciousness of your new babysitter, you might want to take notice of the fact that your bedroom wall--which of course, separates you from babysitter in question--is thinner than Lara Flynn Boyle after mono

Taking a bath when cast in a horror film is one of the dumbest things a woman can do

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Sitter is streaming on Netflix, and while it’s not particularly good, it’s competent and trashy enough to serve as a solid 90 minute time waster. It’s a little meaner than what you’d expect from Lifetime and as a result, more fun than a rerun of The Nanny.

*Is the fact that The Nanny such a big hit on Lifetime reason enough for nobody in The Sitter to ever refer to the live-in babysitter as, you know, a nanny?

Vagrinders

Were I still in college, I imagine I’d write what would seem to be a Really Important Research Paper on the thematic depths of Teeth. True feminist horror! A woman scorning before she can be scorned! The perfect slumber party feature! Fun for the whole blended family!

At the crochety age of 28, Teeth is probably *slightly* less mind blowing and charming than it would have been were I younger or less versed in self-aware cinema. Still, this 2007 film is absolutely good-humored, refreshingly smart, and giddily disgusting.

Quick Plot: “I’ll show you mine, you show me yours” ends as I imagine may often be the case, in a little prick o’ blood (my punning is Crypt Keepertastic!). The bloody index finger belongs to a bratty young Brad, a hellion of sorts who grows up harnessing an icky crush on his kid stepsister Dawn (Jess Weixler).

Flashing forward 15 years, Dawn now spends some afternoons giving perky pep talks to a promise ring-wearing club of creepily young children, all vowing together to save their most special gift (psst: the one between their legs) for marriage. Fresh-faced with a constant smile, Dawn makes Marcia Brady look like a harlot but things begin to change when she meets puppy eyed born again virgin Tobey.

Apparently, G-rated dating is really difficult (possibly because activities are restricted to G-rated movies involving talking animals) and before long, Tobey is on top of the protesting Dawn, their plastic chastity rings entwined in pain.

Two very different types of pain, as we soon learn. As Dawn resists, Tobey lets out a Fay Wrayish scream. Turns out Dawn has more than well-toned Kegel muscles in her special place, and this unseen force is sharp, hungry, and very in tune with women’s rights.

Although anyone who’s read a word about Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth knows its premise, the film takes a surprising amount of time to reveal what’s underneath Dawn’s always zipped jeans. While parts of the buildup feel a little slow, this works well to develop Dawn as a young woman more complicated than the squeaky clean caricature she’s in danger of being.  Her gift/curse is all the more interesting in light of her frustrated sexuality, something actress Jess Weixler brings out with a fantastic balance of humor and weight.

If Teeth has a biting issue (get it? pun), it’s the not-entirely-taut second act details. There’s one possibly dead body floating around an eden-like forest and a dying mother whose presence is shaking up an already fragile family dynamic, but it’s a little hard to fully latch onto Dawn’s dilemma when we’re not sure precisely what direction it’s meant to head.

That being said, it’s easy to like Teeth and on an eventual second viewing, even adore. Both men and women will occasionally be crossing their legs with the same speed sparked by certain scenes in Antichrist.  This time, however, we can do with with a smile. 

And nervous chuckle.

High Points

I didn’t realize how much I was enjoying Teeth until, oddly enough, I reached the gynecologist scene, which is pitch perfect in both humor and horror. The way it begins in  a comfortable and kind place before slowly slipping into Hand That Rocks the Cradle territory is staged with such a careful touch that makes the audience relax, squirm, then cheer

Lead Weixler is in just about every scene and she does a damn fine job of balancing cavity inducing sweetness with a surprisingly grounded sense of growing up

Low Points

While I thoroughly enjoyed the development of Dawn’s character, a lot of viewers may be less thrilled with a nearly 45 minute first act more in line with Saved! than Saw

Lessons Learned

There’s way too much petting in PG13 rated films

In case of virgin seduction, always keep an economy sized pack of votive candles on hand

Be honest with your gynecologist. Really honest.

Rent/Bury/Buy

This is the kind of modern dark comedy that makes genre fans smile from beginning to end. At times, its tongue-in-cheek humor feels a tad too cute, but three severed penises, a solid and appealing star, and a snappy script make Teeth a film well worth checking out. Fans of Ginger Snaps will see perfect double feature potential, a sort of sexual empowerment of teenage girldom with more genital blood (a different KIND, of course). Currently on Instant Watch, the DVD is quite extra heavy, with a featurette, deleted scenes, and director commentary, all making a purchase more than endorsed by me. 

Stalk Like a Man

While researching titles for last week’s column on Valentines-appropriate genre flicks, several films kept appearing with alarming frequency: Fatal Attraction, The Phantom of the Opera, High Tension, to name a few. Now these luscious journeys through cinematic lust are certainly romantic in nature, but to call a tale about unhealthy obsession a “love story” seems creepy and wrong.

Naturally, creepy and wrong is what we do best at this little corner of the interwebs and thusly do I present 8 Tales of Unrequited (and Obsessive) Romance:

1. May

It's not easy being May, even if you are played by the adorable and genre-friendly Angela Bettis. A lazy eye and awkward demeanor makes socializing a challenge and dating nearly impossible. Fortunately, some corrective surgery brings out May’s beauty and before long, she’s the excitable girlfriend of indie moviemaker Jeremy Sisto. Unfortunately, this skinny vet's assistant is not so sharp when it comes to detecting social cues and quickly misinterprets his cinematic passion for cannibalims as a genuine fetish. The relationship may be short-lived, but a little taxidermy and May gets to enjoy the best parts, consent or no consent.

Basis of Obsession: Soft hands

Warning Signs: Chick’s best friend is a porcelain doll; chick not disturbed by violence to animals

2. Phantom of the Opera

Many a list dubs this 1925 silent classic a love story, but while many a lass would willingly surrender to the tortured musician of the title, wimpy Christine Deae has her heart set on a rich and handsome dullard with better wedding photo potential. Hence, it's not so cute when a malformed, musically gifted cellar dweller makes it his mission to train and kidnap the young diva-in-the-making. Some women are just more ungrateful than others.

Basis of Attraction: Soprano voice, prone to fainting

Warning Signs: Dude gives free opera lessons

3. Misery

People respond to their celebrity crushes in many ways: fan letters, Twitter follows, locker photos, locks of hair collecting. Some, like Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes, take a more extreme route. In the case of this 1990 Stephen King adaptation, such a method involves rescuing a literary hero, nursing him back to health, then breaking his ankles in a bid to force the just-retired novelist to resurrect his recently killed heroine. It's not romance per say, but Annie is clearly enamored--no, infatuated beyond control--with the character Paul Sheldon has created. When given the opportunity to direct his next literary pursuit, she's simply doing what her heart--and most likely, millions of fellow readers--demand. 

Basis of Attraction: Better writer than Nicolas Sparks

Warning Signs: Chick’s mouth is cleaner than Howie Mandel’s toilet

4. The Collector


Not to be confused with the recent Saw-like horror, this 1965 chiller (based on a controversial novel of the same name by John Fowls) epitomizes the dark and tragically wasteful nature of unrequited love. The icy Terrance Stamp is Frederick Clegg, a bland banker who wins the lottery and celebrates by buying a secluded estate and kidnapping Miranda (Samantha Eggar), a pretty art student he’s declared ideal. What follows is a fascinating interplay between two mismatched people and a true tour de force by Eggar (giving an Oscar nominated performance) as she tries every trick in the Intelligent Hostage Handbook to escape her captor. Indifference, seduction, insult, resignation...nothing can penetrate Stamp’s cold and self-declared adoration. His steely resolve is terrifying in its quiet persistence and how it demonstrates the true irony of obsession: Clegg knows deep down that the liberal-minded, college educated beauty will never really give in and even if she did, such an act would yield her disappointingly mortal. It's a tragedy for both characters and a haunting ride for the audience.

Basis of Attraction: Red hair, artistic ability

Warning Signs: Poor Miranda never gets the chance to detect them, as Clegg’s blank nature means she, like most of her town, simply doesn't him before her basement enslavement. I reckon then that the moral is to simply be aware of windowless vans.

5. High Tension

What’s scarier than a killer trucker with necrophiliac leanings? How about a manic pixie nightmare girl with inexplicable strength, uninhibited obsession, and a complete lack of mercy? While the twist ending (which actually equates to a completely different film than what you see on first viewing) continues to fuel high spirited film geek debate, High Tension maintains a special place as the film that helped and put modern French horror on the map. For most of its brutal running time, High Tension is a terrifying experience in new slasherdom. When we discover the killer's identity and motivation--sheer passion and impossible love--it takes on a different type of horror. Yes, it's Alex who loses her entire family and probably future sense of safety, but poor Marie is forever trapped wanting something she could never honestly have.

Basis of Attraction: Flirty brunette

Warning Signs: Your college roommate seems to be spending a lot of time practicing chainsaw and shotgun skills and judging your sex life

6. Fear

It scares me how much teenage girls are riveted by tales of obsessive and underage romance. I have vivid memories of my fellow 8th graders rushing home to tape (ahh, pre-DVR days) the made-for-TV movie No One Would Tell, wherein a weirdly grown-up Fred Savage abuses insecure girlfriend Candace “DJ Tanner” Cameron to the point of hilarious death. That was kid stuff compared to Fear, Mark Wahlberg’s big break-through thriller about a charming drifter becoming violently infatuated with 16 year old Reese Witherspoon. Classic cars are trashed, dogs decapitated, and Alyssa Milano gets smacked. On her butt cheek. And yet, every Titanic-seeing classmate I knew was smitten. If only Wahlberg had aimed his doorbell shout at them.

Basis of Attraction: Witherspoon’s innocence, even if it gets questioned in one of the most memorable roller coaster sequences since National Lampoon's Vacation

Warning Signs: Soft-spoken Boston accent, subtle flirtation with stepmom

7. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

I imagine nanny screening is an intense pursuit more difficult than shoe shopping or choosing a college major. Hence, it’s easy to forgive Annabella Sciorra’s Claire Bartel for eagerly hiring Rebecca DeMornay’s Petyon Flanders when she appears to saves Baby Joey from a (staged) choking. For a while, Petyon seems like the best thing in babysitting since Mary Poppins. Too bad she’s actually harnessing a jealous rage towards Claire for destroying the perfect life Peyton almost had with her successful--and perverted--gynecologist husband. Like Annie Wilkes, Petyon isn’t romantically  obsessed with the heroine (or even her dense husband) but when it comes to getting what she wants, that icy blond charmer is one productive go-getter. What is it she covets? How about Claire’‘s identity and all that comes with it: beautiful house, successful husband, adorable/thirsty baby, and decent child actor of a daughter. Good thing picket fences are pointy.

Basis of Attraction: Living the perfect life after causing another woman's naughty Hippocratic oath-abusing husband to kill himself, greenhouse skills

Warning Signs: Chick has better breast milk, clumsy near perfume

8. Patrick</b>

Clara Barton Syndrome strikes with full force in this 1978 Aussie thriller. Three years in a coma, what else can a bug-eyed young chap do but fall in love with the smart and sassy nurse assigned to change his diaper, well-played by Susan Penhaligon (the nurse, not the diaper, cursed dangling modifiers). Gifted with telekinesis but restricted by body and basic ugliness, Patrick attempts to woo the young woman with an unorthodox approach: nearly drowning a suitor, burning her estranged husband, and writing her letters as so:

Surprisingly, the feelings aren’t reciprocated.

Basis of Attraction: Top bedpan skills, good listener

Warning Signs: Inappropriate spitting, Dude causes inconvenient blackouts 

Obviously, I may have missed a few. Already names likeThe Crush, Obsessed, and Fatal Attraction pop up, although --hold her monocles--I've never seen these titles which explains their omission. Add your own and remember: secret admirers may seem romantic, but you never know what that mysterious paramour wants in return for a few overpriced Godiva chocolates.