Tag: 2017

Bad Grandmas

  By

★★
“Near-dead.”

There is entertainment value to be found even in bad movies. Bad action, horror and SF are sometimes just as amusing as the good stuff. But bad comedy is almost irredeemable: that’s why Mystery Science Theater 3000 rarely go there. Bad comedy just… sits there, dull and unamusing, almost worthless. And that’s what we have here. It’s a somewhat interesting idea, with some potential. Unfortunately, the execution – mostly in the script and direction – are so woefully inept that even the brave efforts of Florence Henderson, in her final film, aren’t enough to salvage it. And wasting the talents of Pam Grier needs to be some kind of cinematic capital offense.

Mimi (Henderson) is trying to help out her friend Bobbi (Wall), who is being thrown out of her house by an evil son-in-law. She goes to confront the perp, only for him to end up dead. She and her senior citizenette pals dispose of the body, hiding it in a freezer. But this just brings them to the attention of Harry (Reinhold), the local loan-shark to who the son-in-law owed two hundred grand. He kidnaps Bobbi, demanding the house or the money; Mimi is having none of that, and when Harry sends over an associate to collect, the henchmen ends up similarly dismembered and in the deep-freeze. Meanwhile, the local sheriff (Batinkoff) is also sniffing around, initially having been investigating Harry’s financial dealings.

Henderson does her best with material which seems designed to destroy any audience sympathy. For example, her first victim isn’t killed initially, and Mimi immediately stabs him in the heart to finish the job. I remind you: this film is supposedly a comedy. If it wanted to go this “dark passenger” route [and it includes an explicit reference to Dexter], that might have worked better, and I’d have been fine with it. Make Mimi a retired serial killer, former CIA operative or something to explain her apparent psychopathic tendencies. For the ease with which she slides from genteel retirement into cold-blooded dispatch is jarring and at odds with the light-hearted tone for which the film is aiming (and, largely, falling short).

A far more egregious complaint would be putting one of the godmothers of action heroineism, Grier, in a timid, mouse-like role, beneath a poorly-considered blonde wig, and giving her next to nothing to do. I know she’s in her late sixties, but that never stopped the similarly-aged Helen Mirren from letting rip in Red. I just breathed a sigh of relief on checking Pam’s filmography to discover she had appeared in other films since. Bad enough this was Henderson’s swan-song, we didn’t need it also to be that of an unquestioned icon like Grier. I sense where this is trying to go – something similar to the Bad Ass franchise, with its similarly mature cast of Dannys Glover and Trejo. However, that knew what to do with its characters, and made much better use of them than this, a well-intentioned failure.

Dir: Srikant Chellappa
Star: Florence Henderson, Randall Batinkoff, Judge Reinhold, Susie Wall

Tiger Girl

  By

★★★½
“Changing of the stripes”

Maggie (Dragus) just failed the police entry exam in humiliating fashion, and is now taking a course to become a security officer, despite her meek nature. She encounters Tiger (Rumpf), a street punk girl who is everything Maggie is not: brash, confident and perfectly willing to go toe-to-toe with anyone she feels deserves it. The pair strike up an unlikely friendship, with a purloined uniform allowing Tiger to join Maggie in her security work, and in turn engage her increasing fondness for mayhem and violence. Meanwhile, Tiger’s example helps bring Maggie – or ‘Vanilla’, as Tiger calls her in half-mocking endearment – out of her shell. Though Tiger’s drug-dealing friends are less than impressed to find her palling around with a wannabe cop. And as Maggie begins to adopt a more… physical approach to confrontation, it becomes clear that Tiger’s restraint is something Maggie does not possess.

This offers an interesting exercise in societal contrasts, between two young woman, both making their own way in the world, in radically different directions. Maggie would nominally be the approved one, with her plans for a career in law enforcement, while Tiger engages in petty theft and mugging (albeit ‘only those who deserve it’) in order to keep her and her two druggie boyfriends fed, in the attic in which they squat. However, the longer the film goes on, the more you realize it’s Tiger who has the stronger moral compass. Even though she engages in criminal conduct, often for the mere fun of it, she has her own set of rules – with which you may or may not agree – that guide her conduct and keep her out of serious trouble. When Vanilla, revelling in her new found confidence, begins to go beyond those, it sets the stages for a confrontation between the friends.

I must confess, there are times when I thought this was going to end up in a twist where Tiger was a figment of Maggie’s psyche, just like… well, a certain cult movie of the late nineties, shall we say (in case you haven’t seen it!). Nothing quite so psychological shows up, and to be honest, the actual plot is probably the least interesting thing this has to offer. For instance, there’s a subplot where Tiger’s pals end up in debt to “Biggie,” a local drug-dealer, and it’s up to Tiger to get them out of the mess. Despite an interesting twist, when we find out Biggie is actually another woman, the thread just peters out into nothing. Rather more successful is the droll humour, for example, depicting Vanilla’s degenerating relationship with her completely straight-laced security teacher (Feldschau).

It it, however, a film which stands or falls largely on the strength of the central pair of performances, and both actresses are very good in their roles. I just wish we had got the complete version of the full-on fight between the young women and a gallery owner, which the film merely teases.

Dir: Jakob Lass
Star: Ella Rumpf, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Enno Trebs, Orce Feldschau

Mohawk

  By

★★½
“A hair short.”

This takes place in upstate New York during the 1812 war between Britain and America, when combatants are courting the Mohawk tribe to join forces with them. The natives are suspicious of both, and won’t commit to either. Working for the British is Joshua (Farren), who is in a slightly odd, three-way relationship with Mohawk warrioress Oak (Horn) and fellow native Calvin (Rain). On the other side is Hezekiah Holt (Buzzington), and his small band of Americans, who are out for redcoat blood. When they blame the Mohawk for murdering some of their number, their violence quickly extends to encompass Oak and Calvin, as well as Joshua. After Oak is left all alone, she goes on the war-path to take revenge on Holt and his men.

Low-budget period pieces are always on shaky ground, because creating genuine period atmosphere typically costs money. This sidesteps the issue by largely taking place in the middle of the woods, thereby limiting costs to a selection of uniforms and other costumes. It is a slightly obvious swerve, and I was also distracted by the sizable presence of WWE wrestler Luke Harper (under his real name, Jon Huber) as one of Holt’s platoon. The main problem, however, is the abrupt switch over to a supernatural theme for the final act. After the film has been thoroughly – and gorily – grounded in reality for more than an hour, it suddenly turns into a native American version of The Crow.

This is a shame, as the story to that point had taken some standard tropes and twisted them in interesting ways. While I’ve classified this as a “Western,” it’s more of an Eastern in terms of its location on the continent, and dates from an earlier era than usual as well. It could easily have become a scenario painted in black and white; instead, it’s considerably murkier, with motivations largely kept under wraps, especially those of Joshua and Oak. The latter, in particular, spends a good chunk of the movie lurking in the woods, with the focus on Holt and his dwindling crew. They’re in particular trouble after their tracker is picked off, giving a decisive advantage of terrain to their enemies.

As noted, it’s enthusiastically messy and brutal, as appears to be a recent trend in the more revisionist of Westerns (hello, Bone Tomahawk). But I was probably expecting more emphasis on Oak rather than Holt, which doesn’t happen until after the shift in tone also mentioned earlier. Horn does deliver a powerful performance, very much quiet and understated, and I’d like to have seen more of it. Given this inner strength, it didn’t seem logical to me for Oak to be bailed out by help from the spirits of her ancestors or whatever, in order to carry out her vengeance. Leaning on this as the story does (and where were these spirits when everyone else was being massacred?), seems a bit of an unnecessary cop-out. Not by any means terrible, yet could certainly have been better.

Dir: Ted Geoghegan
Star: Kaniehtiio Horn, Eamon Farren, Justin Rain, Ezra Buzzington

Naam Shabana

  By

★★★½
“Four for the price of one?”

If you took four different films, by four different directors, and edited them together into a single entity, you might end up something similar to this. Oh, make no mistake: I still enjoyed most of this. It just doesn’t feel like a coherent whole, perhaps because it is a spin-off involving some of the same characters from an earlier film, Baby. For at least three-quarters of it, however, not having seen its predecessor shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The first chunk is perhaps the weakest, introducing us to the heroine, Shabana Khan (Pannu), a college student and judo expert, with something of a quick temper. She has just started going out with a new boyfriend, when they get into an altercation with some cat-calling men, which ends with him dead in the street. It’s all rather unconvincing, not least the early incident which does a very poor attempt to establish Shabana’s zero tolerance for harassment.

Things do improve significantly thereafter, for it turns out she was under observation by a shadowy arm of the Indian government as a possible agent. She’s contacted by Ranvir Singh (Bajpayee), who offers to help her take revenge on her boyfriend’s killers, if she comes to work for him. With the authorities apparently uninterested in the case, Shabana accepts, and the next section covers her vengeance, and subsequent training under Singh. This is likely when the film is at its best, taking an interesting concept and executing it with some energy and flair.

Shabana then vanishes from her own movie in the third quarter, as we return to the topic of international arms dealer Mikhail (Sukumaran) he was briefly glimpsed at the beginning, making short work of two Indian agents in Vienna. Authorities have tracked down his ally, Tony, and apply pressure, hoping to discover Mikhail’s location. However, it turns out Mikhail has been using the services of a doctor to change his appearance, making the task of locating him that harder, and it becomes a race against time before he changes again, and the trail is lost.

Which brings us to another switch in direction for the final section, in which Shabana is sent into the hospital where Mikhail is about to get plastic surgery, in order to assassinate him. Here, she’s teamed up with Ajay Singh (Kumar), who was apparently the hero of Baby. There was a point where it looked like he was going to take over – not that we’d have minded too much, as we’ve always enjoyed seeing Kumar in action (despite his creepy mustache here), but this is supposed to be an action heroine film. Fortunately, that’s where it ends up.

Despite feeling a bit like Nikita, a bit like Peppermint, a bit like Alias and a bit like a Jason Bourne movie, there’s plenty going on, and the running time feels considerably shorter than its 147 minutes. It helps that its heroine is made to look relatively plain, rather than the typically stunning Bollywood actress. 

Dir: Shivam Nair
Star: Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Kumar, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manoj Bajpayee

Tarnation

  By

★★½
“The Dead Evil.”

Following on after From Parts Unknown and Sheborg Apocalypse, this is my third encounter with what Armstrong calls “Neo pulp.” All three have strong heroines at their core, which is something I can get behind. But I suspect his approach works best when he builds out his own universe, as in Sheborg. Here, the inspiration is the classic horror of The Evil Dead trilogy (particularly Evil Dead 2), which is a bit of a double-edged sword. You need to have seen those films to get the references – and, in Armstrong’s defense, I suspect most viewers of his work likely will have. The problem, and there’s no escaping this, is Sam Raimi did it better, leaving this feeling almost like an Asylum-style mockbuster. Turning Ash into Ashette and hanging an Evil Dead poster on the wall of your cabin isn’t enough.

Most obviously, Masterman isn’t Bruce Campbell. While fine in Sheborg as the sidekick, she doesn’t have the presence necessary to drag the viewer along on her journey to a blood-drenched hell and back. Oscar (Masterman) is a wannabe singer, fired by her band, who heads off to a remote cabin with her best friend and friend’s boyfriend. Of course, anyone who has ever seen any horror movie will be unsurprised when things go wrong, in particular her BFF being possessed by some kind of entity. Though there’s a lot of… stuff going on besides. Said stuff includes a flying demon with a unicorn’s head, a boxing kangaroo, a rap battle, and insects crawling out of places insects were never meant to go. And blood. Lots of blood.

There’s no arguing the energy here: when the film gets going, it pretty much doesn’t stop thereafter. However, I’d have traded a sizeable chunk of that energy for coherence. Or a sense of escalation. Or anything to help negate the feeling this consists of Armstrong and his team throwing whatever ideas they could come up with, on the screen, in the order they came up with them. Some of those ideas are fun, and you marvel at the low budget inventiveness. which makes a hole in the floor with a rug on it, a portal to the netherworld. Others don’t work, outstay their welcome, or have execution so flawed they should have been strangled at birth.

As a result, the energy becomes increasingly wearing on the soul, to the point that Oscar discovering the magic words to restore normality are, “Klaatu Barada Necktie,” provoked a tired eye-roll rather than the intended mirth. As loving recreations go, it’s certainly not bad; however, if I wanted to watch a blood-spattered story about a weekend spent at a cabin in the woods gone horribly wrong, I’d watch The Evil Dead and its sequels. Hopefully, Armstrong can develop something that shows off his unquestionable talent, imagination and ability to squeeze every penny out of the budget, on its own canvas, rather than painting on top of someone else’s masterpiece.

Dir: Daniel Armstrong
Star: Daisy Masterman, Emma Louise Wilson, Danae Swinburne

Hellcat’s Revenge

  By

★★½
“Mums of Anarchy”

The leader of all-girl biker gang the Hellcats is brutally beaten and murdered, by Repo (Kosobucki). Her replacement, Kat (Neeld), tries to get to the bottom of the killing, and take vengeance on the perpetrators. Complicating matters is Repo’s position in the Vipers, another motorcycle club with whom the Hellcats have previously had generally friendly relations. Part of that is due to Kat’s on-again, off-again relationship with their leader, Snake (Kabasinski); he also has the advantage of being cosy with some of the local cops, who divert confiscated drugs back to the Vipers for resale. But was he aware of – or did Snake perhaps even order? – Repo’s actions?

This is a mix of elements that work well, and those that don’t. The characters and performances aren’t bad. Neeld nails the right “do not mess with me” attitude – even if it seemed as if some of her tattoos were rubbing off on occasion! – looking and acting the part required, as well handling the action required better than I anticipate. And normally, a director putting himself in his own film is a red flag which screams “vanity project”, yet Kabasinski is equally solid in his role. Though disturbingly, he reminded me of Axl Rose some of the time. To varying degrees, this compatibility extends throughout the cast, e.g. the cops look like cops. You’d be surprised how often that is not the case in low-budget films.

Yet other aspects come up short. Most obviously: for a biker movie, it has a remarkable lack of… well, bikes. In fact, while I may have blinked and missed it, I don’t think there is a single shot of a Hellcat on, or indeed anywhere near, a motorcycle, at any point in the film. There’s also an ambivalent approach to female nudity. While there are plenty of that low-budget staple, the strip-club scene, the men involved are strikingly bored by it. Which may be the point: yet if they’re not interested, why should viewers be? And Neeld remains resolutely clothed. If you’re going to tout having a Playboy cover-girl in your B-movie… Well, it’s not unreasonable to expect a bit more than (admittedly, impressive!) cleavage.

There are other problems: the scenes don’t flow into one another, and some seem to have needless padding in them. Here’s an example: in one sequence, Kat is being briefed by her lieutenant Stone at a railway station. Six words of meaningful dialogue are preceded by twenty seconds of Stone walking along the platform to reach her boss. In terms of content, there’s simply isn’t enough here for the length, not least because we know from the start who the perpetrator was, significantly reducing the mystery. Sure, there’s a twist, though since even I could see it coming, it won’t be sitting beside The Sixth Sense in cinematic history. Given the obviously limited resources, this still isn’t bad, and I’d not mind seeing more of Neeld. However, my attention was held only intermittently throughout, rather than consistently.

Dir: Len Kabasinski
Star: Lisa Neeld, Len Kabasinski, Deborah Dutch, Mark Kosobucki

Viking Siege

  By

★★★
“Tree’s company…”

This has the potential to be truly bad, and you need to be willing to look past ropey production values, a possibly deliberately shaky grasp of period (unless “Daisy” really was a popular girls’ name in early medieval times…) and uncertainty as to whether or not this is intended to be a comedy. Yet, I have to admire its “everything including the kitchen sink” approach: throwing together elements from genres as disparate as Vikings, zombies, aliens, sword ‘n’ sorcery and female vengeance shows… well, ambition, at the very least.

The story starts with a group of women, led by Atheled (McTernan), infiltrating a priory. They seek revenge on the monks, because of a sideline in human trafficking which has cost the women dearly. Their plan for vengeance is somewhat derailed by a local lord turning up, and entirely derailed by the arrival of a horde of Vikings, in turn hotly pursued by what can only be described as demonic shrubbery – not for nothing are they referred to and credited as “tree bastards.” To survive through the night is going to take an unholy alliance between the various parties, as well as some captives in the basement – fortunately, those include someone who can speak Viking (McNab). Given their radically different goals, this will present problems of its own.

Wisely, for budgetary reasons, action is largely constrained to the main hall of the priory, with occasional forays outside. This set-up is very Night of the Living Dead, and the tree bastards are also infectious, albeit not quite in the traditional zombie sense. However, it’s in the creatures that the film’s limited resources are most painfully obvious, with them being little more than obviously blokes in masks. Although the boss shrub does occasionally look impressive, when shot from the right angle, it feels a bit much, and is a case where less might well have been more. Just make them nameless berserkers, you’d have much the same impact and save yourself a lot of time, money and effort.

The chief saving grace are the performances. McTernan has the inner steel to go with her crossbow bolts; her colleagues, Seren (Hoult) and Rosalind (Schnitzler) in particular, are very easy to root for; and the nameless translator has perhaps the most interesting character. It’s these that kept me watching, such as in the atmospheric scene when the backstory of the tree bastards is explained. Though told rather than shown, it’s delivered with enough energy to prove more effective than some other elements (martial arts? gunpowder?), which had me sighing in irritation.

To be perfectly clear, it’s a case where you need to go in with your expectations suitably managed, i.e. keep ’em on the low-down. Based on the blandly generic DVD sleeve and title, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered, and certainly would not have expected any action heroines. As such, this was a pleasant surprise, and it kept me more entertained than I feared it might. My advice is, treat it as a loving tribute to a whole slew of B-movie genres, no more and no less.

Dir: Jack Burton
Star: Michelle McTernan, Rosanna Hoult, Samantha Schnitzler, Adam McNab

The Stolen

  By

★★
“98 minutes robbed from my life.”

Rarely has such promise been so spectacularly and vigorously squandered. For this starts well enough. In 19th century New Zealand, English ex-pat Charlotte (Eve) is settling into a new life with her husband and newborn child. This is upturned when a midnight raid leaves her husband dead and the baby kidnapped. Months later, after everyone else has moved on, she gets a ransom demand in the mail, and she tracks its source to Goldtown. This remote outpost is truly an Antipodean version of the Wild West, a rough-edged mining town run by Joshua McCullen (Davenport). Braving all manner of threats – not least, that the only other women there are prostitutes – Charlotte makes the perilous journey to the frontier settlement in search of her son.

So far, so good. The landscapes and photography on the way there are gorgeous, yet threatening, and Charlotte is built up nicely, possessing a strength and inner steel which belies her “English rose” appearance. Both her late husband, and the guide who accompanies Charlotte (also bringing to Goldtown a batch of fresh hookers!), have laid the groundwork, both theoretical and practical, for her to learn the use of firearms, that great equalizer of force. The foundations were apparently being created for her to put her training to good use, when she finds out what happened to her child.

Then she arrives in Goldtown and the film goes to hell in a hand-basket, almost as soon as Riff Raff from Rocky Horror (O’Brien) shows up to portray the manager of the local brothel, sporting an accent of entirely indeterminable origin. For a good chunk, Charlotte appears to forget entirely what the purpose of her trip is. Even when she remembers, her investigative approach initially consists of little more than roaming the town, yelling at miners about her minor. When the truth about who is behind the abduction is revealed, it doesn’t make much sense: the motive for their acts, in particular, is more “it needed to happen because film,” rather than anything springing organically from the nature of their character.

Eve does makes for a heroine with potential. There’s something of the young Nicole Kidman about her, and it’s a good character arc for Charlotte. She transforms from a passive lady of the manor, to someone forced to sleep in a dormitory with a bunch of whores (the most acidic of whom, the severely mis-named Honey, is played by the film’s writer, Emily Corcoran), and fend off men who, somewhat understandably, believe she is also pay-to-play. However, the film likely reveals the culprit too soon: doing so eliminates what little sense of suspense present, and it’s not hard to guess how things will develop thereafter.

Such speculation will likely be accurate, and the film does at least deliver the expected payoff at the end, in the form of an armed confrontation between Charlotte and the kidnapper. By that point, most viewers will likely have given up caring much, beyond being reminded of New Zealand’s picturesque qualities.

Dir: Niall Johnson
Star: Alice Eve, Jack Davenport, Richard O’Brien, Graham McTavish

Cassidy Red

  By

★★½
“Better red than dead. Albeit, only just.”

Josephine “Joe” Cassidy (Eiland) is promised in marriage to Tom (Jenkins), the son of the area’s richest rancher, but her heart actually belongs to Jakob (Grasl), the Indian who is Tom’s adopted brother. The two lovers consummate their relationship when Tom is away, but  the spurned fiancee hatches a long-term plan to get revenge. Years later, after becoming the local sheriff, he uses these connections to frame and execute Jakob for murder. Word of this reaches Joe, who conveniently for the plot is handy with a firearm, because her father (Cramer) was a renowned bounty-hunter, and passed on the necessary skills to her. Dying her hair red – hence the title – she sets out to take revenge on Tom, only for him to reveal that Jakob is not dead… Not yet, anyway.

The structure here is quite convoluted – rather needlessly, I’d say. Not only does it unfold in several different eras, the entire thing is enclosed in wraparound sections, where the story of Cassidy Red is being told, for inspirational purposes, by a piano-player in a brothel to one of the working girls. It’s definitely a case where less feels like it would have been more, with a straightforward chronological timeline working to the film’s benefit, instead of characters dropping in and out. Perhaps the director felt that might have been too simple, for once you peel away the trapping, this is indeed a very straightforward tale of revenge. Is that necessarily a bad thing, though?

This was submitted for Knudsen’s thesis at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, which perhaps explains some of the issues here: on occasion, it certainly does feels as if it was an academic requirement with an earnest Message (capital M used deliberately), rather than wanting to tell its story. The best section is likely the one where Joe is being taught the mechanics of gun-fighting by her father, which is very well written, performed and edited. The result is a sequence that sheds genuine light into the mindset of someone who, for survival, has to be permanently ready to shoot to kill. Given the limited budget here, credit is due for production values which are generally good. It was filmed largely on location at Old Tucson Studios, and that adds authenticity to the 19th-century Arizona setting, which some films wouldn’t have bothered with. 

Other parts, unfortunately, fall short of that, and some are flat-out unconvincing – the scene where Jakob is taken on board as a foster son, for example, seems entirely inexplicable, and they just shouldn’t have bothered, since it’s not something the audience needs to see. It’s a shame, since the central performance is good: however, the two male leads both struggle to be more than forgettable, and that leaves the end result feeling unbalanced on the dramatic level. This sporadic quality is perhaps the biggest problem: there seems a general unevenness of tone and approach, resulting in a film which takes two steps forward, then one back.

Dir: Matt Knudsen
Star: Abigail Eiland, David Thomas Jenkins, Jason Grasl, Rick Cramer

Deadly Exposé

  By

★★★
“Cheaters never win.”

After hacktivists expose the identities of users to a dating site, someone starts targeting the victims, murdering them in ways appropriate to their particular sexual fetish. Detective Maxine Peyton (Archer) leads the investigation, but it soon becomes clear that, as well as acting as a moral judge, jury and executioner, the killer has a particular interest in and connection to Maxine. Potential suspects include over-attached boyfriend and college teacher Simon (Hamilton), her cop partner Nick (Beemer),  ex-husband Ryan, or even slutty best friend, Jen (Ochise), who keeps trying to hit on Simon. Might even be e) None of the above. As the bodies continue to mount, Maxine has to find the perpetrator before he/she finds her.

I sense the likely destination for this was probably Lifetime or somewhere similar, yet in this case, that should not be taken as a bad thing. For especially in the early going, this is surprisingly well-written, with a good ear for dry sarcasm which helps flesh out characters that could easily be no more than stereotypes. I genuinely LOL’d at Maxine saying to an interview subject, “Please excuse my partner. He was raised by wolves.” This goes for just about everyone: even relatively minor roles, who have only a few moments of screen-time, appear to be real people. The inspiration is clearly the Ashley Madison data breach, though the company here is called “Adeline Lilly” instead – the hacktivist group responsible is also renamed, being “Incognito” rather than Anonymous. Might have been nice if the script had engaged a bit more with the moral issues here, rather than mentioning them in passing.

The problems, however, are more during the second half, as the story – and its climax in particular – relies heavily on the killer basically wanting to be caught. This is always an irritant, especially after the culprit has shown themselves to be relatively smart and savvy in the early going. It does feel like rather lazy writing, unless there has been some particular justification set up for it e.g. they have accomplished whatever it was they set out to do. In this case, that doesn’t happen, and instead someone close to Maxine is kidnapped in order to lure her in. Again, the motivation for this, and why he/she is so obsessed with her, is left rather too vague to work successfully.

Naturally, things end in a moral way, par for the TVM course: those who are guilty, in one way or another, tend to pay with their lives, while the (relatively) innocent are able to survive. While what follows is a spoiler, I have to say that does not include the killer, who is dispatched with surprising if satisfying brutality, at point-blank range. Despite my criticisms about the way things eventually unfold here, this was still a more than acceptable time-passer. Archer and the rest of the cast deliver engaging performances that were good enough to sustain interest, even when the story could have used some additional writing.

Dir: Chris James
Star: Melissa Archer, Graham Hamilton, Brandon Beemer, Alyshia Ochse