Deadly Whispers

A woman and her husband are sleeping in a modest, wood-paneled country home. The mom gets up, puts on one of her many housecoats and starts to cook a staggeringly large breakfast. The father goes into the bathroom and, eventually, emerges and eats breakfast with his family. The father is the manager of a junkyard, and he is concerned with his teenaged daughter's behavior. The mother is extremely houseproud and always does what needs to be done for her family. Then, one day, the daughter disappears. The father supposedly saw her drive off in a red pickup with a strange man.

A police officer questions the family, but they profess ignorance. What could have happened to Kathy? They vow to find her.

Sound familiar? This is standard Lifetime fare, save but for one small detail. The father is played by Tony Danza.



Well, three details. He's Tony Danza, and he's eventually accused of the murder. And he has multiple personalities.


This movie would be pretty boring, save for the absolutely preposterous casting of Tony "Eh Oh, Oh Eh" Danza as the threadbare West Virginia father clinging to his last smidge of sanity. His accent falls somewhere between Boston, Savannah, New Orleans and Brooklyn. It's nothing short of atrocious. On the other end of the spectrum you have the wife, who is frumpy and appropriately accented. Her face even hints at WV, with wide-set eyes and an angry little mouth that can only say like three things: "Where's Kathy?" "I want my children back" and "I have to support my family." OH, and Ving Rhames is the lead investigating cop on the scene, but he is not required to fake a WV accent at all.


Highlights include: the panoply of housecoats worn by the mom, the regionless idiolect spoken by Tony Danza, Heather Tom as "the slutty dead daughter" and, of course, the performance of Tony Danza himself, which is among the worst Lifetime Performances by a Lead Male that we have had the pleasure of seeing.


RATING: 8. It's not for the story, which is pretty pedestrian, but for sheer Lifetime ridiculousness, this one is off the charts.

Here is a shitty video of a metal band called Deadly Whispers, which clearly is an homage to this fine cinematic ode to multiple personality disorder.