Her Only Child

Sometimes we watch Lifetime movies because of who's in them (Judith Light, I'm lookin' at you) and sometimes we watch them because their titles are so titillating (Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear, anyone?). This one, well, I can't really tell you why we watched it. We just did.

And, frankly, it was dull. This movie is about a boring young woman who lives with her overbearing mother. Every scene is expanding on this basic premise. She goes out on a date, her mom fakes an injury. She says she's going away for the weekend with her new boyfriend, who is -- in Lifetime fashion -- unnaturally understanding and patient with this dull, neurotic woman who lives with her mother, and her mother attempts to poison her dog...and fails. That's pretty much this movie in a nutshell: mother tries very diligently to be stone cold nuts, daughter continues to put up with it, mother tries something outlandish, mother fails to register fear/concern in daughter.

I realize that in some people's experience, this is what being an only child is like. If you look at this movie as a cautionary tale, its message would be: do not only have one child because it will turn you into an obsessive lunatic, but not a very good one.

Instead of telling you anything more about what this movie had, I will tell you a few things that would have made it better:

• Some parental abuse, Hilary Swank-style
• A less-supportive boyfriend, maybe one who had a cyberporn addiction
• Mom's addicted to prescription pills
• Several hobbits, real or imagined
  
• A sibling, preferably with an eating disorder or anger management problem
  

Rating: 2. This movie is not recommended on account of its unrelenting dullness. Also -1 for canine violence!

Watch the trailer, if you must. Trailer gets +1 for having Dutch (?) subtitles, which makes it marginally more interesting.

Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life

Have you ever caught your child/spouse/friend looking at porn on the internet? Yes? Then we have bad news: according to Lifetime, your loved one will be floating face-down in a pool in no less than three months.

We're used to Lifetime laying the warnings on thick: take one drink and you end up an icky prostitute, take one puff of pot and you find yourself selling your spare organs in a back alley, flirt with your secretary and in two weeks your entire family has been executed gangland-style. But this one takes the cake: look at some naked people on the web and die.

The stupidity of this premise is what makes this movie such a keeper. With voice-cracking authenticity, Jeremy Sumpter plays Justin, a good kid who does a little late-night surfing, likes what he sees, and so starts seeing more... and more... and more... until soon he's shotgunning Red Bull and stealing his mom's credit card to purchase entry into freaky websites. It all comes to a climax (sorry) when, rudely spurned by his Christian girlfriend, Justin retreats to the booby embrace of a webcasting hottie. It's a case of a cheap lay gone horribly wrong: soon Justin is bloody and beaten and floating in a pool.

The real lesson from watching this movie should be don't overdo the Red Bull, kids. I mean, that stuff actually is dangerous.

RATING: 8. Bonus points for somehow faking us into thinking none of these surfings resulted in a single masturbation. If that's the case, Justin's problem is bigger than we thought. And super-bonus points for somehow managing to work in this.

Lock your door, make sure no one's looking, and sneak a peek at LMN's Cyber Seduction website - you filthy pervert. By the way, ancillary evidence leads us to believe that this is one of LMN's most popular movies. They even have resources to help you help the cyber-sex-addict in your life. Fun! This popularity is probably because of its ridiculousness as well as Sumpter's apparent tweenie fan base, the likes of which you can sample right here:



See the trailer. Hell, just watch the whole thing.

Dead Before Dawn

It's possible that Google has sent you here as you searched for information on director Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn, the boisterously gory story of a man stuck in an isolated cabin desperately staving off legions of undead attackers. It's a great movie. This is not that movie.

No, this is a lackluster 1993 Cheryl Ladd vehicle that currently stands as one of the most formulaic Lifetime movies we've seen yet, which is saying a lot. Cheryl plays a woman married to a rich dude who owns a bunch of big companies and who, in his spare time, likes to smack around his wife. She wisely opts to divorce him, but then he hires an assassin to kill her. Hey, can you blame the guy? I mean, he tried smacking her around and she had a problem with that, too.

Anyhoo, then she's forced to fake her own death so the cops can catch the husband and the assassin. At this point, we tuned out. Hey, don't get all up in our grill about it. No one's paying us to watch these movies. It's not like we don't have dishes to do and stuff.

RATING: 2. The only thing about this movie that ruled was the hired assassin. He was this Asian guy and I guess in 1993 Asian-Americans were still kind of exotic or something, because when the husband first meets him he says, "I didn't realize you were... uh..." "ASIAN?" the Asian barks, raising his Asian eyebrow and looking all smug, Asian-style. If the movie had pursued this fascinating Asian angle further, who knows how awesome it coulda got.

Fake your own death at LMN's Dead Before Dawn website. They got a trailer on there, too.

Rod Stewart, who would never dream of beating up on Cheryl Ladd, tells her (lately) how much he loves her:

A Kidnapping in the Family

Sarah Taylor (Tracey Gold) seems to be your regular chain-smoking, beer-swilling trailer trash (in other words, classic Tracey Gold). Her mom (Kate Jackson) disapproves of her party-girl 'tude and has just about had enough, when suddenly Sarah meets a sensitive art student with a flowing brown mane. After one date - one date! - they decided to get married, and before you know it they have themselves a boy-child.

Seems like ol' Sarah's gone done reformed herself! Well, not so fast - mom sets out to prove that Sarah is in fact indoctrinating her boy-child into the satanist church. This leads to one of the best scenes in Lifetime history, wherein the bored boy-child reels off the names of numerous underworld deities. At this point we were practically begging: Oh, please let this all lead to an unholy sacrifice!

Sadly, there's ne'er a pentagram to be seen. Turns out, Mom's just plain insane and wants the boy-child to herself. When the satanist ploy flops, she just nabs the kid and takes off, setting off the most boring manhunt in history. Then again, you can't really go anywhere but downhill after involving Satan.

RATING: 5. Props for the hilariously supportive boyfriend (pictured here, wielding a gun from a different, probably better movie), but shame on you, Lifetime, for suckering us into busting out our Iron Maiden T-shirts for no damn reason at all.

You really owe it to yourself to check out the official Lifetime page for this movie, if for no other reason than the following fan comment:

"Kleep The Son White He's Mouther."

This insightful analysis was added by "Icebabby," whose profile reads: "I Like To Read And Go To Work At Shaws And Hig Out White My FianceeJeff And I Like ToSwim".

Well kleeped, Icebabby. I couldn't have kleeped it mouther myself.

Extra bonus Satan:

Terror in the Family (1996)

Fifteen year old Deena Martin (Hilary Swank) is at the middle of a family maelstrom: her father (Dan Lauria) is obsessed with making wooden bowls, her mother (Joanna Kerns) is a whining, hapless drunkard, and her brother is a frustrated pianist plagued with the double whammy of a budding addiction to drink and a prematurely wrinkled forehead.

On top of all of this excitement, she has a new boyfriend who finds himself unable to cope with his own troubles at home. What does he do? He takes it out on the old six string (they're in a band together) and by climbing rollercoasters.

Lest you think that this sounds like a rudderless Lifetime snoozefest, let me add this: she has a rage problem. When Deena is provoked -- and it takes but a question to provoke her -- she flies off the handle like Mike Tyson. The girl beats her parents.

That's right, this is a movie about a girl. A girl who beats her parents.

Imagine if you can that all sitcoms are made in the same place, and during lunch breaks and smoke breaks and whatever other kinds of breaks sitcom actors take, the actors all hang out together in, like, a cafeteria or something. This must be where the idea for Terror in the Family was hatched, because it is clearly the brainchild of a person (or persons) who take no small pride in cramming as many issues and sitcom stars as possible into one 90 minute Lifetime bonanza of feelings.

Rating: 9. Frankly, we're not sure it gets much better than this. Fine, there were no cheerleaders and no one gets killed, but Hilary Swank beats on her parents, who are played by Mr. Arnold and Maggie Seaver. Who hasn't wanted to pop these two at some point? There's also a red herring of "the band", which the parents never even find out about because they're too busy rushing to the ER to take care of their busted hands/lips/etc. If they only knew how their daughter could shake a tambourine with the zeal of a tuneless 3rd grader! If only they knew that their son, a strange shrunken hobbit of a boy, was heading down the same dangerous road to Boozetown that his mother and grandmother took. If only...

Oh! And if all that didn't convince you, please note the similarities:

Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) vs Deena Martin (Hillary Swank)

• both have strangely skinny/noodly bodies
• both are prone to exposure of the midriff
• both have a penchant for troubled, relatively ugly dudes in bands (Ray Pruitt/"Garrett")
• both of these ugly dudes have names that end in double t's
• both actresses were on Beverly Hills 90210
• their names differed by only a single vowel sound
  

...and the differences:

• Donna was a prudy virgin, Deena put out
• Deena was in the band, Donna was not
• Deena had fairly normal makeup and hair, while Donna definitely did NOT
• Deena beat her parents, Donna did not
  

Look, it's Garrett:

"Waaah please don't hit me"

No One Would Tell

Breaking News Alert:

FRED SAVAGE KILLS CANDACE CAMERON!!!

It seems like a headline that could only exist in your tawdriest of Tinseltown fantasies, yet here it is staring you right in the face like a freakin' punk. Only the twisted sitcom switcheroos of Lifetime Hell can such depravities be served up between commercials for that thing that sucks all the air out of your clothing bags. This movie is a prime example why we worship and sacrifice our young at the Lifetime altar. Teach us, O Darkthroned Underlord!

Let's see if we can steer this boat back to shore: Fred Savage, formerly seen as that Wonder Years kid, is now a muscle-bound moron who likes to rough up his girlfriend, Candace Cameron of Full House infamy. Plenty of high-school wrestling scenes, bruises, and declarations of "But he really loves me!" ensue. Not one but two Rozes try to stave off the inevitable, but it's, well, inevitable. That's right: Cameron, with her selfish refusal to do everything her abusive boyfriend says, downright forces him to murder her. Women!

It's pretty much big-time fun watching Fred's facial tics, once used to comic effect, be used to communicate murderous rage. We know domestic abuse is no laughing matter, yet each time Fred snarls his cute little lip it's hard not to giggle just a little. We're going to hell for this, it's true, but we're pretty sure a few Lifetime execs will be down there waiting.

RATING: 8. Even if you skip the dreaded Third-Act Coma, this one's a keeper. Just like Crazy Fred Savage.

Conceal your gnarly bruises at Lifetime's official No One Would Tell website. By the way, this apparently is based on a true story.

Watch some of Fred and Candace's, uh, greatest hits:

Terminology: Third Act Coma

It doesn't matter if it's anorexia, incest, go-go dancing, or just fitting into middle school, chances are it's all gonna end in murder. And if it ends in murder - heck, even if it doesn't - there's nearly a 90% chance it ends in a courtroom decision. This is what we call the Third Act Coma.

Lifetime tends to kick all kinds of ass for the first 2/3 of their movies. Various characters rise and fall. Disgusting habits are adopted. Reputations are trashed. Lives are guttered. But, maybe because so many of these things are "based on a true story," they commonly stagger to a courtroom closing that is, well, kinda dull.

Maybe you like seeing your favorite actress sitting in a nice dress answering aggressive questions from a (probably Southern) attorney. And we do, too. But we'd much rather see them suffering rather than just talking about that suffering. Call us purists if you must.

Look, even the gavel fell asleep.

Co-ed Call Girl

Surgically-enhanced millionaire actress Tori Spelling tries to mix it up by portraying a plain-Jane lower-middle-class college student struggling to make ends meet. Working at her mom's bakery isn't really rakin' in the Benjamins, so she becomes a call girl. How does she come to this rather abrupt decision? In classic Lifetime fashion, she is seduced by an mentor-like vixen who convinces her that a life of sleaze is all fast cars and cool dudes and bling bling.

One thing her vixen mentor forgot to mention is that being a call girl also occasionally requires doing it with creeps. Oh, the chagrin upon Tori's face when she figures this out! Eventually, she wants to back out of her the sacred pact between prostitute and pimp, but in proper Godfather III fashion, just when she thinks she's out, they pull her back in. Eventually Tori plugs her pimp and then we slip into the requisite Third-Act Coma.

Tori is fast becoming one of our favorite Lifetime heroines. She does this weird nerdy giggling thing that is supposed to communicate innocence but just ends up looking like she's doing an impression of a pig. It's always inappropriate; thus, we love it. However, we finally figured out why Tori does this. It's a serious academic revelation that the Judith Light Conspiracy Theory is proud to debut right here:

Some of you may know that, shortly before 90210 premiered, Tori played Violet Anne Bickerstaff, Screech's nerdy love-interest on the teen sitcom Saved by the Bell. As it was one of her first featured roles, she came up with a nerdy demeanor befitting one of Screech's paramours. Once she had it down, she never stopped doing it - right through 90210 and onto Lifetime glory. Look, I realize this paragraph doesn't have a lot of jokes in it, but this is serious pop culture theory we're dishing out here, so stop complaining.

Anyway, combine these bizarre mannerisms with her Michael Jackson-y facial expressions and Star Trek: The Next Generation hairdos and you've got yourself a date with destiny.

RATING: 6. Tastes good, but needs a touch more degradation. And what's with Tori's penchant for playing hookers?

Get all dolled up at Lifetime's official Co-ed Call Girl website.

Watch Tori get her call-girl cut: