Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?

Since “H$” asked for things to review, I guess I should mention that we’re all going to share a Lifetime, Wow e-mail account. So if you now there’s a really awesome movie on the horizon, e-mail us at lifetimewow [at] gmail [dot] com. This is especially useful if there’s a Lifetime movie on the schedule with an incomplete or terrible plot synopsis. There’s no way I’m DVRing something unless it sounds awesome. So let us know if a movie’s greatness is being hidden by an inadequate plot description.

Mother, May I Sleep with Danger.

MOTHER! TELL YOUR CHILDREN NOT TO...uh...not to sleep with danger I guess?

 

Let’s get one demerit out of the way: At no point does Tori Spelling ever ask for permission to sleep with Danger. Or ask her mom’s permission to sleep with anyone. By the time the mother is involved, there is already intercourse. Who knew that the best title in TV-movie history could be so damned misleading? At least Circle of Friends has a circle of friends.

We meet Laurel (oh, Jesus Christ), your prototypical type-A college student. She’s a double major! She is studying Chinese for a fellowship, she is an up-and-coming track prospect. What can’t she do? Well, she can’t be on the track team because her mother goes out of her way to tell the coach that she was previously hospitalized with an eating disorder. Geez, Mom! How embarrassing!

This brutal violation of trust is washed away like it’s no big deal. Bygones. Oh! Laurel has a boyfriend. And it’s the guy who murdered his ex-girlfriend with a pizza paddle (lol) in the opening of the movie! He used to be named Billy, but now he is named Kevin! That cad!

When he meets Laurel’s mom for the first time she immediately starts catching him in lies and bullshit. Your standard “my dad was on the board of directors of some doctor charity before dying in a skiing helicopter accident” fib. It’s a story as old as time.

Anyways, it turns out that BillyKevin might have some control issues? He gets infuriated if he doesn’t see Laurel everyday or if she doesn’t immediately return his calls. Laurel’s roommates are scared shitless of him and anyone with an ounce of sense can see this is bad news. BillyKevin even convinces Laurel to augment her “perfect body” by getting the “perfect haircut.” The perfect haircut is an atrocity and I was actually mad that I had to look at it.

She looks like Prince Valium.

See? Also, how great is Spaceballs?

 

I honestly think that despite (because of?) her ridiculous stapled-on cans, that Tori Spelling is/was very pretty. And that is ESPECIALLY the case with normal person hair. Puke brown color with ridiculous bangs might not get you into page 98 of Marie Claire, but she looked normal! That new haircut doesn’t even match the shape of her face!

Meanwhile, the real Kevin appears on the horizon. After his mistress got killed by BillyKevin (love triangle, ya’ll), RealKevin goes on a mountain adventure to find himself. That’s how BillyKevin stole his identity. But now with RealKevin back in the picture and applying at the same school (with the same transcript and the same social security number), BillyKevin needs to step in.

And he steps in with one of the weirdest scenes I have ever witnessed. BillyKevin runs into RealKevin at a hotel. The latter is checking in, the former pretends to work there. They’re talking about old times and the girl they were both banging that disappeared off the face of the Earth. And then RealKevin starts stripping. This love triangle connects at all points.

This isn’t supposed to be sexual or anything. Just two bros reconnecting and one of them needs to take a shower. But the hotel room, the masculinity, the SOFT FOCUS make this feel very sexual. And it doesn’t get better when RealKevin jumps into the shower and BillyKevin follows him into the bathroom. I, the creator of a blog reviewing Lifetime movies, am no arbiter of masculinity. But, no. This is a foul. Conversations stop at the bathroom threshold.

Eventually RealKevin asks for some shampoo and BillyKevin gives him a tire iron to the back of the head instead.

BillyKevin and Laurel continue to date but there are some cracks in BK’s facade. He’s acting too crazy, too possessive, and too violent. Laurel and BK actually move into a secluded cabin together (this, like Pogs, was a college fad in the mid-90s). After getting caught in some more lies (not ordering a telephone line, sabotaging her car) the relationship is OVER.

She’s picking up her stuff when BillyKevin tries to make peace by saying they should just be friends, and, oh, hey, how about some wine? Before Laurel can even take a sip the film cuts to her being carried around unconscious. Very el oh el.

Meanwhile Laurel’s mom figured everything out and is rushing to her cabin. (They switch cabins for some reason? How does BK know where the Laurel family compound is? It’s not like he can ask his roofied ex for directions.)

Laurel wakes up and tries to make her escape. It turns out she is an idiot. Here is her insane plan:

1. Run to the car. Car won’t start and BK catches up to her.

2. Slam the door into BK’s nuts! So far, so good. This works. Use this opportunity to run back to the cabin and bolt both doors and all the windows. Brandish a fire poker and wait. Yes! This works too! A fortified defensive position!

3. After BK starts slamming the front door with a hatchet, open the back door and run into the woods. Wait, WHAT!? Even total pushover Wendy Torrance knows enough to slash at the guy trying to hatchet into the door.  STAB HIM WITH THE POKER!

4. Run into the woods and find a river. Jump into a canoe and try to paddle to safety.

…

…

ONE OF THE FEW THINGS THIS MOVIE GOES OUT OF ITS WAY TO ESTABLISH IS THAT LAUREL IS A LONG DISTANCE SPRINTER. THIS IS LITERALLY THE BEST QUALITY TO HAVE WHEN ESCAPING A MURDERER. (Well, that and fishing for dogs.)

And her paddle skills are laughable. Tori Spelling honest-to-God had a paddle double for underwater shots. Tori Spelling is a lily dipper. (Incidentally, I am quite handy with the paddle. I highly recommend the Lower Gauley for your whitewater needs.)

Swimming is faster than paddling so BK swims up to her and knocks her out of the canoe.

(Off-topic: My dad always calls Bud Light “sex in a canoe” because “it’s like fucking water.” Great dad joke right there.)

5. Hide under a dock. This is fine, I guess. I don’t really see how it would work. But it is especially ridiculous when you consider the end of the movie.

Laurel gets back on the dock and is reunited with Mother. BK goes in for one last attack and he is knocked back into the water. The women look around, don’t see him and exclaim, “It’s over!” They then CASUALLY walk back to their cars.

HEY, DUMMIES! YOU JUST SUCCESSFULLY HID UNDER A DOCK. HE IS DOING THE SAME THING! And it’s not like he was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched, disembowled, drawn and/or quartered. What’s the hypothesis here? That he was horseplayed to death? Death by roughhousing? Jesus Christ! Maybe show a little bit of urgency?

The film then ends with no resolution. The last shot is BK with longer hair dating someone else. Way to go, Mother and Laurel.

AWESOMENESS: 11

I am sorry, but this movie was underwhelming. All of its street cred comes from its admittedly bonkers title. Once you get past that, the bad guy is boring, the acting is atrocious, and the characters do things that make no sense.

I will give some credit for some of the director’s choices. My favorite shot was when BillyKevin and Mother fight in a quad. He jumps on his motorcycle and litereally leaves her in his rearview mirror. There’s another shot where it’s implied that BK is spying on Laurel, but, no. He was just in the bathroom. That stuff was great.

HEY! IT’S THAT GUY!: 5

Tori Spelling is the only actor of note. She is obviously one of our patron saints. True story: Kate had to talk me out of using that picture of her krazy kleavage from becoming the backdrop of this new site. She told me every reader would either be disgusted or offended. Valid point.

That being said:

This is the 9/11 of cleavage. Never Forget

LIFETIMENESS: 6

It’s certainly hysterical and over-the-top enough. But something about it seemed off. When researching this I was not surprised to see this movie debuted on NBC. It wasn’t a Lifetime movie that succeeded. It was a regular movie that failed.

GRAND TOTAL: 22

I know. I’m surprised too.