My vote for the worst of the year, and I'm including Psycho Storm Chaser. Killer in My Backyard might be tied with this. I have been working from home for a year and a half now, and I'm watching more Lifetime than I ever would allow myself before. They make decent, predictable background noise, or if I'm lucky, they're nice to watch w/pizza and vino on a night in. That faint praise aside, it's pretty obvious when Lifetime tries and when they just don't care. This is the latter. I thought it was terrible. The dad is a lifetime staple leading man and the mom I see on Hallmark pretty often, but this movie felt like total filler. Even down to the house being pretty blah.
So much of this movie irritated me. The villain's acting, the thin plot, the killings, the voyeurism that didn't cause her Ava to buy a clue, the flashbacks that were heavy-handed, yet didn't justify how Ava chose to live her life....so much of it was bad. Some truly tiresome tropes here: break-ins complete with cameras, the omniscience and omnipresence of the villain no matter the time of day (how did she know when and where to attack Darlene?), committing multiple crimes in a day like it' sno big deal, nothing that justifies why this particular client or family. LIfetime needs to improve on giving villain's motivations that line up with their behaviors.
I've already typed more than this movie was worth. Waste of time? Yes. I finished it, but was mad at myself for finishing it. Lifetime has better movies with this plot in their catalog.
