risk accepted

Today marks the opening of the Lifetime floodgates, people, and you only have yourselves to blame! That's right, horror-related Lifetime movies are officially on the Final Girl docket, and I say it's about durn time. First up: Acceptable Risk (2001), a film that finally unites the Salem witch trials and mold spores together in one positively scintillating tale of medical research gone awry. See, this is Robin Cook's Acceptable Risk- that's Doctor Robin Cook of Coma, Terminal, Virus, and a bunch of other medical thrillers that I want to like more than I actually do.

Now, that syringe filled with You Can't Do That On Television!- style goo featured on the cover may lead you to believe that there will be some Re-Animator shenanigans to come...well, I hate to burst your bubble, friendo, but the green goo does not make an appearance in the film, nor does an oversized novelty needle. I think I'm going to sue.

All is not lost, however, for Kelly Rutherford does indeed make an appearance in Acceptable Risk- in this, the cover does not lie. Yes, Kelly Rutherford, who stole the hearts of all the world over as prostitute-turned-receptionist Megan on Melrose Place.

Here Rutherford stars as Kim Welles, a...student of some sort who inherits a creaky old house in Massachusetts from relatives she never knew she had. Isn't that always the way? I'm hoping I have some weirdo relatives out there (ones I don't know about, at least) who will leave me a haunted house in their will when they shuffle off to the afterlife. Kim and her medical researcher husband Edward (Chad Lowe) move in, excited to start a new life in their mortgage-free home.

Yes, I said haunted! Or, at least, Acceptable Risk wants you to think the house is haunted. New neighbor Lois (Patty McCormack, the Bad fucking Seed!) talks about all the mysterious deaths that have occurred there, while the Welles experience mild Amityville-ish phenomena, such as mysterious water stains, power fluctuations, red foamy bathwater and the like. They find a secret walled-up room in the basement, and after that any supernatural explanations are quickly discarded. You see, it's not ghosts that are the problem in this house: it's a crystalline mold!

The weird stuff is growing all over the walls in the hidden room, and before you can say "health hazard", Edward gets some of it all over an open wound on his arm. His arm goes immediately numb, which immediately leads him to believe the mold may have analgesic properties, which immediately leads him to bringing some spores to his lab to inject into rats suffering from brain disorders, which immediately leads to the rats showing restored brain function, which immediately leads to Edward thinking he may have found a cure for Alzheimer's, which immediately leads to Edward ingesting the spores himself, which immediately leads to Edward becoming a super genius, which immediately leads to Edward calling his new drug discovery ULTRA, which immediately leads to...hmm, maybe I should have made a flow chart.

In the great Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tradition of such films as The Fly, Hollow Man, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Edward's discovery seems like a miracle, causing him to gain IQ points and run really fast (which is implied, of course, by showing him running in slow motion)...but, inevitably, he soon begins acting like a real jerk. He yells at his wife, he eats without silverware, and before you know it he's bare-chested and wrestling wolves like a Dollar Tree Leslie Nielsen. Mother of God, he's coming apart!

Kim notices that Edward is venturing into Cuckoo Town, but what she doesn't know is that he's not the only one! Edward has set up a lab on their property so his controversial research can thrive without the eyes of more...conservative scientists watching. He goads his assistants- a small group which includes Sean Patrick Flanery- into taking ULTRA as well, telling them it's an acceptable risk, which might be where the movie title comes from. Soon the sleepy town has four drug-addicted loonies on the loose- it's like Intervention meets Amityville meets Lifetime...in other words, it's a this isn't good by any means but I can't help enjoying it dream come true for me.

Edward begins to regain a bit of clarity, and realizes that ULTRA may not be all its cracked up to be, and that an increased IQ isn't worth it when one is suddenly eating meals sans silverware like some sort of rube. He decides to stop the trials- but not before Sean Patrick Flanery runs Patty McCormack off the road in raging fit of road rage!

Edward puts the ULTRA formula on a 3.5 inch floppy disk (???) and locks it in safe, which seems to be the only way to ensure that this dangerous research is never found...well, the only way that doesn't involve not putting the research on a disk, or destroying the research altogether, or at the least destroying the disk.

Anyway, another assistant experiences her own moment of clarity and decides to call the police- but not before Sean Patrick Flanery bashes her head in!

Edward decides to call the police himself- but not before Sean Patrick Flanery drives off with the drug samples that Edward locked away instead of destroying!

Kim decides to call the police- but not before the remaining rogue assistant ties her up in the storage room!

Car chase, gun shots, fire, unearthed coffins, and death...proving once and for all the truth of what your mother told you: if you find some crystalline mold growing in the root cellar, do not eat it.

Oh, and if you're wondering how the Salem witch trials ties into this whole thing, well, it turns out that Kim's ancestor and her friends were exposed to the mold, which means that they started hallucinating and acting violently, which means that people thought they were witches, which means they were witches, which means they were hanged.

So there you go. Unfortunately, the supernatural shenanigans early on in the film were all just a red herring. Still, watching Acceptable Risk was an acceptable risk that panned out for the best- by which I mean it's not a good movie whatsoever, but I don't care*. When I've got Chad Lowe wrestling wolves married to Megan, the hooker with a heart of gold, I need nothing else!

*I have a feeling that's how a lot of these Lifetime reviews are going to work out.

once in a lifetime

If you've been hanging around here for any length of time, you probably know by now that I've got a serious thang for nighttime soaps and Lifetime movies that feature murder, treachery, murder and treachery, and/or someone acting crazy. When Terror in the Shadows (1995) came on the other night, it was so many great tastes tasting great together that my tongue caught on fire from all the flavor.

OK, that makes no sense, but look! The description:

A Colorado family man fears an escaped mental patient who killed his first wife and son.

Look again! The cast, honey, the cast: Genie Francis of General Hospital! Leigh McCloskey of Dallas! Marcy Walker of Santa Barbara! Victoria Wyndham of Another World! It's like Battle of the Network Soap Stars from Stacie's Childhood up in here. Now, normally I don't review these sorts of movies, but I thought the words "escaped mental patient" and "killed" might merit Terror in the Shadows the ol' Final Girl treatment. Besides, in the end, I can do whatever I want.

Right off the bat, I learned a little bit about prejudice from this film. See, after reading the description, I assumed that the cuckoo nutso in question would be some dude. Imagine my simultaneous delight and deep deep shame when Terror in the Shadows opened in an asylum and said cuckoo nutso turned out to be Marcy Walker of television's Santa Barbara. Lesson learned? Vengeful mental patients can be either gender...or perhaps, even both. Or neither!

Marcy Walker is Christine. Christine is crazy. Christine escapes the hospital by hiding an I.V. pole in her jammie jams and then using it to conk out a guard. Within minutes she's hitchhiking her way outta Albany, New York and telling "Timmy" that she's coming for him. I loves me some soap stars acting crazy.

Marcy Walker will cut a bitch.

Christine makes it to Ohio and gets picked up by some sad-sack woman who has no one in the world to love her. Christine knows an opportunity when she sees it and, having had enough of the whole thumbing a ride thing, conks the woman with a big rock and steals both her car and her identity. Yes folks, Christine is all about the conking.

Meanwhile, in Colorado...

Leigh McCloskey of television's Dallas and Genie Francis of television's General Hospital are Alex and Sarah Williams, who have been happily married for about a year. Alex is a high school teacher, Sarah owns a coffee shop, and their biggest worry is that Sarah's son Brian likes scary stuff. Horror movies and ghost stories are off-limits; they're damaging, you know...and that's so true- I mean, look at me. Reading Famous Monsters of Filmland as a child seriously fucked me up, y'all. I can barely function and remain civilized.

Alex gets a call notifying him that Christine has escaped and Sarah is all "Huh? Who's Christine?", so Alex decides to come clean about his past in delicious TV-movie fashion. See, originally he told Sarah that his first wife and baby son died in a car accident, but that was such a lie! Their son was adopted, and the birth mother was Christine- a real nutcase who didn't remember that she gave the child up for adoption. Convinced her child had been kidnapped, Christine killed Alex's wife and then managed to drop the baby before she could make her getaway. The baby died and Christine got shipped off to the asylum. Alex thought that was the end of the story, but now Christine is coming to get him, Barbara! Sarah is miffed about the lie, but hey...love conquers all.

Genie Francis SO cares.

Christine makes it to Colorado in record time and has no trouble finding Alex and his family. When I say "record time", I'm not kidding- Christine is in the Williams house and there's still a good hour and a half remaining in the film...I guess she's waiting for the right time to strike or whatever rather than going into Operation: Get 'Timmy' all willy-nilly. All willy-nilly, I say. She hides out in their basement, sneaking upstairs at night to stare at Brian and pilfering cans of tuna to survive, all the while looking sullen and crazy.

They call her one-eye.

In order to "get closer" to Brian, Christine wrangles herself a job at Sarah's coffee house. Here we meet Kay (Victoria Wyndham), who runs the shop with Sarah. I immediately peg her as The Main Character's Friend Who Is Always Suspicious Of The Too-Good-To-Be-True New Person And Will Go On To Discover The Too-Good-To-Be-True New Person's Secret And Therefore Will Be Killed Before She Can Notify Her Best Friend About Her Startling Discovery. Julianne Moore in Hand That Rocks the Cradle, anyone? Really, if you've seen one of these thrillers, you've seen them all- not that I'm complaining.

Alex receives another call from the police, this time letting him know that a body was found in Ohio and they're sure it's Christine. But we know the truth- we know the body is not Christine, but rather it's the sad-sack that Christine conked! Don't let your guard down, Alex and Sarah! The streets of Colorado still aren't safe!

Alex and Sarah do let their guard down, however, and brazenly decide to go out to dinner. Brian gets the babysitter to let him watch a horror movie: Bloody Zombies. When we see footage from "Bloody Zombies", however, it's actually George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. While I gave myself props for my mad recognizing skillz, the moment served as a sad reminder that one of the greatest horror films of all time is in the public domain for people to do with as they please. Countless inferior DVD releases and clip usage galore, and Romero doesn't see a dime (and yes, I'd feel bad for John Russo as well, but then he went and released that horrendous '30th Anniversary Edition' with all the new footage, so John Russo can suck it. OK, maybe that's a bit harsh. I've met him and he's very nice, but still). Anyway, Christine, listening to the zombie movie madness goings-on through an air vent, gets peeved that "her son" is watching a horror film- "Little boys shouldn't watch horror!" What the fuck is with these people and the condemning of the horror? Pfft, like Christine is one to talk, what with the whole stabbing and baby-dropping and the various conkings. In a righteous maternal fury, Christine cuts the power and heads upstairs...where she...oh god, this was so scary...manages to take the tape out of the VCR without anyone seeing her! BRR! A chill of fright went up my spine even now, just typing about it.

Meanwhile, back at the coffee shop...

Kay does indeed find out about Christine's secret...guess how? Yes! Via a newspaper clipping that Christine keeps in her purse! How awesome is that? Much as I predicted, Kay's discovery leads to her demise when she meets the business end of...err, well, that's a mystery. See, this is a modern-day made-for-TV film, so when push comes to shove all we see is Christine turning off the lights in a, uh, threatening fashion and that's that. The next day Sarah finds Kay's body in a pool of blood, so we can assume that Christine made with the conking yet again.

At this point, I'm thinking that it's time for Christine to make her fucking move already and take Tim- err, Brian away or whatever the hell it is she intends to do. Lo and behold, she takes my advice! Christine volunteers to take Brian out for a while so Sarah can rest and recover from The Death of Kay. Then she sets her plan of evil in motion by slipping Brian a milkshake mickey. Oh, the deviousness!

Num num...zzzzzzzzz..........

The police have finally figured out that the body found in Ohio is not Christine, and they call Alex yet again to let him know...and then Terror in the Shadows becomes a non-stop white-knuckle roller coaster thrill ride you'll never forget (that's totally my bid to get quoted on the DVD case)!

Alex goes searching for Christine and Brian! There's a sudden thunderstorm! Alex finds them and tries to convince Christine that Brian is not Timmy! Christine gets her conk on yet again and Alex is down for the count! Brian wakes up and wonders where he is! Sarah discovers Christine's secret basement hidey-hole! Christine inexplicably returns to the Williams home! Sarah and Christine have a hee-lar slo-mo fight! They move their fight outside into the relentless pouring rain! Alex returns and runs over Christine, ending her reign of lite terror! Brian calls Alex 'dad' for the first time and everyone is super psyched, hugz all around, the end.

Well, despite the absolutely blinding mega-watt star power attached to Terror in the Shadows, I have to admit that it's a (not at all unenjoyable) bit of a letdown. There's simply not much terror to be found anywhere. Marcy Walker plays a decent cuckoo nutso, but she's not really given much of a chance to actually do anything. She spends her time hanging out in the basement with her ear pressed to a heating duct, listening to the Williamses, and then when she makes her way upstairs in the dead of night she doesn't seem particularly threatening- unless staring and cooing weirds you out, which I guess depends on who's staring and cooing. Her bid to get 'in' with the family and get closer to Brian is pretty lame as well- Christine is no Peyton Flanders, if you can dig it. But then again, who is?

Like I said, though, the film is still fun to watch. The acting is what you'd expect from a bunch of soap stars, and the plot adheres to the tried-and-true thriller formula. Again, it's a contemporary made-for-TV film, so it's no Home for the Holidays or Dark Night of the Scarecrow; it's bland and unhorrifying, so you most likely won't see much of its ilk here again, unless I change my mind. I am a woman, after all, and changing our minds is what we do. Men never do that sort of thing. That's why men still think the earth is flat.

Regardless of whether or not the Lifetime flicks show their faces at Final Girl again, that doesn't mean I won't still be watching this sort of crap. Next up: Joan Van Ark of television's Knots Landing in...With Harmful Intent!