Writer(s): Romay, and Blaine Chiapetta
Starring: Louise Lombard, Alex Esola, Ella Wahlestedt, and JoMarie Payton
Here we go again with one of MarVista’s favorite subjects: Obsession. They seem to dwell on it a lot, essentially using it as a “paint by numbers” style template for their movies: Just change the names, sexes, ages, and professions of the characters, and voila! Instant obsession movie!
This one, though, gives us not one, but two obsessions! Think of it as a BOGO deal that no one ever asked for. Stephanie is a married, middle-aged high school teacher who instantly becomes the focus of new student James. On a field trip to the Florida Keys (what kind of budget does this school have?!) Stephanie gets caught up in a moment of weakness and kisses him, something which she instantly regrets, despite the cold detachment of her worthless workaholic husband back home.
Despite her best intentions (and suggestion from her best friend, played by JoMarie Payton from Family Matters!) to sweep it under the rug and move on, James seems to take the kiss as an open invitation to go all psycho on her, stalking her and stopping at nothing to make him the object of her affection. Muddying the waters further is the creepy, disgusting old science teacher Richard, who also desperately wants her to be his, making one cringeworthy and ill-advised show of affection after another. Because, you know, he's old, and therefore a creep.
And that’s where the movie attempts to offer some intrigue and suspense as the two storylines bleed into one another. Who’s the one that sent her poisonous flowers? Which one of them are taking pictures of her through her window at home? And what’s the identity of the young boy her teenaged daughter has taken a liking to? Or most importantly, how come their expensive house doesn’t have a damn driveway? (Seriously, they park their cars in the grass on the front lawn).
As it all gets sorted out, of course we learn that the good-looking child has mommy troubles, and lives in a trailer outside of an abandoned home, and that the man who the daughter has fallen for (and who the mother invites to dinner) turns out to be James, who’s just using her to get to her mother. But the daughter not only can't decipher that, but also can't decipher her own mother's intense discomfort upon seeing James, lashing out in naive fury when Stephanie throws him out of the house and tells him never to come back again, and chalking it up as just a case of overprotective mom syndrome. Uh, no sweetheart, it's for her safety just as much as yours, something you'll learn the hard way later on.
Unfortunately, Stephanie—who’s completely comfortable with having a talk with her daughter when she says she’s ready to lose her virginity—apparently doesn’t feel the same way about talking to her daughter about vicious psychos: Rather than spell everything out for her daughter, and admit that he’s the one stalking her, she skirts around the issue, making vague comments about how he’s not who he says he is, which sound like broad, generalized accusations that only fuel the daughter's hatred even more. And of course, the daughter doesn’t believe her mom until she’s loosely tied up (there must not have been enough money in the budget for actual rope) and held at weaponpoint by James, who, as it is clear by this point, is a psychopath.
You can always count on the obligatory “twist” ending, usually involving a cliffhanger hint that the killer isn't actually dead, but in the one example of a cliche the writers must have missed, we don't get that here. While I was initially happy to see that, I have to say that, now that I've experienced it, I can say with 100% certainty that a “happy” MarVista ending is somehow even worse than the predictable cliffhanger, as this one proves, by featuring a forced scene where the entire family –who were all on the brink of disaster just a few short months ago—all share a wonderful meal full of laughter and smiles together, as if it serves as proof that all of the traumatic wounds have fully healed. Sorry, but I just don't buy that Stephanie's husband can't not be a tool, so this scene rings hollow for me. Although, to be fair, so did everything else.
This has some entertaining moments of unintentional hilarity—most of which involve poor Richard's embarrassing attempts to woo Stephanie--but despite the “double obsession!” shakeup, it still manages to be below average on the whole.
RATING: 4/10
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