Lifetime Movies... for Men

By Mr. Satanism

Infamous film critic Mr. Satanism takes a break from the horror beat to deconstruct the critically-neglected but perennially popular sub-sub-genre known as the "Lifetime Original Movie". Why? Because with their paranoid plots, self-loathing misogyny, and heavily-stylized violence, many of these movies are as twisted as any horror flick, and Mr. Satanism calls them out on every cinematic misstep, hilariously mocking their deranged, repetitive tropes and publicly shaming the writers, producers, and has-been actresses who should have known better. You'll never watch a Lifetime Original the same way again once you experience Lifetime Movies... for Men.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inept Concepts
• Release date: Dec 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781533732408

Book preview

And Baby Will Fall

(2011)

Directed by Bradley Walsh

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All the chicks in this movie are ugly, and who gives a shit what happens to a bunch of ugly chicks? If I cared about ugly chicks, I wouldn't get insultingly drunk before I fucked them, or go out of my way to point it out afterwards. Our beyond pregnant main chick is especially insufferable though. She's so hung up on the idea of losing her baby that if I was her husband I'd punch her in the stomach just to get it over with, and when her actual husband is accused of murder she turns her loyalty to him on and off like a dollar store flashlight. Of course there are some twists, and eventually it turns out that the girl the husband supposedly killed is really alive. Faking her own murder, it seems, was just part of an elaborate scheme to steal the main chick's baby and waste nearly two hours of my life, including limited commercial interruptions. So what, exactly, does the title mean? Well, in the end the pregnant chick is hiding in a dumbwaiter shaft about to drop kid, so I assume it refers to the possibility that the baby might fall right out of her twat and down said shaft, which is way grosser/tackier/more hilarious than anything I could possibly come up with so instead of saying another word I just want you to close your eyes and visualize what it would've looked like if that had actually happened. I imagine it would be a lot like watching a midget bungee jump.

Another Day

(2001)

Directed by Jeffrey Reiner

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Brenda Walsh learns she's pregnant, then her boyfriend dies. It's just one tragedy after another. Later she falls in the river, but instead of drowning she goes back in time. Now, if you've ever seen Valley of the Dinosaurs or Land of the Lost you know that time-travel-via-river happens all the time, although it's obviously a lot cooler if dinosaurs are somehow involved and, sadly, chick flicks are almost never about dinosaurs. Of course once Brenda gets her bearings she tries to change the past, but she finds out that you can't do this, at least not when you're as stupid as she is. (Seriously, if you know exactly when and where there's gonna be a fire, how hard is it not to be there?) And what the hell is going on at the end? There's two Brenda Walshes? I wouldn't mind being the meat in that sandwich, but plot-wise it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's a good thing Brenda's nipples appear to be in attack mode throughout the entire running time, because I sure can't think of any other reason to watch this crappy movie.

At Risk

(2010)

Directed by Tom McLoughlin

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Patricia Cornhole (heh) is a complete embarrassment to the airport bookstore authors community, and if you've ever read one of her awful fucking novels for retards you know that she can barely write at an eighth-grade level much less come up with a story that's worth making into a movie. But even though this flick is based on one of her dumb, boring doorstops, I decided to give it a go anyway. Why? Because the chick from Groundhog Day is in it, and I want to have her babies.

Fortunately, the people who made the movie version are actually good at their jobs, and it's amazing how much shit they managed to whip into shape, including making the main cop a genuinely cool guy instead of a self-absorbed cocksucker who moonlights as an asshole, fixing a plot hole so big I could put my dick through it simply by adding one line (I need you for a photo op.), and changing the story so that it's even more convoluted but somehow makes more sense anyway. Also a lot more people get killed, which is always a plus. Watching this movie could be kind of dangerous because someone might get the mistaken impression that the book isn't total crap and put their I.Q. At Risk by reading it, but if you know better then there's no harm in checking it out.

Besides, there's a part with the Groundhog Day chick in bondage. Yum.

At the Midnight Hour

(1995)

Directed by Charles Jarrott

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The first scene in this movie is hysterical: a dork buys his girl some flowers and is feeding her this lovey-dovey horseshit when suddenly he's plugged by a stray bullet and dies on the spot! Oh, the humanity! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha! For real, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at tragedy. The girl, needless to say, is a bit shaken up, so what else is there for her to do but get a job as Manimal's nanny? (If you don't remember Manimal, he was the superhero from the 1980's TV show of the same name who could turn into any animal, as long as it was one of the four or five the trainer already had on set.) I didn't catch the name of the kid she's actually there to nanny for, but Manimal Jr. is definitely too good for him so we'll just call him Little Lord Wiener-Boy. What about Mrs. Manimal? I'm glad you asked. It seems she bit the big banana of death a few years back, and everyone is pretty sure that she was murdered but nobody knows who did it, despite the lengthy list of possible suspects creeping around the place. Was it Manimal? The bucktoothed chick who's jonesing for his cock? The deadbeat brother? The kid? The bitchy housekeeper? Amber the horse? Mrs. Manimal's ghost? Oh, wait, that last one wouldn't work, would it? Anyway, whoever was responsible starts gunning for the main chick next, and the plot thickens (in theory) when we finally learn the actual circumstances behind the wife's death: apparently she got trashed, told Manimal she should've married his brother, and then fell out a window! She must've been very confused, says the main chick. (That's your polite, high-society way of saying Ha ha! What a cunt.) The whole thing is like a grocery store romance novel written by someone huffing butane, the main chick (who is pretty hot) never gets naked, and they don't even throw in any crazy twists, like having it turn out that Amber the horse was really Manimal the entire time. It's terminally lame.

Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear

(1998)

Directed by Walter Klenhard

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Okay, when a movie uses the first fifteen minutes or so to set up that the garage door doesn't work right, the doorbell doesn't work at all, the wrong addresses are on a couple of mailboxes, and there aren't any neighbors so if you needed help you could scream forever and no one would hear you you immediately know two things:

1)  The main chick is fucked

2)  The person responsible for this script this should go back to writing Goofus and Gallant for Highlights magazine, because he's a goddamned hack idiot

So, this guy's wife isn't too shabby, but she's kind of obnoxious so he starts getting a little on the side from their cute nanny. Well, the wife catches on, and not long after these ridiculous thugs show up to off the nanny and hold their kid hostage. One problem: they end up icing the hot-ass mom who lives upstairs and taking her kid hostage by mistake. Jesus, the FBI's raid on Little Bohemia wasn't this incompetent. It seems like a lucky break for the nanny though, until the little bastard she's in charge of starts running around the apartment making all this racket, which clues the thugs in that they might have popped the wrong twat. Remember the final episode of M*A*S*H, where that woman had to smother her own baby because it wouldn't stop squalling and was leading Charlie right to them? That's the only truly satisfying direction this story could've gone in, but of course that doesn't happen. Which is bad enough, but the real problem with this flick is that it's one of those stupid-ass movies that only works if the phone lines are down and the car won't start and someone's husband is in Europe and the police are on strike and you can't see because there just happens to be a total eclipse occurring right when everything's going down. When you need a setup that's endlessly complicated and situational just for there to be a movie in the first place, I've got news for you: it's a shitty idea for a movie.

Final breakdown: three hot chicks, two plot twists, one obnoxious kid who deserves to die but doesn't, zero tits. Weak.

Before He Wakes

(1998)

Directed by Michael Scott

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This guy meets a single mom (Red flag!), and even though she brings up God every