"Say goodnight Claire". In other words, someone wants to murder poor Claire in her sleep. Uh, psycho with grooming excellency alert!
So OK, we have a Valentine's Day Eve based on a girl's night out. A rookie director who knows how to twist and pull the audience. A Philadelphia setting where it's unseasonably warm. A Lifetime flick that's not helmed by the mainstays and barriers of David DeCoteau. Hey, it's time to take in 2021's Galentine's Day Nightmare.
Anyway, "Nightmare" is effective and labyrinth-ed in an old school sort of Lifetime way. This film harks back to the Lifetime pics I use to become addicted to in the 80s and 90s. Listen, we all know Lifetime movies have crazy, remorseless people in them that have no conscience, no couth, or even a shred of empathy. Galentine's Day Nightmare only reminds us that we crave this sort of thing as we nervously feel guilty about it all.
As something about a sly restaurant owner who tries to frame a one night stand for the murder of his working girl wife, Galentine's Day Nightmare gives invasion of privacy, manipulation, and pseudo identity theft the proper-ed treatment. Sliver's Zeke Hawkins while peeping in his own right, has nothing on "Nightmare's" nasty, alpha male villain (played by Drake lookalike and TV vet Anthony Grant).
The performances in "Nightmare" are raw and unassuming, the direction by Roxanne Boisvert is clean and tight, and the ending while a little deflating, lets us know that the bad guy really gets what's coming to him. Galentine's Day Nightmare is the reason why Lifetime vehicles will always be distance runners. They are cinematic train wrecks that not even the most snooty critic could look away from. Death, taxes, and Lifetime suck you ins are the only certainties we have. Rating: 3 stars.
Written by Jesse Burleson
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