the Thinking Chick’s Guide to Movies

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Lifetime Movies

2012 April 25

My husband always teases me about Lifetime movies, saying they always feature a woman in danger. I've even made jokes about “The Insensitive Male Bastard Film Festival” on Lifetime, but it’s simply untrue that it’s a woman in danger all the time. This only seems to happen 99.999% of the time.

I’ve noticed that when the woman is evil, there is a formula, and “always” can be applied here. It’s always a loony woman, menacing anyone who stands in the way of the poor slob unlucky enough to catch her eye, and he often doesn’t even know it. Really, the plot of the thing is the same. Only characters are changed, and even they are interchangeable.

Here, let me show you:

Insane, psychobeast nanny administrative assistant neighbor generic “other woman” after the man covets her boss a doctor a hot, happily-married co-worker a professor and stabs poisons shoots hires a goon to kneecap those pesky co-workers relatives roommates girlfriends in her way. There is always a clueless kid relative parent smitten co-worker who won’t believe she’s doing this despite her weird behavior. the bodies stacking up like cordwood. her shady past. getting deathly sick after eating her food. But fear not, in the end she’s caught by those pesky kids. the guy finally catching on. a long-long relative blowing her cover. losing it dramatically in front of a shocked, disbelieving crowd.

See? Just like building a salad at the salad bar.

— Shukti