Reviews

And there have been quite a few lately. This one involves Chris, the handsome, charming but seemingly cardboard cookie ever-persistent sociopath incessantly stalking lawyer Alice. Alice smartly and assertively tells Chris she no longer wants to see him when she doesn't recognize him as he sits next to her at a bar on a date mutually arranged through a Valentine dating app and subsequently reveals to her that he used his roommate's identity and picture on the app. She leaves the bar in spite of his pleas to give him a second chance and that sets into motion an entirely ridiculous set of events whereby Chris is repeatedly texting her, calling her, following her around, showing up at her law firm without her permission or foreknowledge and her boss simply accepts him as her boyfriend without even questioning who he is and where he came from just because he likes the town's Minor League baseball team. Chris even makes a reservation at a restaurant without telling her and then calls her expecting her to come. After multiple scenes where Alice is hemming and hawing over whether she should file a restraining order against him, as encouraged by her friend Janie from the start of the movie, Alice goes to the Topanga, CA Police Department where she meets the most incompetent Detective and police division in the entire State of California. First, Detective Graham, played by veteran comedic actress Jackee Harry, tells her that it really wouldn't do any good to even file a restraining order because it's "just a piece of paper", the cops can't track down the assailants, and they are generally ineffective anyway, and then in the same scene still asks her if she's going to file one. This leads to more hemming and hawing by Alice, who decides not to even bother. Chris then shows up at her parent's house when her father arranges a barbecue with Alice and Janie. Of course Alice has no idea when she arrives and discusses the BBQ with her parents on the patio, that not only has Chris been sitting in the living room waiting for her the entire morning, he has struck up a social media friendship with Alice's mother who gleefully and thoughtlessly accepts him as Alice's legitimate boyfriend without Alice ever mentioning him and has even exchanged a "wonderful banana bread recipe" with him online. This finally convinces Alice to file a restraining order, leaving her parent's get-together early, and going to the police department taking Janie with her in her SUV while Chris follows her the whole time. Afterwards, Alice stays at Janie's house for safety reasons and wakes up the next morning seeing her tires slashed. When she gets to work, she calls the police and is told by Detective Graham they were not able to serve Chris with the protective order because they cannot find him. This is because they contacted his old roommate who told them Chris suddenly moved out several weeks ago and left no forwarding information. The rest of the movie then involves Chris continuing to pop out of nowhere, calling Alice while hiding in trees and bushes, the Police Department making no effort to canvas the neighborhood or find him. Detective Graham simply throws up her hands telling Alice that they just cannot find him, no IT or cyber authority get involved to track him and see how he is hacking into her phones and computers and where the ISP address is coming from. Chris's former roommate, Jason, then meets with Alice at her office. He tells her of an ex-girlfriend named Mercedes who was also stalked by Chris and that Chris had left an unopened bill from his psychiatrist (why the cops are not doing any of this is beyond me). Of course, Chris is somehow staring at them from behind the window and nobody knows he's there. Alice looks up the psychiatrist and makes an appointment with her during which she admits that she is there under false pretenses and wants to know more about Chris and why he may be doing the things to her that he's doing. The psychiatrist explains that Chris has something called imposter syndrome. Alice leaves, and Chris suddenly appears and after a confrontation, chokes her. Alice goes to talk to Detective Graham and explains that his own doctor was afraid of him, and Detective Graham says they just cannot find him when she gets the phone call reporting the homicide. Later on, she comes to meet Alice again in front of her law firm and confirms that it was Chris who killed his psychiatrist and tells her "not to worry, they will assign more officers to her case" and they will "station a Detective in front of her house, at her office, 24/7". Alice goes back to her home where Chris calls her and again is standing in the trees somewhere outside her house and tells her he sees her. He tells her not to bother to have the police trace the call because he's using a burner phone but she still goes to the detective in front of her house in a mad rush to try to see if they could find out where he was calling from. The officer shrugs like he's clueless. Instead, of course, having officers canvassing her neighborhood, the neighborhood around the psychiatric clinic, and the neighborhood around the law firm trying to find out where he might actually be hiding (there's absolutely no indication where this guy is sleeping or eating or doing non-stalking things, is he living in his car, is he sleeping in the park?) or revealing anything they might have found while investigating the murder scene, witnesses, or the medical records at this psychiatric clinic, nobody does anything competent. Alice calls the wonderful Detective Graham again who tells her he was looking right at her house and the esteemed detective reassures her that she has someone outside of her house and her office and the fact that he told Alice there was a police car in front of her house was just an "educated guess about police procedure". Alice explains that she wants to get away from there and perhaps go to her parent's house, as its 30 minutes away, and she would feel safer there. Detective Graham tells her that she probably shouldn't do that because that is "out of their jurisdiction" (as if the next precinct/town/county wouldn't be on high alert looking for a guy who just killed a psychiatrist along with any relevant details released by the media). Alice decides to go anyway, calling her mother while she is packing and saying that she'd like to stay there for a few days and her mother says she has a surprise for her when she comes. Alice is happily intrigued and of course when she arrives she finds (shock and surprise!!) Chris is in their living room sitting on the couch (don't these people watch the news?). The only way Alice can get through to her parents that Chris is a danger is when she draws the word HELP on a cocktail napkin she finds in the kitchen and gives it to her father who finally figures out something is up, picks up a baseball bat, and threatens Chris with it. Her mother then calls the police while Chris runs out of the house and again mysteriously disappears into the neighborhood. The police arrive and again instead of canvassing the neighborhood, put crime scene tape up around the yard, and stand around their police vehicles in front of what looks like a video camera. One of the officers has basically meaningless conversation with Alice in her parent's living room telling her that they will be "coordinating with Detective Graham and they will be picking him up soon". How reassuring. Then Alice just leaves her parent's house on her own with no police escort nor asking anybody else to accompany her and goes down to stay with Janie. She finds a spare key under the doormat and walks into Janie's house where everything's quiet and nobody appears to be around, including Janie. She walks around the house for a few moments and of course there is Chris holding Janie hostage in the living room. Alice then breaks into a song and dance telling Chris that she'll do anything he wants if he just doesn't hurt Janie and tries to reason with Chris for the 18th time asking him why he's doing this and then offers to leave with Chris and get him help if he just doesn't hurt Janie. She coaxes him into letting her embrace Janie where she pulls mace out of Janie's back pocket and sprays Chris with it, then pulls the binds off of Janie and they embrace again. Chris stumbles out the door and immediately the great Detective Graham pops in holding a pistol having just missed him, sighs with relief, and says "He's gone". Later at the police station, Detective Graham says, "He won't get far. I have officers combing the neighborhood". After Janie reassures Alice that she's "Fine now", Alice says Chris Williams "will never hurt anyone ever again." The final scene is on Valentine's Day a year later where Chris sitting at a table with another unsuspecting woman, giving her a rose, and telling her his fake story.

This is a disheveled and poorly written yarn that stoops to the level of a B horror movie, which seems to more and more reflect the sloppy content that makes up a lot of Lifetime movies these days. If the subject matter wasn't so serious and inspired by actual events, I would give it 0 stars.