Hidden Murder Island

source: Hidden Murder Island

source: Hidden Murder Island

Finally a lifetime movie that was exciting from start to finish. This one kept me invested the entire way. Great story and the cast did an excellent job! This one is centered around a teenager who has severe anxiety after being attacked on a island and witnessed her friends death. Throughout the movie she begins to be convinced that something else happened on the island and sets out to find the truth. Her mother supports her, but her wealthy father isn't any help and just adds to the increasing problems. Then we have the local boy who rescued her, but is he her savior or her captor. Definitely not giving anything way with this one because it was so much fun to watch and see how it unfolds. Plus the end was a pretty good thrill ride. Highly recommend and definitely one of the way better lifetime movies out there!

First off, Lifetime is very good at making their movie previews look way better than the actual movie itself. The preview made the film look kind of promising with the dramatic music and other stuff. One of the few LTM's so far where the movie looked as good as the preview if not better was 'Beware of Mom, (2020) (is it possible to feel nostalgic for something that happened less than three years ago? I miss those times!) With all that being said, I was pretty disappointed with this one. The plot is as follows: A girl and her friend go on a camping trip together and the friend ends up murdered and her death is staged as a suicide. The girl (Fey) gets knocked out and loses her memory in the process and throughout the movie she has these seizures that cause her to have visions of the island. Based on the title alone, I thought that the whole premise was about the island that Fey and her friend went to was infamous for having multiple murders take place there and that Fey's friend was one of the unfortunate victims. Sadly I was wrong and the title was unintentionally misleading. I couldn't watch the movie live so I had to watch it on a video recording on YouTube. But it had so much zooming in and out and it kept on skipping certain parts and replaying scenes, so you can probably imagine all of the details I missed. The lead girls acting was horrible, and the husband/father character irritated the heck out of me! He was so strict and controlling towards his daughter that I should've known from the beginning that it was him. No sane father would ever act the way that Frank did, literally getting upset and yelling at his daughter over a bird. It was just too obvious at that point. *Spoilers Ahead!* So what really transpired in the movie was that it was Frank the whole time and his motive was that his reputation was at stake and didn't want Fey to leave the island. And just when I thought his character couldn't get any worse! Curt was an accomplice too, and was the one responsible for Maddie's death. Not sure if the woman from the store (who turned out to be Curt's mother) was in on it too. Speaking of Curt, he looked both 20 and 50 years old at the same time. In fact I don't even know why Frank had Curt kill off Maddy in the first place. Was it because she was a "bad influence" on Fey? And he had a reputation to save??? So dumb! One positive thing I can say about this movie is that I'm glad that Andrea Bogart is acting in Lifetime movies again after her almost three year break from the channel. I wish they could bring back other actresses such as Hannah Barefoot, Dina Meyer, and Jamie Luner. They were all very iconic. Matt Pohlkamp, Laurie Fortier, and Jessica Morris have overstayed their welcome. A side note: don't mean to get all political, but the husband character kind of reminded me of Tucker Carlson, the former commentator of Fox News. And he acted like him too in some way.

We are reminded frequently that the Connally family was responsible for developing the idyllic island in the film's title. The burden falls on Frank Connally to keep up the good name of the Connally clan, and Frank even has his sights set on becoming mayor. Sadly, it would be difficult to imagine a family more dysfunctional than the Connallys. The mother had an affair and made an attempt to flee the island. The dad is paying hush money to a woman for his own secrets. The daughter, Fey, is suffering from trauma after her best friend (and likely her lover) Maddie was killed. Following her traumatic experience, Fey may at any moment burst out in a breathless panic attack. The oily character named Curt, who allegedly rescued Fey, in fact was responsible for killing Maddie, the beloved daughter of the sheriff. In the process, the deranged Curt also had his way with an unconscious Maddie. In nineteenth-century melodrama, the acting in this film would probably be considered good. But by modern realistic standards, it was nearly operatic in its excess. Somehow, some way, a film inspired by true events was turned into a soap opera of epic proportions. The plot of the film was so convoluted that even the Lifetime Uncorked website had trouble in sorting out the nuances. It is a film that must be seen to be believed. Welcome to Fantasy Island!

Finally a lifetime movie that was exciting from start to finish. This one kept me invested the entire way. Great story and the cast did an excellent job! This one is centered around a teenager who has severe anxiety after being attacked on a island and witnessed her friends death. Throughout the movie she begins to be convinced that something else happened on the island and sets out to find the truth. Her mother supports her, but her wealthy father isn't any help and just adds to the increasing problems. Then we have the local boy who rescued her, but is he her savior or her captor. Definitely not giving anything way with this one because it was so much fun to watch and see how it unfolds. Plus the end was a pretty good thrill ride. Highly recommend and definitely one of the way better lifetime movies out there!

source: Hidden Murder Island

We are reminded frequently that the Connally family was responsible for developing the idyllic island in the film's title. The burden falls on Frank Connally to keep up the good name of the Connally clan, and Frank even has his sights set on becoming mayor. Sadly, it would be difficult to imagine a family more dysfunctional than the Connallys. The mother had an affair and made an attempt to flee the island. The dad is paying hush money to a woman for his own secrets. The daughter, Fey, is suffering from trauma after her best friend (and likely her lover) Maddie was killed. Following her traumatic experience, Fey may at any moment burst out in a breathless panic attack. The oily character named Curt, who allegedly rescued Fey, in fact was responsible for killing Maddie, the beloved daughter of the sheriff. In the process, the deranged Curt also had his way with an unconscious Maddie. In nineteenth-century melodrama, the acting in this film would probably be considered good. But by modern realistic standards, it was nearly operatic in its excess. Somehow, some way, a film inspired by true events was turned into a soap opera of epic proportions. The plot of the film was so convoluted that even the Lifetime Uncorked website had trouble in sorting out the nuances. It is a film that must be seen to be believed. Welcome to Fantasy Island!

First off, Lifetime is very good at making their movie previews look way better than the actual movie itself. The preview made the film look kind of promising with the dramatic music and other stuff. One of the few LTM's so far where the movie looked as good as the preview if not better was 'Beware of Mom, (2020) (is it possible to feel nostalgic for something that happened less than three years ago? I miss those times!) With all that being said, I was pretty disappointed with this one. The plot is as follows: A girl and her friend go on a camping trip together and the friend ends up murdered and her death is staged as a suicide. The girl (Fey) gets knocked out and loses her memory in the process and throughout the movie she has these seizures that cause her to have visions of the island. Based on the title alone, I thought that the whole premise was about the island that Fey and her friend went to was infamous for having multiple murders take place there and that Fey's friend was one of the unfortunate victims. Sadly I was wrong and the title was unintentionally misleading. I couldn't watch the movie live so I had to watch it on a video recording on YouTube. But it had so much zooming in and out and it kept on skipping certain parts and replaying scenes, so you can probably imagine all of the details I missed. The lead girls acting was horrible, and the husband/father character irritated the heck out of me! He was so strict and controlling towards his daughter that I should've known from the beginning that it was him. No sane father would ever act the way that Frank did, literally getting upset and yelling at his daughter over a bird. It was just too obvious at that point. *Spoilers Ahead!* So what really transpired in the movie was that it was Frank the whole time and his motive was that his reputation was at stake and didn't want Fey to leave the island. And just when I thought his character couldn't get any worse! Curt was an accomplice too, and was the one responsible for Maddie's death. Not sure if the woman from the store (who turned out to be Curt's mother) was in on it too. Speaking of Curt, he looked both 20 and 50 years old at the same time. In fact I don't even know why Frank had Curt kill off Maddy in the first place. Was it because she was a "bad influence" on Fey? And he had a reputation to save??? So dumb! One positive thing I can say about this movie is that I'm glad that Andrea Bogart is acting in Lifetime movies again after her almost three year break from the channel. I wish they could bring back other actresses such as Hannah Barefoot, Dina Meyer, and Jamie Luner. They were all very iconic. Matt Pohlkamp, Laurie Fortier, and Jessica Morris have overstayed their welcome. A side note: don't mean to get all political, but the husband character kind of reminded me of Tucker Carlson, the former commentator of Fox News. And he acted like him too in some way.