Pretty Little Victim

Hannah Baxter is a stellar piano student aspiring to gain acceptance to Julliard. But when she enters a new high school, her life becomes a nightmare due to some of the most despicable people imaginable. They include Turner, a repellent heartthrob athlete, and a counselor, Garrett Thomas, who is a dirty old man. Hannah's piano instructor, John Kurtz, appears to be a complete psychopath. He is carrying on an affair with the wife of a colleague and suddenly decides to pack up and leave the school. During his exit, he is especially nasty to his star pupil Hannah. Hannah is on the receiving end of harassment and hazing from her fellow classmates, especially the duplicitous cheerleader Amber. Behind the scenes, Amber is playing a dangerous game in setting up Hannah. A shortcoming of the screenplay was that we never learn the fate of Amber. Then, there is the perverted high school counselor, Garrett Williams. His exploitation of Hannah includes setting her up for murder by leading her to believe that they have a "special" relationship. He even gives her his deceased wife's ruby necklace as a present. That gift will be their little secret. It is a credit to the actors that they were able to sustain much of the film's dialogue with a degree of sincerity. Zoey Jones, the only friend of Hannah at school, completely drops out of the film after being clobbered on the head. And what is the fate of the sweet, little orphan Katie? These were more instances of the failed logic of the screenplay. The most preposterous moment comes at the end when Mr. Kurtz, a character out of an Edgar Allan Poe horror tale, unexpectedly reappears as the boyfriend of Hannah's glamorous mother Melanie. Her ex-husband was apparently a philanderer. Now, it appears as though she has picked another gem!

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source: Pretty Little Victim

WELL, THE MOVIE ITSELF WAS HARD TO BELIEVE.... This was the usual LMN feature with unbelievable plotlines and weird characters, all set in the LMN/Lifetime Universe. To be honest, I didn't know who was doing what to whom until about a half hour before the end.... and the twist at the end was pretty good. Keep in mind that in this Universe - - 1. Mother and daughter look like SISTERS (all the time). 2. High school teachers and guidance counselors can be classic TOOLS. 3. If you are an awkward new kid at school, you will be immediately befriended by another awkward kid. I graduated High School in 1976, and back then we had nothing like this! Watch and have a few laughs. 5/10.

When the other girl(cheerleader) is arguing with her stepfather or mom's BF and she deadpans "You aren't my father and you can't tell me what to do." lol. Just reciting the line with no emotion behind it. And said guy seemed straight out of acting school as well. As others have mentioned, the daughter looks just as old as the mom, so it was hard to really go with the premise. Not one of Lifetime's better movies, for sure.

This was a weird one. First, the good: The movie was shot well and the performances were all fine, especially the lead actress (though, it's obvious she isn't high school age). I also like the aspect of having a guidance counselor be the main antagonist. Don't think I've seen that in a Lifetime movie before. Though, they could've done a lot more with it. Now, the bad: The storytelling was all off. This movie meandered like crazy. It takes, literally, 50 mins to get to a point that any screenwriting book would classify as the second act. Within those first 50 mins, they set up several different storylines (3 by my count) that none really add up or connect in a way that felt necessary. This story could have been told in a much more succinct way, which only leads me to believe that they needed to pad out the running time. To be fair, the last 15 mins of the movie do pick up (though, they still don't connect all the dots), but even with that, whole movie feels like a missed opportunity.

I cannot pretend that I expect quality of any Lifetime Original film, yet Nobody Will Believe You still managed to disappoint me to the point of anger--yes, I was emotionally invested in the outcome of this TV movie, inspired by an irrational belief in this cast's talents. Aside from featuring twenty-five-year-old high schoolers and veteran actors of three weeks, the plot was so convoluted as to make me question what the actual story was. I think it was about a girl named Hannah being bullied by her counselor and maybe having some issues with her dad, but then there's the whole murder plot that Garrett decided to involve her in at an undisclosed point in time and the fact that he's looking for a cheerleader wife upgrade. Also, he killed Amber's stepdad and Garrett's wife was having an affair with the choir teacher who supposedly didn't know she was married to a coworker of his? As typical of Lifetime, few loose ends were tied by the closing shot. In fact, our protagonist had only just confirmed who the antagonist was at the final five minute mark. Did it make sense? No. But then again, little did. Apparently all guidance counselors have easy access to students' houses, where they set fires and prey on young cheerleaders (AKA replacement wives). And I suppose that there's no need to check up on said preyed-on cheerleaders after their counselor boyfriends are killed (arrested?), especially not when they're your arch nemesis. That's best left to the therapists. Also, I guess it's normal for your mom to just date your choir teacher that fled the state after breaking up with your ex-guidance counselor lover's murdered wife, which I found to be a bit of a plot twist because, really, we all know the mom is dating her new spa. I won't even mention the fact that Garrett seems to burn the evidence that clears Hannah with the house (yet she's not in prison at the end?) before being murdered with a stool. I'll put it this way: the most exciting part of this film was when Amber's stepdad was shown watching a slightly superior Lifetime movie pre-death. I don't know what creates more questions, the fact that Lifetime somehow exists as a corporation within the Lifetime Cinematic Universe or the idea that this poor man's last moments of life were spent watching The Secrets She Keeps. If you're looking for a reasonably cheesy TV movie that might be about high school cyberbullying that is basically logical and more easily followed, watch Murder in the Vineyard, but out of respect for your own mortality, skip this one. Anyway, there is only one fitting way for me to wrap up this review: mac and cheese.

There is a trend in recent lifetime movies to cast actresses of mother and daughter around the same age!!! The baby faced school "girl" doesn't find it easy to make friends at the new school. Nobody wants her to sit with them at lunch. Yet she lies about this to her mother later on. Later the only other student she befriends is a goth girl, who ends up spying on her behalf of the mother. Next she takess flirty photos of herself to a boy from school, who purposely banged into her, because he removed his shirt, but she ends up posting him a photo of a drink. Then later all the photos of her that she made, but didn't send him, were somehow posted to everyone at the school Later the same guy criticises her for these pictures even though he sent her a topless one of himself! The dialogue between characters is muddled up and makes no sense. A lot like this happens. She saved the life of a snotty cheerleader when heavy equipment crashed from above, yet the school never even investigated it. The next day the same cheerleader was back to her nasty self. It goes on like this. Someone made this script up as they went along.

This felt like a LM and I love those so it was a treat. Was the main actress old looking? Yes, but I would not have noticed too much if I had not read another's review. Also, yes she take a selfie on her phone with sunglasses on and then poof no sunglasses in the picture she sends. Despite these little things that I can easily overlook for a good story and ok acting. I will say this, it was a bit predictable. But I had no idea the counselor was with the cheerleader so that was a surprise. I would definitely recommend this movie if you like Lifetime type movies. I also will be watching it again if I just have free time to blow. It is a lot better then some trash out these days *Eye Roll*. Hell! What I wouldn't do to be in a movie myself!

Typical Lifetime fare except for the fact that the actress cast as Hannah was nowhere near high school age. The movie is full of continuity flaws and the acting was on the weaker side. It has a problem knowing which plot to follow and ends up meandering all over the place, for the most part. Skip it.