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LMN’s ‘Shocktober’ thriller Dancing with a Murderer had a much better title than the rather simplistic — and misleading — one that it has now, A Dance with Death, but even with that title the movie itself would still be a bit meh.
Dancing with a Murderer is centered around Nora, an aspiring fashion designer who returns to her hometown to tend to her mother’s care after her cancer diagnosis. A minute after getting into town Nora is invited to an annual masked charity ball as the plus one of her bestie Naomi, surprising her other best friend Liz — who throws this charity ball each year — in the process. There’s also an award to be given out that night to local talents in the arts field and Naomi has secretly nominated Nora … which seems to rub Paul Thornton, father of fashion nominee Angela, the wrong way since Nora doesn’t even live in town and, as Nora explains, all of her work is still in the early stages so she has no portfolio for anyone to see. Nora then meets caterer Dom Carter, and he convinces the self-proclaimed wallflower to dance … and things then take a turn when a dead body turns up on the dancefloor, putting an end to the night and quickly dispersing the crowd (did the police question anyone before they all ran off like the place was on fire?). Still rattled by the apparent murder, Nora gets a text notifying her that she was the target, and she will definitely be the victim next year. Sadly, the woman who died was Angela (both women had similar hairstyles, dresses and masks), but who would want to kill Nora especially since she just got back into town?
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A year passes and it’s time for the ball again, and most people including Nora are suggesting that perhaps Liz shouldn’t hold the event, especially since the killer has still not been caught. Liz reveals that there is a suspect … Nora’s ex-boyfriend Daniel, who was seen with Angela’s blood all over him but there has not been enough evidence to charge him. And then who should be at Nora’s mother’s house but … Daniel. Awkward! Apparently he’s been in touch with Margaret, heard Nora was in town (she avoided him at the ball), and decided to hang out to say hello. Over the past year, Nora has also been getting closer to Dom so the last thing she wants is to rekindle anything with Daniel. As the ball approaches, Margaret really wants Nora to take her as her guest since, you know, she’s sick and may not be around for the next one. Nora is a flat no, because she doesn’t even want to go, particularly after she finds a newspaper clipping from last year’s murder with a note scrawled on it that she’s not going to make it out of this ball alive. On the night of the event, Nora is ensconced at home with mom in bed … until she gets a message showing her that mom is at the ball even after Nora told her how dangerous it could be. The message also warned that if Nora didn’t show up, Margaret would die. Nora calls Dom and asks him to find her mother until she can get there and search, and when she finally arrives Nora is attacked in a stairwell and finds Margaret unconscious but barely alive. Margaret is put on display in the hospital — seriously, her room has floor-to-ceiling windows so anyone walking by can see her — but she’s going to survive. She was, however, poisoned and that puts two suspects in the police investigations crosshairs — Daniel, who was bartending, and Dom, the caterer, who had met with Daniel earlier in the day to go over plans for the evening. Nora doesn’t want to believe Dom had anything to do with her mother’s poisoning, but the case may be put to rest when Daniel is found dead at his home, where a vial of the poison was also located. (At this point, the killer’s identity has been revealed to the viewers but we won’t spoil it.) Now Nora has to wonder if Dom truly is a killer, but why would he want her dead? When she arrives at his house for a lunch date, she soon learns who is trying to kill her and why.
Dancing with a Murderer is a so-so mystery-thriller that takes its time getting to the point while throwing one red herring at you after another. The actual resolution to the story by Audrey C. Marie almost comes out of nowhere and has to do backflips to justify itself. I was actually hoping the entire movie would have taken place at the ball with everyone in their masks, which would have been a much more original and interesting concept. It was a bit ridiculous to stretch the story out over the course of a year with the notion that Nora was going to be at the ball again knowing she could be dead before it ended, and having Margaret defy her daughter’s wishes just to make sure Nora would be at the ball was just a clunk plot device. Would any mother knowingly put their child in danger just so they could go out and have a good time just because they’re battling an illness? Of course there was also the convenient plot device of Nora not telling her mother that she was the intended target the previous year, so that just makes it all a bit contrived. The film’s two directors, Bruno Hernández and Damián Romay, who were also responsible for My Boyfriend’s Wife is Dead and Murder, Lies and Marriage, are once again tasked with elevating a screenplay with their typical visual style (the masked ball scenes are the stand-out moments), hampered a bit by some questionable acting choices … and this is where I always have to ask if this falls on the directors, actors or both.
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Aubree Bouché is actually very good as Nora. She’s thrown into an extraordinary circumstance and doesn’t know where to turn, wanting to keep things from her mother so as not to make her worry. She has a good friendship with Naomi, and while she seems to be on good terms with Liz there always seems to be something under the surface that their friendship may not be as solid as it seems. Bouché also makes Nora’s relationship with Dom feel natural. She shows some interest in him but she doesn’t just rush into something romantic. She really anchors the movie with her performance. Temara Payton is also good as Naomi, the best friend, and we could have used a little more of her. Jonathan Drew turns in a nice performance as Daniel, making his first encounter with Nora appropriately awkward and doing his darnedest to proclaim his innocence in the murder of Angela and the poisoning of Margaret, really giving it all as the wronged man. Karen Thornhill Owen does what she can with the character of Margaret, trying not to make her come off as self-centered as she runs off to the ball against her daughter’s wishes (and how did she slip out of the house, anyway?), while at the same time making Margaret a bit sympathetic because she’s tired of being treated like an invalid. The writing forces Margaret into the situation at the ball, and Owen uses all of her skills to make it work.
Where things start to go a little sideways is in the acting choices made by some of the others. The most egregious of these is Andrew Fultz, who was so good in the recent Her Life is On the Line. None of his line readings her feels authentic, he always says everything in such an unconvincing way that to lead the audience to believe he is the killer. It just feels like he’s not really invested in this character enough, or the directors instructed him to always sound suspicious. It was really bothersome after just seeing him give a much better performance in a much better movie. Lauren Pike also has a level of insincerity to her performance as Liz when she’s speaking to Nora, almost condescending in a way which also seems purposeful to make you consider her as a suspect as well. Eric Hanson as Paul becomes the most obvious suspect as his behavior changes after his daughter’s death, obviously holding Nora responsible which makes us wonder if he accidentally killed Angela thinking it was Nora. (But seriously, would he have made such a mistake since even with masks on everyone seems to know exactly who is behind their mask?)
In the end, Dancing with a Murderer is a passable mystery-thriller with a script that tries to hard to throw us off the trail, some nice direction and production design and a mixed bag of acting choices that help keep the story interesting even when it seems to not have a point or know where it’s going. It’s a decent enough time killer if you stumble across it.
Dancing with a Murderer has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.