Lifetime
Lifetime dips into the prison break genre with its latest ‘Inspired by true events’ thriller with the unintentionally comical title Don’t Scream, It’s Me!. The story begins with a lone man walking down the road at night, coming upon a diner with apparently one employee, Mallory (Kennedy Rowe), on duty. The poor girl has just broken up with her boyfriend over the phone because he’s more interested in videogames, and when she attends to the lone customer, they both see a report on TV about a prison break… and the man in the booth is one of the two men on the screen. This is not going to end well for Mallory.
Cut to the lavish home of police officer Jay (Matt Hamilton) and nurse Liz (Kaylah Zander), a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapse as Liz has asked for Jay to give her some space, including the kitchen. She still seems really irritated with him about going to Mexico for their honeymoon instead of Paris — and we don’t know how long they’ve been married (or how they could afford that amazing house in the middle of nowhere) — but no matter how hard Jay tries to get back into Liz’s good graces, she’s not having it. She’s also pissed that he hasn’t fixed the dryer yet so now she has to walk up and down the stairs to the ‘back yard’ to hang the laundry out to dry (and it’s not a short walk), getting a surprise visitor while she’s there — her ex-boyfriend Drew, the second of the two men who broke out of prison. Flashbacks reveal that when the two met as teenagers, Liz told him it was her dream to live in Paris, and he attempted to rob a bank to make that happen. What he doesn’t know until later is that it was Liz who turned him in. Now he’s back and has unwittingly made her an accomplice for aiding and abetting him in his escape, offering him some of Jay’s clothing (he won’t miss anything as long as it doesn’t have a sports team logo on it … or it’s orange).
Before they know it, there’s a knock at the door and it’s another officer who claims to be going door-to-door searching for the escapees. As far as we can tell, Liz has no nearby neighbors so this is suss right from the start. It’s not long before Liz discovers this is the other escapee, Wesley Frost (Roark Critchlow), and for some reason he is hunting for Drew. And now that he’s found him, he also has a ‘hostage’ of sorts who can help drive him and Drew out of the county, knowing her cop husband will let her pass through the checkpoints without searching the car. The whole plan is a bit complex because Liz told Jay she wasn’t feeling well and was calling out of work that day (this was after Drew appeared), and she also told her co-worker the same thing. If she leaves the house, that just makes it seem like she’s lying. But Frost directs Liz to drive a car he left at the side of the road into her driveway and then the three of them will head to safety. But Liz and Drew are shocked to find a young woman in the trunk — Mallory! Seeing that the poor, dazed girl is concussed, she and Drew take her to the hospital (by this point she gained the upper hand on Frost, knocked him out and handcuffed him to the refrigerator as he had done to her and Drew earlier). But while she’s out, her co-worker Blair shows up at the house to bring her soup and is let in by Liz’s brother-in-law (we won’t spoil the ridiculous way Frost got out of the handcuffs), as she recounts to Liz on the phone. Liz tries to warn her about the danger, but Frost hears the conversation (damn you, speaker phone) and the next thing Liz hears is screaming so now she has to get back to the house to save Blair if it isn’t too late (upon arriving she, a nurse, seems baffled by a pool of blood, dipping her finger in it and asking ‘what’s this?’ Girl, it’s blood, you’re a nurse?)
Also at some point Jay came home — in the middle of his shift — to shower and change clothes. What? He comments on the way Liz has parked the car all jankie, but doesn’t ask about the other car also in the driveway. He’s a real observant cop. There really was no point for him to come home like that other than to create a little tension as Liz tried to hide the handcuff on the fridge door handle and not let on about the escaped convicts in the house. Liz is now in a race against time to find Blair and stop Frost before anyone else gets hurt.
Lifetime
Don’t Scream, It’s Me! is a serviceable thriller, even in all of its ridiculousness. This is one of those ‘smart people do stupid things’ stories that are more contrived than plausible. The whole story centers on Liz’s unhappiness with her marriage and her once fond feelings for Drew. Will she do what’s right, or does she think she can run away with Drew to Paris, becoming international fugitives? Is she smart enough to realize she’ll face legal consequences for harboring a fugitive? Will she come to the conclusion that, darn it, she can make it on her own after all? And will either of the escapees survive the day? Because you know Jay is going to show up again and have his world rocked by seeing Liz’s ex at the house. There is a lot here that requires a suspension of disbelief (such as how both Liz and Frost easily unlock police-issued handcuffs).
Luckily the movie does have some strong performances to keep it all from getting too silly. Kaylah Zander is fine as Liz. She never gets flustered by anything, almost giving a one-note performance, but this is explained away by Liz’s nursing career, a profession in which she always has to keep a cool head. Matt Hamilton is also fine as Jay, but he’s written in a way that makes him oblivious to his surroundings, especially when he comes home for no reason and doesn’t seem to think Liz is acting weird when she clearly is (and he doesn’t see the handcuff dangling from the handle). He does get a very shocking moment near the end when he finds Drew is at the house, becoming a bit more ferocious. It’s clear though from their performances that Liz and Jay do not belong together, so that’s either some great acting or Zander and Hamilton just had no chemistry. We’ll be generous and say it was great acting.
The real stars of the show are Nathanael Vass and Roark Critchlow as Drew and Frost, respectively. Vass portrays Drew as a lovesick puppy dog because he has been pining for Liz all these years in prison (how he found her is a question that is never answered). He is always looking at her with the deepest sense of love, and his performance actually makes the viewer want for them to get back together, even though we know that by the end he’s either going to be dead or heading back to prison. He is kind of irresistible and only got into the situation he was in because he loved Liz so much. Love can make people do stupid things. Critchlow is terrific as Frost. He brings a true sense of menace and danger to the role, a completely unpredictable person who has no qualms about killing someone who gets in his way, but still cautious enough to not just randomly kill people, even though he’s already living on borrowed time with Stage 4 cancer. Critchlow shows us just how dangerous Frost is and he is not someone you want to cross.
Eva Tavares doesn’t get a lot to do as Blair, but she at least makes her a character we want to see unharmed. A special mention to Kennedy Rowe as Mallory, bringing a little comic relief to the story playing the waitress as more tipsy than concussed, but she was adorable nonetheless. Taylor Warren Goff’s screenplay is a bit cliché, a bit unbelievable, but it gets the job done with the two escapees probably the best written characters in the movie. Wendy Ord directs with skill, keeping the tension high when necessary. All in all, Don’t Scream, It’s Me! isn’t the worst thriller Lifetime has produced and it isn’t the best but it has an interesting enough storyline and some engaging performances that won’t make watching it feel like a complete waste of time.
Don’t Scream, It’s Me! has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
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