Movie Review :: Lifetime’s Nightmare in the Desert is a dry thriller

Lifetime

After Murder Below Deck, Lifetime’s weekly Sunday night thriller this time around has given us the aptly titled Nightmare in the Desert, although the nightmare may actually be for viewers settling in to watch this flaccid thriller. On the plus side, without commercials the TV movies runs just over 60 minutes! So what is this gem about?

Nightmare in the Desert follows lovebirds Shae Olson (Gia De Sauvage) and Chris Hawley (Tristan J. Watson) as they return to the California desert to pay one last visit to Shae’s childhood home. She apparently has not great memories of the place (Or does she? She seems to waffle on that.) and nothing to tie her there since her father passed and is planning to sell the place. She and Chris also pop in to see old family friend Larry (Craig Stepp), who takes an immediate dislike to Chris, believing he is behind Shae’s desire to sell her father’s house. He also seems to have appointed himself her guardian and the man who will choose who she marries. Even though she’s an adult. Back at her house, Chris sneaks out in the middle of the night for some mysterious reason, picked up by someone in a large black SUV. The next morning he and Shae go for a hike in Joshua Tree National Park but before they hit the trail, Park Ranger Harry Styles pulls up … um, no, actually it’s Ranger Burke Elder (Allen Williamson) who just happens to be Shae’s ex-boyfriend (Chris saw a picture of them in her diary … and Burke just happens to have the same exact picture in his glove compartment — what are the odds?!), and it’s clear he’s still got very strong feelings for her. As the pair go for their hike, Burke stalks them and spots another young woman also following them from the sidelines, snapping pictures. Burke sees the woman place a small red box on a bench on the trail and realizes it’s an engagement ring. Burke is not going to let this engagement happen on his watch, so he steals the ring, pushes Chris off a cliff and shoots the young woman, Rachel (Kyla Nova), leaving them all for dead while Shae is just casually waiting for Chris to return (he had to excuse himself when the saw the ring box was missing). Burke appears, pretends to look for Chris and assures Shae that everything will be fine. She shrugs her shoulders and the two leave the park (!), hang out with Larry and just assume Chris will find his way home. Before they left the park, Burke pointed Shae in the direction of Chris’ body but … it wasn’t there so now he has something to worry about, making his behavior become even more unhinged. Will Chris make it out of the desert? Will Rachel bleed out? Will Larry force Shae to marry Burke? And what do the two hippies (yes, that’s how they’re credited on IMDb) breaking into cars in the park’s parking lot have to do with this?

Nightmare in the Desert is blessedly short, giving us just enough exposition on the characters to be mildly interested in their fates … at least more interested than Shae seems to be. We know she may or may not have daddy issues, we know Chris is an adjunct professor (not a real one, as Burke points out), we know Larry was best friends with Shae’s dad and wants to keep his promise (even though he hasn’t seen Shae for years), we know Rachel is one of Chris’ students, and we know Burke is a bit nuts. The screenplay for the film, though, will just make you scratch your head as to why Shae just casually leaves the park as the sun is setting, assuming Chris — who has never been there before — will find his way out, after showing some concern about him not having food, water or shelter (although she seems to think he’s going to starve to death overnight). And then she just goes back to her house to have a shower, while Larry and Burke conspire over steaks and Burke not so subtly suggests Larry may be able to keep that promise to Shae’s dad after all … and Larry never bats an eye as to why he would say something like that. There’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense, but it does become clear the real focus of the story is Burke’s obsession with Shae (and the script actually does give him a motive), and that actually gives Williamson a chance to really chew on the scenery.

Williamson is actually the best thing about Nightmare in the Desert, even when his performance isn’t as subtle as it should be (we’ll blame that on the director for not reining him in a bit). It’s clear from his attitude meeting Chris that he’s going to become unhinged, and he does become more and more deranged as the story progresses. But he also does manage to tone it down when interacting with Shae, so as not to make her suspicious. Williamson is terrific in his big meltdown scene near the end, going full psycho on everyone and dragging the hippies into his plan. If nothing else, the movie is worth watching just for his over-the-top performance. And uncanny resemblance to Harry Styles. His performance is the only reason we’re giving this movie two-stars.

Tristan J. Watson is also good as Chris even though he’s missing for half the movie wandering the desert, and Kyla Nova is also very good as Rachel in her few scenes. Craig Stepp plays Larry half-friendly, half-sinister and a bit creepy when he talks about him being the man who makes sure Shae marries a man who will take care of her. He is not willing to give Chris a chance at all, and creates that whole conspiracy that he is pulling Shae’s strings. He finally does see the error of his ways but it may come too late, especially when Burke catches on that Larry has caught on to the situation.

If there’s a weak link in this whole thing, aside from the script, it’s newcomer Gia De Sauvage. Nightmare in the Desert is only her second TV movie (she made her first appearance this year in another Lifetime movie, so perhaps the network is trying to groom her to be a regular fixture like Hallmark has with its stable of stars?) and it shows. De Sauvage plays Shae as totally emotionless with the same blank expression on her face no matter the situation. Happy, upset, fearful, concerned, terrified … her expression never changes (one would almost think she’s been overly Botoxed). The only time we can tell she’s having any kind of emotion is when she stumbles upon the wounded Rachel and puts a little anger in her voice, assuming the young woman was in a side relationship with Chris (this interrogation takes place while Rachel is bleeding out, by the way). The rest of the time she’s just got the same monotone to her voice as she does to her face. Is it her inexperience? Is it the director’s fault for not knowing how to work with an actor? Director Sam Irvin does have a long list of credits including Elvira’s Haunted Hills so he’s not a novice. Maybe this was just a ‘for hire’ job and he really didn’t give a damn.

Like Murder Below Deck, this movie does at least have some lovely desert photography … even if it is basically from the same spot but made to look different from scene to scene (they literally place a picnic table under a large rock to make it seem like it’s a completely different rock than the one they passed earlier). One also has to wonder if the cast, except for Williamson, supplied their own wardrobe because his Ranger uniform is hilariously ill-fitting. The poor guy is practically swimming in the shirt they gave him, making him look like a little kid playing dress-up. That being said, Nightmare in the Desert is probably one of those movies you should watch with a group of friends and comment on it Mystery Science Theater 3000-style. Hopefully the MST3K/Rifftrax folks can get their hands on it some day and give it the ribbing it deserves.

Nightmare in the Desert has a run time of about 1 hour 4 minutes, and is rated TV-PG.