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We’ve already been through the real life nightmare of The Dating App Killer: The Monica White Story on Lifetime, now sister network LMN is also joining in on the dating app danger genre with the cheesily — and misleadingly — titled The Dating App Nightmare. Be advised — there will be spoilers ahead.
Nicky Whelan and Haley Pullos star as widowed mom Kate and daughter Sarah, respectively, with Kate on the verge of ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’ as Sarah is finishing up her senior year of high school. The two try to spend time together — Kate makes a big deal out of breakfast — while Sarah just wants to hang with her friends before she’s off to college. At school, Sarah is approached by shy Justin, a boy who obviously has a crush on her, and he asks her to go to a movie with him. Sarah makes an excuse that she can’t because it’s game night with her mom, but he hopes they can try again the following weekend. Sarah’s friend Amber just thinks the boy is a stalker. At home Sarah worries about her mom not making herself available after two years of being single, so she helps her set up a profile on a dating app, and Sarah sets up one of her own. Kate is overwhelmed by how quickly men are contacting her and she is not sure about responding. Sarah gets her own hit and makes a date for coffee … on game night! Kate is disappointed but she doesn’t make a fuss, she just wants Sarah home at a decent time. At the local restaurant of the coastal Rhode Island town, Sarah’s date is a tad late (or she’s a tad early), and she’s approached by another guy, Colin, looking for his own date (allegedly). He seems nice, but a creeper at the same time, and Sarah is polite when he suggests maybe fate has a coffee date in store for them, but she just assures him her date is running a little late and shoos him away. The date, Mark, finally arrives and the two seem to hit it off — for two hours — unaware that right outside the window is a very upset Justin. When the two leave, Justin confronts Sarah about ‘game night’ and Mark does not want to get involved in high school drama (and let’s be clear — we have no idea how old Mark is but he’s definitely not in high school) and walks away. Sarah tries to catch up to him after telling Justin to get lost, but when she gets to her car, someone approaches her and she looks frightened or surprised or confused. Does she know the mysterious figure?
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Well after 2:00 AM, Kate has awakened on the sofa still waiting for Sarah, and she is unable to reach her daughter by phone or text. Kate shows up at the school in the morning and catches up with Amber, who tells Kate she had to catch a ride from her parents because Sarah never showed up and she isn’t answering her phone. This is even more concerning now, so Kate has to go to the police … where she is met with indifference, Detective Macready speaking to her condescendingly, assuring Kate that as a parent she doesn’t know her daughter as well as she thinks, and the girl will eventually show up. Detective Lynch has a little more empathy for Kate, and he assures her they will do what they can to find Sarah. Kate calls Amber to come to the house and help her try to crack the password on Sarah’s dating account to see who she was talking too — completely forgetting that Sarah told her that she writes all of her passwords down so they can’t be hacked — but Amber nearly locks the account by trying too many times. Kate’s memory finally kicks in after Amber leaves and she finds the journal with the passwords, and she learns that the guy Sarah was meeting was Mark … so she convinces Amber to be bait and set up a date with Mark so Kate can question him after the woman who runs the restaurant, Rena, confirms that is indeed the boy she saw with Sarah. When confronted, Mark denies having anything to do with Sarah’s disappearance, and he implicates the other boy from school. Amber knows that is Justin, and with this new information, the police haul Justin in for questioning … while Kate, Amber and Mark watch from outside the room. But Justin has no idea what anyone is talking about and he implicates Mark, but Macready just tells him not to leave town. He’s eighteen, where’s he gonna go? The case gets complicated when Kate gets texts from Sarah’s phone that say she just needs some time to herself, but neither she nor Amber are buying that the texts are from Sarah. And the reception of those texts only make the police even less interested in doing anything despite Kate’s objections. But after more texts arrive, Kate plays it smart and replies that she and Sarah’s dad are very worried, and the texter says to tell Dad not to worry, confirming the texts are not from Sarah and that kicks the police back into gear. But where do they look? During the ordeal, Kate and Rena have bonded, and Rena relates how she lost her own daughter. When Kate gets home from hanging with Rena, she notices a window open and fears there is an intruder in the house. She’s right because Mark is there, but he tells her he got a text from Sarah asking him to meet her at the house … which had been deleted right after so he has no proof. He also notices a photo on the wall and asks if the man in the picture is Sarah’s dad, it is, and he tells Kate how she talked about him. So … that should put Mark in the clear as a suspect, but the police have arrived and instead of telling them it couldn’t be Mark, Kate just lets them arrest him. But things still aren’t adding up, and when Kate pays a visit to the restaurant again. She talks about Mark and how he knew Sarah’s father was dead — making Rena seem surprised as Kate had not mentioned this previously — and Rena gets emotional relating to Kate about how she understands what Kate is experiencing as she lost her own daughter a few years ago. Rena asks Kate to stay after closing and they can go elsewhere after she cleans up in the kitchen. Kate hears something shatter in the kitchen and finds Rena unconscious on the floor and the creeper guy, Colin, is there because he says he knows how to save Sarah. But Rena comes to and hits Colin in the head, knocking him out and sending him to the hospital. At the police station, Kate talks with Det. Lynch and he has some new information following the discovery of a body that they first thought was Sarah, but it was just a girl who looked like Sarah — a car was seen on security footage across the street from the restaurant (because the restaurant’s cameras are mainly for show as a deterrent) the night the dead girl disappeared and on the night Sarah disappeared. They know who the car is registered to but there’s only one problem — that woman is dead, and suddenly it all makes sense to Kate who took Sarah. Even the police believe her now, but can they get to the girl before it’s too late?
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The Dating App Nightmare is a surprisingly entertaining thriller that offers enough suspects to keep you guessing as to who took Sarah. Writers Jackie Moore (who we usually see on screen) and Daniel West have crafted a solid abduction thriller with some nifty bits of business, like the deceased father. I really liked how Kate used that to see if Sarah was really texting her, and then that played perfectly into proving Mark’s innocence — although Kate could have told the police he was innocent instead of letting him be carted off for a little B&E. That little fact also makes it clear who has Sarah when they show subtle surprise that her father is in fact dead. But it all makes sense in the end, and I wasn’t even sure if obvious red herring Colin actually was the kidnapper just because he always seemed to be lurking around (like why was he at the site of the discovery of the dead girl?). The script may have a couple of unintentionally funny moments, but it’s still written well enough that the suspect is never obviously played (for the most part, but there was an ‘aha’ moment that convinced me who it was long before the reveal). One thing I did not like was the way Detective Macready spoke to Kate, always talking down to her, telling her she doesn’t know her own daughter, and just treating her as an inconvenience. I really, really disliked that character. And why did they take so long to go to town to see if Sarah’s car was still parked at the restaurant? That should have been the first thing the police did. Detective Lynch was at least a little more compassionate with Kate (and I half expected those two to hook up at the end).
Director Glenn Ciano also does a nice job at creating the environment of the small Rhode Island coastal town (with some nice drone shots of the area), and really guides the actors so they all just act naturally. Not that this is the director’s fault (and luckily I had not seen the official promotional artwork before seeing the movie) but putting the movie’s biggest name on the poster with an expression that says, ‘Yeah, it was me,’ really undoes all the suspense of the movie. Of course, also putting a big name like Charisma Carpenter in a thriller and not in the lead mother role also signals to the audience that we should suspect her. Had she and Nicky Whelan swapped roles, I think I would have been more surprised by the outcome. Still, I found the movie to be very entertaining.
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As for the cast, Whelan is excellent as Kate. She fully embodies the role of the loving, concerned mother, and she earns all of our empathy as the police treat her like dirt. And even though she keeps running into a brick wall with the police, at least she isn’t made to turn into an amateur detective, putting herself in harm’s way. Whelan makes Kate a totally likable character, one we can root for most of the time. She also works well with Carpenter, who gives a really nice performance in the first half of the movie, being completely convincing with her concern for Sarah and for Kate, really turning on the emotion when she talks about losing her own daughter, truly tugging at our hearts. She also does a nice job of making Rena’s surprise at learning Kate’s husband is dead very subtle, but enough for us to know for sure she had something to do with Sarah’s disappearance. From that point on, she seems a little less sincere with Kate (at least enough for the audience to see), but when it’s obvious why she took Sarah (and the other girl who ended up dead), she still manages to squeeze a little more sympathy from us (and Kate). But being the biggest name in the movie is a huge red flag that she’s the guilty one. Both actresses play their roles perfectly, but one has to wonder how it would have played out had the roles been swapped.
Haley Pullos does a great job portraying an average teenager, not showing any real issues with her mom, just someone who wants to enjoy her remaining time at home and with her friends before college. We also feel her anguish as she is held captive and she is thankfully written to play along with her captor long enough to keep herself alive and rescued. Nikolas Elrifi is also very good as Mark, having to tread a fine line between making us question his innocence and knowing he is guilt free. He may become a bit agitated too quickly when questioned about Sarah, and why he was written to climb through a window at Kate’s house instead of just waiting at the door is too convenient of a plot device, but he plays the moment wonderfully when he mentions how Sarah had talked about her dad. Making him run when the police showed up was also an unnecessary piece of business, because he and Kate could have proven his innocence right then and there.
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Isabel Fox perfectly portrays Sarah’s bestie, Amber, even allowing herself to be bait to lure Mark on a date so Kate can pop up on them and start her interrogation. She makes her friendship with Sarah feel completely natural and lived in, and she is always kind to Kate. Charlie Tacker also does a really nice job as Justin, showing his complete awkwardness at school when trying to ask Sarah on a date — something he later says he hates to do because there are too many eyes watching and he’ll be laughed at — and total confusion about why he’s been hauled in for questioning. He actually makes us feel sorry for Justin, because he seems like a nice boy in general, he just doesn’t understand how to read the social cues that Sarah is sending him (and she’s too nice to flat out tell him to buzz off). Ric Plamenco does a nice job of making Colin seem totally suss, creeping up on Sarah at the restaurant, popping up at crime scenes and then inexplicably in the restaurant kitchen, his photo always showing up on the dating app sites, so he always makes us notice him and consider that he is the culprit or is possibly working with the kidnapper.
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As for the cops, Shikena Stanton does a great job at making Detective Macready totally unlikable. You just despise this woman every time she’s on screen, her lack of compassion, her sense of superiority, her assurance that she knows Sarah better than her own mother does … she’s just an awful person and Stanton does a terrific job at making the viewers dislike her (this is one of the stereotypically written cop characters on Lifetime/LMN movies, so credit due for interpreting the character as intended). On the other hand, Bennan Mejia brings a little more compassion to the role of Detective Lynch. He shows that he really wants to help Kate, but he has to work things by the book and not overstep his bounds with Macready, who is obviously his superior. But he is much more involved in the case, much more kind to Kate, and if this had been a Hallmark movie, he and Kate certainly would have ended the movie with a kiss. I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t the guy on the dating app Kate swiped right on at the end. And about that dating app — it really has nothing to do with Kate and Sarah’s titular nightmare. All it really does is give Kate a list of suspects, but the app was not the reason for Sarah’s abduction. It’s a totally misleading title, but I suppose that was the intention, to distract us from obvious.
Over all, I was pleasantly surprised with the movie. I really liked the use of the actual Rhode Island locations, the story was constructed well enough, and the performances were all uniformly good. It wasn’t perfect, but it was much better than I had expected.
The Dating App Nightmare has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.