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LMN’s ‘Spring Breakdowns’ themed films serves up an original offering set during Spring Break, Trapped in Her Dorm Room, which is probably the one place no one wants to be during Spring Break. Not that the lead character wanted to be there.
Trapped in Her Dorm Room stars Ciara Hanna as Erin, college art student who is laser focused on completing her final project which is 70% of her grade. Her bestie Kaley insists she take a break and come with her and the other girls to Daytona Beach … and she even has a hot guy lined up for her to hang out with. Another student, Cade, has a major crush on Erin and has given her a portrait he drew as a gift, but overhearing Kaley’s plans for the trip he becomes a little overbearing with Erin to the point that she changes her mind and makes plans to get as far away from the college — and Cade — as possible. But when she wakes up the next morning, realizing her alarm didn’t go off because her phone is missing, she begins to panic — especially when she also cannot get her dorm room door opened. Then Cade walks in, phone in hand, and it becomes clear that he is behind what is happening, and he has no plans to let Erin use her phone or leave the room. Instead the two will enjoy an idyllic week together with no one else around — except the RA, Anna, and a work crew we never see allegedly completing work on the fourth floor of the dorm — drawing, eating and falling in love. At least in Cade’s mind. Erin spends most of the time confined to her bed with a bike lock. No matter how hard she tries, she can never get the upper hand on Cade until she convinces him that if she doesn’t answer any of her mother’s texts, she will become suspicious. Cade begins to reply but Erin says she would never say what he’s writing so she helps him to speak in her voice, using a special ‘safe word’ she and her mother devised if anything was wrong. Anna and campus security have also become suspicious but Cade beats them to the punch, with one of them perhaps having a fatal encounter with him. But can Erin’s mother get to the college 400 miles away in time to save her daughter, or will Spring Break be over first with everyone, including Erin’s roommate returning?
LMN is billing Trapped in Her Dorm Room as being ‘inspired by actual events’, but with most of these Lifetime and Lifetime-adjacent movies, the actual events are a conglomeration of true stories distilled down into one basic premise. Here it’s a hostage situation in a dorm room which makes for a sometimes tense situation but the more you think about it the less sense it makes. For instance, what is Cade’s plan once everyone returns from Spring Break? Does he really think he can just go back to his own room at the end of the week and Erin will pretend like nothing happened? Or does he seriously believe she’ll have fallen completely in love with him at that point? It sounds like a solid premise but in the end it just doesn’t hold water. Also, if Kaley knew Erin was going with them, why didn’t she check on her before they left? She called but Cade had the phone so any good friend would have gone to the dorm room to see if she was okay. The only person who seems to have any sense of danger is Anna, who thought Erin was gone but became concerned when she learned she was still in her room … and was even more concerned when Erin didn’t seem to want to come out of her room. And no one, not Kaley, not Erin’s mother, seemed concerned after several days went by and Erin didn’t answer any of their texts (Cade did respond to Kaley once as Erin but it was less than convincing). So there is a lot of suspension of disbelief that needs to happen for this movie to make much sense. We won’t even get into the notion that Erin’s mother jumped in her car and drove 400 miles in what seemed like minutes (at best, it would have taken her 7 to 8 hours if she wasn’t driving like a maniac).
But those issues aside, Trapped in Her Dorm Room isn’t a terrible movie. It’s a bit by-the-numbers, sure, but the story by Casey John and direction by Peter Sullivan manages to build enough tension that we can almost forget that the whole premise falls apart at the end of Spring Break. The story does convincingly build the characters, never letting Erin simply become a victim, slowly letting Cade unravel and become more desperate and delusional. And for being mostly confined to a single room setting, it never feels as claustrophobic as it could have. There are some minor missteps like why does everyone want to wait for an elevator when they’re trying to get away from Cade when the door to the stairs is right next to it, and there is no way the pharmacy would give an unauthorized person someone else’s controlled substance prescription, especially when that person seems like a junkie becoming increasingly desperate to get that drug. The main thing is to just focus on the situation with Cade and Erin and shut your brain off for the rest.
This whole story would really fall apart without decent actors, and luckily Sullivan has two leads who are up to the task of making the improbabilities of the script palatable. Ciara Hanna has a lengthy resume (including playing Heather Locklear in Lifetime’s The Unauthorized Melrose Place Story) and convincing plays a 20-something college student at 34! She gives Erin a focus and commitment to her project, she has a kindness with Cade as a friend and some vulnerability, but she’s also strong enough when pushed to tell Cade they aren’t anything but friends and is able to fight back when she has the chance. She also works very well with Will Sparks III in what is just his second feature. He makes Cade seem like an awkward, lovelorn young man, unable to pick up Erin’s signals that they are just friends. But he makes Cade’s obsession become more frightening and dangerous as the week goes on, revealing a darker side to the character that seems to stem from his abusive father (that plot point is revealed in the story when Erin’s mother gets her hands on a police report and contacts his ex-girlfriend who lays it all out on the table). He has to keep Cade’s demeanor very balanced between normal and unhinged and he manages to never go completely over-the-top.
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The supporting cast is fine with what they are given in the script. Ishika Muchhal does some good work as Anna, never just shrugging off things, always insistent with the college’s security officer that something is not right. She seems a bit uptight at the beginning — as she is supposed to be trying to keep things under control in the dorm — but she’s always alert, spotting something in one of Kaley’s social media videos that supports her theory that something is not right with Cade and Erin. Nicole Dionne doesn’t get much to do as mother Andrea, but once she gets a sense that her daughter is in danger she springs into action convincingly (and has a lead foot on the gas pedal, apparently). Aja Hinds perfectly portrays the vapid Kaley who only has one thing on her mind (finding her husband in Daytona Beach), but it is a thankless role because it’s written in such a way that once the situation is resolved … Erin should end their friendship for not showing the least bit of concern that she never showed up to go on Spring Break. Jessica A. Caesar has a nice moment as the ex who paints of vivid picture of who Cade is in what is basically a monologue on the phone to Andrea. She really is convincing, like she really has been through something. It’s just one scene, but Caesar makes the most of it.
All in all, Trapped in Her Dorm Room is not the worst movie LMN has broadcast, and it’s not the best. It does what it sets out to do and hopes you don’t think too hard about the absurdities of the story. The cast does some good work, and the leads really are excellent. It may not be appointment television, but it’s good enough to put on the DVR to watch when you have 90 minutes to kill.
Trapped in Her Dorm Room has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.