Oh Lifetime, I knew you had it in you
K. Hinton | Atlanta, GA | 04/21/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Just when I thought that the days of trashy Lifetime movies were behind me and all Lifetime had left were trite, inspirational stories featuring soundtracks by Martine McBride, I happened to catch this little gem that restored my faith.
In Love Thy Neighbor, Alexandra Paul plays a suburban mom whose house is broken into while her husband is away on business. Paul is home alone with her daughter and their family dog is killed during the robbery. Traumatized by PTSD, Paul's husband moves his family into a Stepford Wife-style gated community complete with 24/7 security. Things are looking up, especially when they meet their overly friendly, and somewhat nosy neighbor. The neighbor has a daughter around the same age, and the two girls will attend the same school. Paul's husband confides to the neighbor the real reason behind their move, and when he has to go away on business again, he asks her to look out for his wife. Little does he know the woman is crazy.
Oh Lifetime. This movie was classically bad. The crazy neighbor goes total Fatal Attraction, even going so far as to leave a note, "You'll wind up like your dog. Ruff Ruff." And wait, it gets better. Turns out she's an abusive wife who beat her ex-husband and in the tradition of the (Alleged) Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom, frames Paul's daughter as a drug abuser when her own child doesn't make the soccer team. Needless to say, this film is trash. But the very best kind. If you liked the movie Mother, May I Sleep With Danger and any of the other Lifetime movies starring Tori Spelling circa 1995, you will have a great time with Love Thy Neighbor. But if you fancy yourself a connoisseur of "good" films, you can't say you weren't warned."
No surprises, nothing special here at all.
M. ZALESKI | Jackson, NJ USA | 10/27/2007
(2 out of 5 stars)
"My wife caught part of this movie on TV and wanted to see the whole thing,
so I bought it.
While the acting is okay and the plot is not really silly and does not have
people doing anything really stupid, it just seems to go on auto-pilot from
the very beginning.
There was not a single surprising or interesting twist. I have seen episodes
of Law and Order with more suspense and surprise than this movie.
As I was watching this, I thought of "The Absolutely Positively True Story of
the Texas Cheerleader Killing Mom" (or something like that); another
story of psycho suburban mothers that I thought was considerably more
entertaining than this.
I'm pretty sure this was a made for TV movie. If you really want to see it,
just record it when it is on.
"