Lonely Crime Fanatic opens with a dream sequence. In it, a man’s reflection appears on a glass door, unbeknownst to Ashley Huff (Brenna Skalski). The man enters Ashley’s house and sneaks up on her, causing Ashley to catapult awake.
How is that even possible? How can something exist in Ashley’s dream without her knowing about it? Unless the man standing behind her is Freddy Krueger, there’s no way he could ever take her by surprise; after all, she’s the one dreaming him.
I get that those things are included for the benefit of the audience, precisely so that we don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that what we’re watching is a nightmare — and in that sense, it works in a completely contrived and underhanded way.
I’m willing to suspend my disbelief in exchange for the ability to peer into a character’s dreams (so long as it’s plot relevant like in, as I alluded to above, Nightmare on Elm Street; otherwise, I find it a weak narrative ploy). I’m even willing to pretend that people dream themselves from a third-person perspective.
Dreams, however, are not a good place for dramatic irony. You can’t show the viewers something and at the same time keep it hid from the dreaming character, because if the character doesn’t see it, it’s not there.
Thus, Ashley may dream about being watched and grabbed from behind by unseen forces; alternatively, someone else may dream about a man stalking and attacking Ashley. You can’t have it both ways, though.
Anyway, Ashley is hooked on true crime podcasts. As the movie begins, she’s listening to the facts in the case of one Tina Álvarez. “When the authorities arrived at Tina’s apartment, the door was unlocked and there was no sign of Tina. That was the last time anyone would see Tina Álvarez alive.” Uh, how could anyone have seen Tina — whether alive, dead, or in a Schrödinger’s cat-like state — if there was “no sign” of her?
Careless writing aside, Lonely Crime Fanatic is smarter and more self-aware than your average Lifetime flick.
While going through an acrimonious separation from husband Paul (David Hurt), Ashley meets and becomes romantically involved with morose podcaster and author David Bryant (Ian Reier Michaels).
David turns out to be a homicidal sociopath who comes up with a half-baked stratagem to exacerbate Ashley and Paul’s already contentious relationship in hopes that it will provide him with material for season two of his podcast.
The result of David’s machinations isn’t quite as organic as he might have hoped for — and it figures; David may be able to make it seem (mostly by planting evidence in Ashley’s house) as though Paul has something sinister planned for Ashley, but he can’t make Paul act on the impulses that David has led Ashley to believe that Paul is having.
Hence, for the big finale to his storyline, David tries to convince Ashley to kill Paul; not in self-defense, mind you, but in cold blood, while Paul is tied to a chair. Since that would put Ashley in a tight spot, David suggests that they somehow pin Paul’s murder on Ashley’s best friend Lily (Alexandra Ponce).
Clearly, David did not think things through; then again, he’s supposed to be crazier than a shithouse rat. He’s also genre-savvy, correctly pointing out that “Every true story [which Lonely Crime Fanatic purportedly is] needs a little creative license.” Well, I’m not sure that every true story “needs” it, but it certainly gets it, and not just a little.
It goes without saying that David’s scheme goes awry. What is, on the other hand, truly unexpected — the pleasant surprise that the film has in store — is that the script has both a strong opinion on and a low opinion of its subject matter.
In a lesser movie, Ashley would emerge from her ordeal an up-and-coming podcaster/crime solver in her own right (an interest in which she had previously hinted at) poised to fill the void left by David. In this movie, though, that’s the last thing the new and improved Ashley would ever care for.
As she puts it at the end, “I was a big fan of all this [true crime] stuff … but when it happens to you, it definitely changes your perspective … coming from the other side of it … I can’t really enjoy these things the same way anymore.”
Ashley has learned — and, hopefully, so will the audience — an extremely important lesson about the vulturous nature of the true crime business: “people consume this stuff without really thinking about the real-world consequences of the people involved.” Moreover, you don’t have to be victimized yourself to get off the Schadenfreude bandwagon; all it takes is a little empathy for the actual victims.
All things considered, this turn of events is ironic to say the least, considering that Lifetime has dabbled — thrived, even — on the sort of lurid material that Lonely Crime Fanatic is decrying. Does that mean that the film is hypocritical?
I don’t think so. Lifetime isn’t a sentient entity possessed of agency, and the productions that bear its brand are made by people. Most of the time they feel like they’ve all been made by the same people following the same pattern, but in this case writer Bryan Lucas and director Kaila York have, whether deliberately or serendipitously, crafted a reflexive piece that comments on and criticizes its own medium — standing outside it while still being of it.
Oh, and before I forget, what about the “actual events” that Lonely Crime Fanatic is allegedly “inspired by”? Am I not concerned that the movie is exploitative of Ashley’s real-life counterpart?
I would be, if I believed for a millisecond that such an individual existed, or that anything even remotely resembling this screenplay ever actually occurred to anyone. I prefer to think that “actual events” refers to the proliferation and popularity of the true crime genre in general.