L'ombre d'une rivale

This movie looks like it's from 1995. The floppy disk sent me flying.

It's getting to be that the name Perry King is synonymous with bad Lifetime-type movies, which is a shame.

This is a Fatal Attraction ripoff with no attraction - it's all in her head - but lots of fatal. Barbara Niven plays a woman with a daddy complex - her father left when she was 8 and she blamed her mother - who goes from married man to married man seeking fulfillment. I guess she never watched Lifetime herself or she would know this is a dead end. The last guy who told her he wasn't leaving his wife got a knife in his stomach. Niven then flees to her aunt's and within five seconds is in love with Perry King, who lives next door and is married to Susan Blakeley. Mentally she's hot and heavy with him by the first commercial. There are some other people to get out of the way first, though, and a marriage to drive in the final coffin nails.

The only impressive thing about this movie was that Barbara Niven was 52 when she made it and Susan Blakeley, playing a woman with a very young daughter, was a whopping 57. I can only say, I'll have what they're having. They both look absolutely amazing in this movie. I thought I must be wrong that I saw Blakeley in Rich Man, Poor Man in the '70s, but of course I wasn't. I started to suspect the Dorian Gray syndrome with the hideous portraits in the closets. Good for them - but both actresses deserve much better. Perry King was his usual handsome, affable, clueless self.

I'd say don't watch it but if you catch it on Lifetime, just watch the first 15 minutes to catch a gander at what the fifties look like today for women and remember a time when a woman hit 30 and Hollywood stuck gray in actress' hair and made them play maiden aunts.

THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (TV movie 4.5 out of 10 stars Time to Read: 1:01 min

BASIC PLOT: Donna Germaine (Barbara Niven) is a disturbed woman, living in her own delusional reality. Childhood trauma has left her seeking love in all the wrong places, and her latest disastrous attachment is within the Costigan family. Donna has her sites set on William Costigan (Perry King), and she's not going to let anyone stand in her way, not his wife Jeannie (Susan Blakely), his co-worker Ashley (Tori Hammond), or even her own Aunt Grace (Lila Bata-Walsh). The more Donna ingratiates herself into the Costigan family, the more dangerous her obsession becomes. Can William and Jeannie discover Donna's true motives in time to save themselves, and clear William from a false murder charge?

WHAT WORKS: *THE BASIC PLOT WORKS for a low budget, made-for-tv melodrama. It could have been elevated into real entertainment with a bit more character development, but the story is fun enough to make it watchable.

*THERE ARE TWO POSTERS FOR THIS MOVIE and both of them are above average. Quality posters/DVD covers are a rarity, and deserve a mention.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *WHAT IS WITH ALL THE CLOSE UPS? I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to shove the camera that close to middle aged actors, but they need to think again.

*THE DELIVERY OF LINES IS PRETTY WOODEN All the characters, with the exception of Barbara Niven, deliver their lines in a very stiff fashion. This is a melodrama, so some of that can be forgiven, but it does have a detrimental effect on the movie overall.

*THE CHARACTERS ARE ALL ONE DIMENSIONAL Again, this is a melodrama, so deep character studies are not what you'd expect to find. Still, having the characters be this flat, it's hard to care about any of the outcomes. I expect better out of Ken Sanders.

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *If you are a fan of made-for-tv melodramas, there are worse ones out there. It's not terrible, not good, just mediocre TV movie faire.

CLOSING NOTES: *This is a made-for-tv movie, please keep that in mind before you watch\rate it. TV movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.

*I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. This review was NOT written in full, or in part, by a bot. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews (less trolls and fanboys), and better entertainment. Hope I helped you out.

In this insipid movie made for TV Niven plays yet another evil witch and does it badly. With a constant sneer on her face, she walks through the movie I guess to indicate she's bad. WRONG! She's God awful . . . . as an actress. Never have liked her and this boring predictable movie proves it. Add to this Perry King yet another stupid husband who doesn't seem to live on this earth. He let's manipulative females rule his roost in almost every movie he's in. This is no exception. Blindly he falls for the witch. When it comes to looks certainly Niven ain't got it, believe me. Why the lovely and talented Susan Blakely would do this junk is beyond me. And why King would prefer Niven over Blakely is like Newman not wanting to bed with Taylor in CAT ON HOT TIN ROOF. Unimaginable. So hands down on Niven and hoping she won't be seen again on TV.

I must say that when I picked the box up the cover and the description of the movie almost made me feel a bit uncomfortable, because it seemed to be able to give me quite a fright. Now the only thing which made me feel uncomfortable was how bad the actors were. Perry King who played William Costigan was the one who I found to make the best of this movie and his part wasn't big enough to lift it up a lot. Maybe from a two to a three but no more than that. Barbara Niven who played the main character Donna Germaine was quite a disappointment, the character was well written and did somethings which a person in that state might actually do if this had been for real. Barabara Niven who was very... good at overplaying the part where she was "The Perfect Neighbor" should probably not be offered similar roles. The day I watched this I had, had a good night's sleep but after the movie was to an end I was almost about to have another one and this was in the middle of the day mind you. Usually after watching a movie of this class I'd recommend it as a sleeping pill, but since the story is quite disturbing (it really was a nice thought) and the acting is so terrible, you might, if you are in that mood laugh until you cry. I'd recommend this movie for someone who has a nice boy or girl over and doesn't want to focus all of their energy on a movie to rent this one. That might actually have been it's purpose.