The Boarder

I like Lifetime movies so, so, much. Jenna Kanell is one of my cult favorite actresses so I was happily surprised to see her working the cafe and playing the best friend. I wish she was listed in the synopsis; even on here. The acting was good. I really disliked the direction and director choices on this movie- then I saw it was a male director and it made sense why the first love scene kinda made me squirm. I totally felt the made-by-a-bruh-for-bruh's. Not at all the demographic of this genre. Being that I really adore great Lifetime movies, I expect and welcome some camp and spoon-fed, obvious plot-twists. When done right it's charming and enjoyable. But less than one minute into the opening of the movie the ridiculous continuity problems ie a dead body facing straight up in one shot, and with it's head cocked extremely to the right in the following shot, symbolic red paint drips onto what looks like concrete then immediately to a white tarp... come on director dude. The one thing a good Lifetime movie has is respect for it's style. I work in this business. I'm positive the editor/s wanted to fix the foibles and just insulting continuity problems but the director, who is responsible for this, just locked edit and sent this as finished. This director doesn't understand the cult genre and seems to assume he can just be sloppy and throw in such poor direction as well.

The acting was great though. Kudos to the actors. I feel for you all, having to take such bad direction. Now I understand why Jenna Kanell doesn't have her name in the billing. It was probably her choice.

If you love lifetime movies this won't disappoint, lots of drama and eye candy. it feels a little low budget, sometimes, but James Maslow is awesome as the bad guy, and he's even sexier when he's being evil. The other young people in the movie, the landord daughter and her bf are really good too. Sometimes the movie is actually tense and scary and sometimes it's trying to be and isn't but overall it's what you'd expect and isn't a let down.

The first 20-30 minutes are a little slow but it picks up and turns into a great ride, exactly what you'd expect. Not every aspect of the movie is perfect but where it makes up for it and excels is casting. Lorynn York is a strong female lead, and lights up the screen as the concerned, suspicious daughter trying to protect/save her mother, played by Tanya Clarke. Clarke delivers a solid performance even though her character's refusal to see anything odd or weird about her boarder/boyfriend makes her seem a little desperate or daft (but still a great performance). Maslow is spot on as the eerily creepy handsome guy, and the energy/tension between Maslow and York is one area where the film excels. Adam Huber rounds out the cast as the perfect cop/ex-boyfriend. While it's tempting to think of this as a case of the playing being better than the piano, or performances being better than the film making, the director does a solid job. The pacing of the first 20-30 minutes is slow but once it gets into the action the film delivers.

Lifetime is shameless about having hunky male actors with their shirts off. Add to that a well acted, well written script, and you have a instant Lifetime classic. Pour it up!

🔪🔪🔪🔪 (4 Knives) 🍷🍷🍷 (3 glasses of wine required.)

I wanted to give this movie 10 starts, because idea is good. And acting really. Maybe not so professional, and not much stuff to see, not much effort, but really i did feel real fear during watching. Like in real life from real criminals. I gave it one star less because at the end acting of beating him up was so fake, there was not single punch real, camera did simply skipped hitting parts. It teaches and motivates us to beware of criminals, especially young in our neighborhood, town, city, village, or even home. Many young people are criminals. Such scary people exist and are problem and threat. Looks like this is one more movie from Lifetime tv channel, which really has lot good movies, all about real life, all filled with interesting emotions. Movie looks real, gives you fear, and is unpredictable.