Deadly Inn (2018 Lifetime)
Stars: Angie Patterson, Aria Pullman, Chad Michael Collins
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Synopsis (via Lifetime)
A single mother buys a breathtaking Victorian home and turns it into bed and breakfast. She opens her doors, and her and her adopted daughter meet a cast of fascinating characters. But when Beth arrives with a dark past involving the house’s history, she reveals her deadly secret agenda with shattering results.
Thoughts
A couple is arguing in a beautiful (but probably haunted) Victorian house in a mountain town. Their child’s daughter watches on as they fight about taking medicine. Eventually, the wife spills her pills, and very dramatic screaming happens?
Flash to five years later. Robyn is a single mother/interior designer who is looking to fix up the place into a BnB. She moves in with her adopted tween daughter, Ava. They sweep and move boxes around until a handsome contractor, Drew, arrives to do a walkthrough. The movie is feeling very Hallmark until we see a woman in an overside sweater leaving a mental institution and walking to the Victorian House. The woman is the woman with the pills from the beginning of the movie.
Montage of fixing up the house and listing it on a BnB website happens. (Including a shot of shirtless Drew.) The first customer is the woman from the mental institution. (in the same oversized sweater!) Her name is Beth, and she is paying in cold hard cash. Beth fixates on Ava as a replacement for the daughter, who died during the argument with her husband. Beth knocked her daughter down the stairs and killed her.
Beth is doing all the Lifetime “crazy” things like cutting Robyn’s face out of pictures, and talking to Ava while she sleeps. Beth takes it a bit too far and puts spiders in Robyn’s bed. (Trigger warning for anyone who has arachnophobia, because these spiders are SCARY!!!!)
More guests arrive at the inn: a retired black couple and young city slickers. Beth isn’t excited about the extra guests in her house and does her best to get rid of them. Beth creates a scene and slaps the city guy, Craig, across the face claiming her sexually assaulted her. His girlfriend starts throwing things and destroying the guest room. Beth takes a paper clip and threatens them with it as Robyn rushes in to mediate the situation. The city slickers leave dramatically and threaten to write a bad Yelp review. All the commotion disrupts the retired couple, who also want a refund on their room. Beth follows Craig and pushes him in front of a moving truck. (It is a much better tactic than a paper clip.)
Beth goes to the school to pick up Ava. Erica, who recognizes her and is concerned. Beth’s real name is Iris, and Erica wants to make sure she is on her meds and in treatment. (Erica is a nurse in the hospital, and she sets up a meeting with Robyn to address her concerns.) Beth isn’t, of course, and rigs a ladder to fall when Robyn uses it next. Robyn falls and gets a concussion. When Ava finds her unresponsive adopted mother, she cries REAL TEARS and begs Robyn to hang on. It is the best acting in the movie hands-down.
With Robyn in the hospital, Beth offers to take care of Ava. She also takes care of Robyn’s will, leaving Ava to herself. Then she finds Erica and pushes her down a flight of stairs, so she won’t reveal who Beth REALLY is. (Thing to note here, Beth cleans up the crime scene by squirting some hand sanitizer on the floor and moving it around with her foot. The girl needs to watch some Dateline.) Erica also leaves a note with the name Iris on it, which Robyn finds.
With the body count piling up, detectives begin to look into the case. Robyn does some investigating of her own and finds a woman in the mental institution who knew Iris and shows a picture that Iris made of the Victorian house.
As if this movie couldn’t get any stupider, a mystery author with a bad British accent moves in. They team up together and try to figure out who Iris is. When the mystery writer questions Beth about Iris and her dead daughter, Beth stabs him to death with a screwdriver. Then she frames Drew for the murder.
The police take Drew into custody and question him. The press gets a hold of the story and writes an article that tanks Robyn’s BnB business. As Robyn is looking to the financials, she notices that her will is in her recent documents. Robyn pieces together that Beth is Iris, but it is too late. Beth is behind her with a butcher knife, wielding it wildly.
As the woman struggle, Ava wakes up and helps her mother get away from Beth/Iris. They lock themself in a room, and Ava screams that she is not Beth’s daughter. Beth grabs an electric saw and starts hacking away at the door. (This Jack Nicolson in The Shining, but dumber.)
Meanwhile, Drew is speeding to the house to save them. Upon arrival, he gets stabbed instantly. Beth/Iris is about to stab Robyn but is stopped by Ava on the top of the stair landing. Beth sees Sophia (her daughter) in ava and is so shocked that she backs up and falls down the stairs breaking her neck, leaving her paralyzed. (and haunted by her dead daughter.)
Drew, Robyn, and Ava take a hike to a waterfall. I guess they are a happy family now? Good for them!
Side Note
Minority Report: Ava, Erica, retired couple, Detective, Nurse, honeymooners,
Location scout spent so much time looking for a great house to feature that they couldn’t be bothered to find a hospital? The hospital was an old bank or something with extras in nurse outfits.
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Overall rating
🔪🔪 (2 Knives)
🍷🍷🍷🍷 (4 glasses of wine required.)
