IstaPsycho (2020 Lifetime)
Cast: Nicky Whelan, Makenzie Vega, Laura Wiggins, Kim Director, Josh Kelly, Will Peltz
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Synopsis (via Lifetime)
When a selfie goes fatally wrong, Gwen must protect her daughter, Maddie, from her social media-obsessed best friend.
Thoughts
A girl in yellow shoes in hanging off a cliff screaming for her life.
Cut to a blonde, Maddie, and a brunette, Kelly, texting during class. Their teacher is hot AF. The glasses aren’t fooling anybody.
Kelly is a foster kid who gets bullied by another girl named Sasha. (Sho is social media famous.) Kelly lives in a double-wide with abusive trailer trash foster parents and aspires to be social media famous too. She steals a bra and goes live to show it off. Then she takes a selfie giving the camera the finger with the hashtag #SuckItSasha
The redneck foster dad makes sexual advances at Kelly, and she kills him. (Poison) It is ruled a suicide, and Kelly uses it to her social media advantage. Kelly posts a suicide awareness post and gains a lot of sympathy from her classmates. (and followers!)
Maddie has a boyfriend, and her mom is a fancy realtor with a cheap hairpiece. Her dad is dead, but she is pretty content for life and proud of her mom for being so resilient, Maddie backs Kelly up and maks a joint post with #SuckItSasha on their brests. The next day at school, they walk around the hallways as notifications fill the screen around them. Think mean girls in 2020. (Later, Sasha retaliates by tripping Kelly and recording it.) It doesn’t matter because the whole school chants, “Suck it, Sasha!” at lunch.
The bullying goes too far, and Sasha’s parents call the principle who calls Maddie’s mom, Gwen. Gwen was telling the girls stories of her wild and crazy high school experiences. (Which included her walking on a cliff with her eyes closed???) Gwen demands to see Maddie’s phone and social media posts. Gwen is very disappointed in her daughter. (So is Maddie’s boyfriend, Kurt.) Maddie gets grounded but sneaks out of the house in the middle of the day.
Kelly, Maddie, and their other friend Ava drive deep into the woods. They decide to do the cliff walk that Gwen talked about. Ava goes first and slips on some rocks, falling to her death. Maddie and Kelly run away, screaming and video recording the whole thing. After confirming Ava is dead, they use social media to make it look like Ava was on the cliff by herself and fell by accident.
The next morning, Gwen finds Maddie’s dirty cliff clothing and knows that something is wrong. Everyone at school knows something is wrong, too, and is concerned about Ava. A detective finds Ava’s car and body he calls it in. He goes to the school and finds muddy shoes in Sasha’s locker. Sasha gets arrested. Maddie wants to tell the truth, and Kelly bullies her into sticking by her side. (She also admits to killing her foster father.) Then Kelly posts a video about raising funds for Ava’s funeral.
Gwen gets fired by Sasha’s dad, who owned the fancy listing she was about to sell. Gwen asks Maddie to come clean about Ava. Maddie cries in her mother’s arm. Gwen takes Maddie’s phone and pretends to be her while texting with Kelly. Kelly isn’t fooled and escalates things. She asks “Maddie” about sleeping with the hot teacher. Then Kelly sneaks panties and a love letter with Maddie’s perfume in the hot teacher’s desk.
Gwen goes to the principal who fires the hot teacher and suspends Maddie. Kelly records the whole thing, and Kelly attacks her in the hallway and screams that Maddie is the reason Ava is dead. Maddie runs to Kurt and tells him everything. They decided to clear Sasha’s name and place the blame where it belongs, on Kelly. Maddie apologizes to Sasha and teams up with her to take Kelly down. They hack Ava’s phone and get the footage from the cliff. The blackmail Kelly and tell her to meet at a disclosed location.
With her daughter missing, Gwen decides to give Kelly a ride home and pick her brain. Gwen asks Kelly how Ava even heard about the cliff walking since she wasn’t there when Gwen told the story. Kelly asks Gwen to come inside as she shows Gwen the video footage of the cliff murder. Kelly hits Gwen in the head, knocking her out, then steals her cash and car.
As Kelly drives to meet Maddie she has flashbacks of killing her foster father and him being creepy AF. They meet in the woods and throw their phones on the ground to have a real conversation. Maddie and Sasha appeal to Kelly’s rational side. They promise to go to the principal together and say they all were there when Ava died, it was just an accident. Kelly admits to being jealous of Kelly, killing her foster dad and Ava. Kurt pops out from behind a tree and has been live-streaming the whole thing.
Gwen breaks out of Kelly’s house and steals some random person’s car. Gwen stops Kelly from killing her daughter and tells her that she loves her. Gwen hugs Kelly in her arms and comforts her as she cries. The police arrive and take Kelly away. It was an unexpected climax, and I liked that Gwen was the mother Kelly’ never had, even if it was for a brief moment.
Kurt and Maddie go to prom together and don’t post on social media about it!
Side Note
Minority Report: Sasha, Jack, and maybe the detective?
Sorry, I have to say it. Nicky Whelan’s hair is TERRIBLE.
Also known as InstaFame
I like Makenzie Vega (in Assaulted) & Laura Wiggins (in Shameless)
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Overall rating
🔪🔪🔪 (3 Knives)
🍷🍷 (2 glasses of wine required.)
*Photo Credit: © 2020 Lifetime
