Driven to the Edge (2020 Lifetime)

Driven to the Edge (2020 Lifetime)

Stars: Taylor Spreitler, Danielle Burgess, Amanda Grace Benitez, Stephen Friedrich

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Synopsis (via Lifetime)

Fashion designer Tess is a true millennial obsessed with using rideshare apps to get wherever she needs to go. When she meets a new friend, Jaye, during a car ride as a fellow passenger, they immediately form a strong bond. But as Tess’s friends start to question Jaye’s odd behavior and even recognize Jaye as one of their past rideshare drivers, Tess slowly realizes the new friend she’s made is harboring a disturbingly dark secret with an agenda to ensure Tess never leaves her.

Thoughts

A young man and older lady couple jump into a rideshare and stars making out, the driver starts driving erratically and misses a turn. The couple get out of the car at a mansion that is also a smart home. Just as they are about it get it on, the rideshare driver breaks into the house and beats them with a bat.

Cue to a blonde woman named Tess who owns and lives in a fashion boutique. (We know this by the rediculous outfits she wears.) She is heading downtown for a big meeting and accidentally gets into a woman named Jaye’s ride. Jaye offers to share the ride since Tess is running late for her meeting. The ride is going fine until the rideshare driver is pulled over and arrested. The women walk the rest of the way and talk about how rideshare drivers need to be screened better and talk about a murder that recently happened. They exchange numbers and agree to be friends.

After the meeting, Tess gets into a rideshare and doesn’t notice that the driver is Jaye. Tess stares out the window and has her headphones in while Jaye says she has given her rides three times, and she never notices. Jaye promises to give her the ride of her life and to buckle up. After dropping of Tess, Jaye drives to the mansion and watches surveillance video of her killing the couple while texting Tess. Then she practices, smiling in the mirror. This woman is unhinged from the get-go, and I love it.

While playing catch? Catch. Tess opens up to Jaye about losing her parents. Tess was adopted and feels lonely. Jaye also lost her parents and keeps a bat her dad gave her at all times. Jaye continues to rideshare and stalks Tess in-between rides.

On one rideshare, Jaye drives erratically while driving a man named Steve. She steals his phone and then tells him that she wasn’t even his driver, and she is not going to let him out of the car alive. She films the whole thing on her dashcam and watches it later. Then she shaves off the head of a toothbrush with a razor.

Tess brings Jaye to meet her BFF, Olive, and her new boyfriend, Issac. Olive mentions that Tess has her identity stolen recently and has removed herself from all social media. Jaye excuses herself to practice smiling in the mirror in the bathroom. Issac recognizes Jaye because he is a rideshare driver too. Jaye can’t have Issac spilling her secret, so she kills him by getting in his rideshare, taking him to a remote location, and beating him with a bat.

Back at her design studio, Tess works on a dress when she gets a call inviting her to Jaye’s mansion, who is picking up another rideshare victim. Like a real serial killer, Jaye blames the victims for being stupid enough to get into her car. This one she kills by bashing the passenger into the walls and windows of the vehicle when the passenger removes her seatbelt.

In an oversized glitter suit, Tess enjoys wine with Jaye in the mansion and eats Chinese food. The conversation takes a strange turn when Jaye guilts Tess to be in the fashion industry and focuses on sustainable fashion. Olive calls Tess because she hasn’t heard from Isaac and thinks he is ghosting her. Jaye gets jealous and invites Tess to spend the night and drink more wine. (The wine looked delicious in the movie.) As Tess sleeps, Jaye watches her and talks about the first woman serial killer named, Lavinia Fisher. Then she tucks her in.

The next morning, Tess wakes up and leaves, on her way out, she runs into Jaye’s ex-husband who is looking for her and wondering why she is ignoring her calls. Well, that would be because the real Jaye is dead and fake Jaye has taken her place.

Danny, an ex of Tess’s, is back in town, and she plans to meet up with him. Olive gets a text from “Issac.,” too. She plans to meet up with him and calls a rideshare.

Olive gets into the car and recognizes Jaye. Olive asks her to pull over and is freaked out. Jaye tells her to relax and enjoy the ride. In a furry bucket hat, Olive escapes from the car and thinks she hears Isaac. It is a voice recording. Olive is killed with a bat by Jaye, her bucket hat unfortunately survives.

Her next kill is Miles Jaye’s ex-husband. She beats him with the bat in a parking lot, and while he dies slowly, she talks about another notorious 1901 female killer named Jane Toppan or “Jolly Jane.” she was a nurse who took joy in watching her patients die.

On her date with Danny, Tess is surprised when she gets into the rideshare, and Jaye is her ride. Jaye explains that she lied because she is going through a bad divorce and is trying to make ends meet. When Danny gets out of the car, He tells her to “hang in there.” Jaye goes home and watches the dash-footage over and over. Then she texts Tess from Olive’s phone.

Jaye talks to herself in the mirror about her legacy and eventually gets caught to kill all these people. Getting caught doesn’t stop her from killing again. She picks up Danny and calls him a dum dum. She tells him about Dorothea Puente, another serial killer, and stabs him in the stomach with a toothbrush shiv.

Jaye invites Tess over for dinner and tells her that Olive and Issac will be there. Tess is weirded out but agrees to go when she gets a text from Olive’s phone.

At dinner, Tess shows up in a vertical striped pantsuit. She is surprised she is the first one there. Jaye pours some wine and shames Tess for her rideshare rating. (A 3.3, which honestly is pretty low.) Jaye even admits that she gave Tess a ride a couple of times, then she excuses her self. Tess texts Olive to see where she is and hears the phone chiming in the house. She follows the noise and finds the footage of the murders. Jaye hits Tess in the head with a bat and throws her in her car.

Tess wakes up in the backseat and understands that Jaye is a serial killer. Tess is taken to the remote location and hears Olive calling for help; you would expect it to be surveillance footage, but Olive is ALIVE. (Thankfully, the fury neon bucket hat is gone.) Jaye tells Tess to kill her best friend to feel REAL power. Just like Jaye did when she first killed as a little girl.

The movie flashes to a young girl named Sue and her mother. They plan to kill her father with a baseball bar. Sue beats the man with a bat while he is sleeping. Jaye says that it felt great to murder, and she felt powerful. She then reveals that she is Tess’s sister and that Tess was put up for adoption because of the murder.

Tess can’t believe what she is hearing. She breaks a leg off the chair Olive is in and hits Jaye with it. They the women run into the woods (Lame owl sound effect here.) to get away from Jaye. They flag down a car, but it is a rideshare. Tess vows never to take one again.

In Seattle, Faye has renamed herself Tess and picks up another couple to kill with her toothbrush shiv.

Side Note

Minority Report: Issac, Olive

The fashion in this movie is WILD.

Also Known as Deadly Rideshare

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Overall rating

🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 (5 Knives)

🍷🍷🍷 (3 glasses of wine required.)