Fatal Lessons: The Good Teacher (2004)

Pretty Good

People are voting emotionally.

Captivating movie !

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Gold digging poisoner/femme fatale extraordinaire Victoria (Erika Eleniak) is fresh from her last caper and eying a new one. She adopts a new identity and takes a job in a small town as a schoolteacher.Quickly she targets a wealthy young couple with two children, one of whom is a pupil of hers. She becomes best friends with the wife and her gullible husband and continues to weasel her way into their lives stealthily threatening all that they hold dear. They come to find that the truth about Victoria is much darker than they ever could have imagined but it might be too late.Eleniak was Playboy magazine's Miss July for 1989. Often people define her by that title only. But she is arguably the very best of Playboy Playmates turned Hollywood actresses. In fact she was an actress (Child star) before she ever posed for Playboy. That was her in E.T. getting kissed by Elliott in the classroom scene. In feature film roles like Under Siege and Chasers she was more than passable. In this one however she bit off way more than she could chew and it comes off like a bad caricature.Ex-TV star Patricia Kalember (Thirtysomething) is not very convincing in her role as the wife/heroine. She does not play the role as the classic passive victim we are used to seeing in movies. Her own pro-activeness actually gets her into trouble and allows her to shape the plot.But she seems to look down upon the material here as well as the production itself. I do not just find her unconvincing as the character she plays. I actually think her distaste for the work she has settled for in this drek comes through despite whatever professional face she may have put on during shooting. She looks like she knows this one was headed direct to video or cable. Could she have known where it really did end up? Specifically, it is being marketed as a discount item for sale in dollar stores by an outfit known as Direct Source Special Products. Can you guess what price it commands? This looks like a TV movie and plays much like any movie of the week has but particularly like the not very good ones. It gives you some idea of why TV movies of the week are looked down on by audiences and often snubbed by actors who are offered roles in them.The controversial subject matter designed to win over audiences is another one of those Hollywood thriller clichés. Eleniak's character is to teachers here what Glenn Close was to mistresses in Fatal Attraction.As in other movies made for the small screen much of what is shown is sanitized, the supporting characters are played by no-name actors and the location is British Columbia doubling for the American Pacific Northwest. Casting was actually key in producing the dud that this turned out to be. The no-name actors in supporting roles are no-names for a reason. A non-descript guy portraying a Floridian victim of the title temptress spouts off his lines with an unmistakable Canadian accent.

And I don't mean the villain . This is a movie about a woman who all of a sudden befriends her daughters teacher. The new friend has a "I can't stand to see a family happy complex". So of course she goes out to destroy her family. This movie really bothered me because we have to suspend belief. We have to believe a wife of a doctor a fairly intelligent woman is going to not know something is very wrong with her new friend when things start happening right after she meets her. You see this new friend has a special tea she concocted and gave it to the Patricia Kalember character. This tea makes people forget things that they are suppose to do. So now we have this seemingly smart women forgetting all types of things and acting weird. But not only that she gives her family poison for dinner. Her hubby who before that seems like a blithering idiot decides to test the salad and finds poison is in it. Instead of sending her straight to get some counseling he takes a trip. Oh and the family dog ends up dead. But the most ridiculous thing about this flick is that instead of connecting the dots to the new friend she connects it to her trusty best friend. Even after her husband said her best friend would not do anything to her. They evidently have been best friends for years so all of a sudden the best friend is going to do terrible things to her including having a affair with her husband for no reason. Then she believes this strange man who knows about her new friends past but when he tells her he doesn't really know about her best friend she thinks that he is talking about her real best friend! Mind you the real best friend and her have not been talking now for a while. Or and of course the sociopath writes everything down. So we know sooner or later it is going to be read. The end is very predictable. She soon figures out that the new best friend is a nut it is very anti-climatic because she has read the plans her friend had wrote down. When she finally goes and apologizes to her real friend the friend accepts her apology. I am all for forgiveness but this women all through the movie disregarded her friendship with her best friend even against protests from her husband and let a newbie come in and take over. I would of told her forget about it because I would be weary of what would happen next time she met a new friend. THe actors do what they can with the script. But like I said one has to suspend belief to really feel any suspense, which is OK as long as the movie is Science Fiction, which this is not. I had no sympathy for the so called victim because of how she was so ready to blame everything on a long time trusted friend. I actually was rooting for the villain. Oh and why didn't anyone else in that family drink that ice tea? It was right in the refrigerator.

This made for TV movie is a mix of serial killer and other woman genres, that doesn't feature too many stupidities. (The biggest one is probably naming a character Samantha Stephens, as in Bewitched). The narrative doesn't supply much back-story or psychological motivation for the actions of the predator (and her spider-web stockings are a bit much), but then it doesn't make what she aspires to that attractive either - bland domesticity which "grows old". Also the notion of her writing a book of her story as she experiences it suggests that she wants to be caught, because her readership necessitates infamy, with the voice-activated word processor being a nice touch. Erika Eleniak is an acceptable villain, but she can't elevate the role into greatness. Whilst Patricia Kalember provides some tiny moments of pleasure within the confines of her role as doormat housewife, the best performance comes from Lori Triolo, who does wonders with a minor part and thankfully isn't punished. However, the climactic struggle to the death is too stunt-double obvious, with a denouement that is totally unbelievable.

FATAL LESSONS: THE GOOD TEACHER: Samantha Stephens and her unsuspecting family befriend a school teacher, Victoria, and suddenly a series of incidents occur, including mysterious phone calls, missing household items and strange family illnesses. Now Samantha must prevent Victoria from repeating her deadly actions of the past to save her family's future. Stars Patricia Kalember (Signs, Thirtysomething), Erika Eleniak (Baywatch, The Librarians, Betrayal) and Ken Tremblett (The Guilty, Tourist Trap, First Shot). Well the movie isn't that bad. If you don't have nothing good to watch, it's worth giving it a try. Patricia Kalembar must save her family from falling apart and all ends well..6/10