A Kiss So Deadly (1996)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

RELEASED TO TV IN 1996 and directed by Chuck Bowman, "A Kiss So Deadly" is a drama with elements of romance & crime starring Charles Shaughnessy as Tom Deese, a concerned father who's concerned about his daughter who moved out to live on her own (Dedee Pfeiffer). Living with two roommates on the North Carolina coast (Charlotte Ross & Noelle Parker), the girls are sorta stalked by a creepy man (Scott Simpson); meanwhile, Deese becomes infatuated with one of the roommates (Ross). Kerrie Keane plays Deese's ignored wife while Tom Bresnahan plays the daughter's beau.Although this is a TV movie, it breaks the threshold of greatness for what it is; and does so on a few fronts. The theme revolves around the power of a beautiful woman and the corresponding male obsession. Ross stands out as the "hottie" and her beauty is highlighted from the get-go (the father stumbles upon her in a bikini in his daughter's apartment and you can just see "Whoa, Mama!" displayed on his face).Unfortunately, Amanda (Ross) has developed the faintly unwholesome disposition of a babe who is wont to sleep around. She is nicely contrasted by the intuitive insightfulness of the daughter (Pfeiffer) and the winsome wholesomeness of the other girl, June (Parker). Speaking of whom, I enjoyed June's subplot in the third act, which nicely contrasts Amanda's relationship with Deese. I wish it were developed more. Personally, if I were to pursue any of the three girls (not that I would, since I'm married), it would be June.Any male who has experienced the inward upheaval that goes with a crazy crush on a beautiful woman will relate to what the father goes through in this flick. "A Kiss So Deadly" effectively shows the potential dangers of uncontrolled infatuation. Be wise, my son.THE MOVIE RUNS 96 minutes and was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina. WRITERS: Monica Parker (story) &Nevin Schreiner (story & script).GRADE: B+/A-

Spoiler alert...if you're interested...So there's three college roommates--Catherine, June, and Amanda. We learn that Amanda is a fairly promiscuous girl pretty early on in the movie. When Catherine's father, Tom, comes to visit, he sees Amanda half-naked and is immediately smitten with her. They sleep together twice before he becomes obsessed. Later on, when Amanda is finished with work one night, she asks her boss to walk her to her car, but he's on the phone. For whatever reason, she decides not to wait and is murdered in her car.From there, the plot drags on as Catherine becomes hysterical and angry while everyone's trying to figure out who killed Amanda. Meanwhile, Tom is taunted by the "creepy stalker guy" that has been watching the three girls, and tries to take advantage of June.So anyone who bothered to watch this movie is wondering, what was the point of the creepy stalker guy, and why did he send pictures of Amanda's murder when it was believed he murdered her? Tom admits in the end that he killed her; clearly the stalker guy is quite perceptive and knew what was going on, knew about Tom's obsession and wanted him to get caught.There are a lot of wasted roles in this movie, which is sad--June, Catherine's mother, and Catherine's boyfriend, Todd. If there wasn't so much time spent on the ridiculous situation of Amanda and Tom, they could have been put to better use. The police are quite gun-happy and shoot without caring--they killed the stalker trying to break in the house and they killed Tom, even though he wanted to die, when they were told to hold their fire.All in all, this is just an odd movie--I finished it shaking my head, wondering, "What did I just watch?" Don't bother with this movie unless you can't find anything else to watch--it's not worth the two hours.

Sorry, but I found this TV movie obvious and rather slow moving. It was directed by Chuck Bowman and written by Nevin Schreiner from a story by Schreiner and Monica Parker. Unfortunately, the detours were pretty obvious. As to who murdered Charlotte Ross, the only rewarding performance in the film, who was a college room mate to Deedee Pfeiffer, who looked older than her mother. Her makeup was soooo extreme, that I felt she belonged on the street somewhere. Does her mom and dad let her walk around looking like a paid model escort? I know she's sister to Michelle, but far from able to pull off a college student in this movie. As the character, you wanted her to mind her own business. Always poking around. She's determined to have her father hung. And when we get to the end of this melodrama, she suddenly has this hysterical crying scene, when she did everything she could to make it happen. Go figure. Charles Shaughnessy, yes from THE NANNY, does what he can in a one level role. He has a moment or two, but not too many. Keerie Keane, mother and wife of Pfeiffer and Shaughnessy, also does her best with what she's given. Now they tell me there is a DVD coming out of this movie? You got to be kidding

For those who CARE... this may contain spoilers Oh, why must my mother watch Lifetime? I will never know, but she does... and, well, for whatever reason, I ended up watching much of it, too. Lucky me...Charles Shaughnessy is Tom, a successful factory owner with a wife and college-aged daughter (allegedly college-aged...she is played by Deedee "Michelle's sister" Pfeiffer, who looks like she was done with college awhile before this was made, and sports a very annoying coloring job...annoying enough for me to notice such a stupid detail.) Tom might have been satisfied with his life, but when he meets his daughter's new roommate Amanda(Charlotte Ross...NOT Jeri Ryan, as I thought for the entire run of the movie. To give her credit, though, she was probably the best one in this) that all changes. He thinks he is falling in love with Amanda and finds every excuse to come and see her. Amanda is all casual and accepting of this at first, but finally tells Tommy-boy that their love has to stop. Tom acts shocked and upset and for some reason staggers away, assumingly out of Amanda's life. However, that night, Amanda is murdered.Was it Tom? Well, one might think so, but see--Amanda is just so beautiful and wonderful that she has ANOTHER admirer, some creepy man who ogles her at some club she likes to go to. In fact, after her altercation with Tom, Amanda went to that club and had a run-in with the man, whom the bartender kicked out. Did he really leave, though? When Amanda goes to her car--and it is patently obvious that somebody is lurking in the back seat, well, is it that man or is it Tom?I guess the rest of the movie exists to sort out these details, as well as Tom's daughter discovering his romance with Amanda and Tom stupidly going after his daughter's OTHER roommate, because I guess he just has some THING for college chicks, or something. Is the second half of this movie suspensful? Is it worth the viewing? Well, here is where the spoilers may come on, because the plot becomes so literally ABSURD that it practically becames a waste of ones time to watch it. Still, I should be polite and not COMPLETELY give away Amanda's killer, so I will just say this: why would that creepy other guy be IN this movie if he didn't kill Amanda? He wouldn't have a point, unless he was inserted as some cheapo device of false suspense. Well, guess what MAJOR SPOILER ALERT he is.... So, um, Tom somehow snuck to the club, CHANGED HIS APPEARANCE and "pretended" to be this creepy other guy? Because it was soooooooooooooooooooooo that other man who was waiting for Amanda in the backseat of her car, the one who murdered her in some truley disgusting pseudo-porno scene that practically looked worthy of "Red Shoe Diaries 4: Auto Erotica." I did miss about the first ten or twenty minutes and perhaps missed Tom HIRING this man to go after Amanda, but I don't know. The creepy guy eventually went after Tom and his family, and stupid Tom acted like he didn't even know him, so don't ask me...Also, don't ask me why the event of Amanda's death suddenly brought out a British accent in Tom, why he MAILED HIS DAUGHTER PICTURES OF AMANDA'S MURDERED BODY, why he took pictures of Amanda's murdered body in the first place, why the movie seemed to be so anti-police, potraying them as maniacs who would shoot anybody for any reason. And why did they...Uh oh, spoiler alert..... kill off the two men who would have perhaps had some answers to this inanity. Basically, that stalker-character was just stupid and pointlessness, right down to his death... but check out Tom's(hey, I WARNED of spoilers)...the editing looks like a flipbook. Weird. And why did the writers, or whomever, off him, anyway? Were they sick of him? What was sickening, was that I think the audience was somewhat supposed to care, like Tom was a sympathetic, "troubled" figure. Which is about as ridiculous as everything else in this TV movie.