source: A Fatal Obsession

Moviecut—A Fatal Obsession

I love Eric Roberts and Tracy Nelson and watch them in everything they're in. However, this move is terrible (not their fault). Terrible story line. Just not a believable story line.

OMG, I had to turn this "movie" off after 10 minutes. The voice DID NOT follow what was on screen. Sound terrible. Screen unusually dark. Eric Roberts must be so desperate. Eric, you're acting days are over. Fire your manager. You should consider this your ROCK BOTTOM. I'm sure you have friends who need yardwork done buddy.

So I am a lover of Lifetime 'B' movies because they are typically so bad, it is hard to look away. Eric Roberts is one of my all time favorite 'B' actors because he is so bad I can't stop watching the trainwreck that ensues in his productions and the icky feeling I have after watching them. I typically want to have a steaming hot shower with bleach to rid myself of the feeling that his loathsome characters leave me with and I am never entirely sure if those characters are actually acted as much as exuded. This particular movie was a special one in that it had me so confused, I didn't know if it was a movie about any one of the following: 1: A newly sober, washed up author (Eric Roberts) who loved his wife and 'mustard' (a nickname he gave his devoted daughter in the first scenes), but failed to please his reading audience with his new work. 2: A crazy, drunken wife-beater, who had immediate remorse after his daughter 'mustard' saw him attacking her mother and pleaded for forgiveness. 3: A waterfall in different lights (repeated scenes in different lighting, lasting for 30-40 seconds at a time, interspersed at regular intervals, with no connection to plot and having no obvious symbolism). 4. A haggard woman with 'man hands', trying to escape her abusive husband while attempting a second career as a photographer only to be 'wooed' ever so easily by her overweight, yet avid 'runner' neighbor, after he offered to help her unload her car while verbally abusing his son and offering her tacos. 5: How quick one can totally change their face, physique and coloring by undergoing plastic surgery. Picture Eric Roberts and Harrison Reese being the same man in the matter of 3 weeks time, with no scarring or recuperation time necessary. It's completely plausible... 6: Unresolved endings...boyfriend sits in car as all kinds of atrocities occur within the walls immediately beside him and there is no word of his existence ever again until the aftermath is over and the end credits are about to roll. I would highly recommend this movie to all those who love to watch really bad TV movies because it hurts so good! Like a horror movie that is hard to look away from, this movie is painful in all the ways that you can't believe it is really happening and therefore have an obligation to keep watching to see how it redeems itself. Movies of this caliber and genre are all the more satisfying to me, when they don't redeem themselves, because my in-credulousness results in unrest and disbelief that anyone could have undertaken such a roll in anything so unspeakably bad. I get the hankering to write a review, hence one of three such reviews ever! Thank you to all who participated in 'A Fatal Obsession' as it gave me 1 hr and 30 min or so of viewing, but so many more hours of ruminating over the horror show that it ended up by being....and the few minutes of enjoyment I had in writing the review that you are now reading!

Popular horror novelist Eric Roberts (as Michael Ryan) is disgruntled at the reception given his latest effort, a non-horrific attempt at serious literature. Fans want more of the old stuff. They give Mr. Roberts a unanimous thumbs down. Drenched in alcohol, Roberts lashes out at his haggard wife Tracy Nelson (as Christie) and their mature-looking teenage daughter Remington Moses (as Miri). Remi looks like her mom. Mother and daughter move out of their Connecticut home and go into hiding, with Ms. Nelson hoping to make it on savings and work as a professional photographer. She takes headshots of swarthy actor David Winning (as Harrison Reese) while Ms. Moses gets chummy with high school senior Colin Chase (as Kyle Lang)... Mysterious stuff happens and we wonder if psycho papa Roberts has found his runaway family and is causing trouble... This lugubrious "Lifetime" TV movie misses the mark in several instances, with the most obvious being a plot twist that strains credulity to the breaking point. The plot point in question is something that works best in comic books. If handled differently, it could work in TV movies; it certainly doesn't work in this production. Age inappropriateness ranges from a few years to a few decades. Transitional shots of waterfalls and babbling brooks may symbolize a story unraveling. Of the cast, Roberts is the most convincing. He could probably hit his marks while sleeping. The man has experience. With Roberts in the opening "book signing" scene, director James Camali and photographer Ronnee Swenton get their most intriguing angles. *** A Fatal Obsession (2015-03-12) James Camali ~ Tracy Nelson, David Winning, Eric Roberts, Remington Moses

When it comes to crappy B movies and bad horror, I'm somewhat of a connosoir. I can ignore things like jaunty cameras, bad acting, audio that doesn't line up with the movie, 1960's style special effects and even huge plot holes, as long as the story makes sense or has some sort of original idea. This movie showed some bad acting, but none of the other things- the reason I couldn't stand it was mainly the bad directing and the poor story layout. I had to rewind it about 3 times to see what had happened the scene before because scene to scene did not flow very well or make much sense. The introduction of new characters was abrupt and largely unexplained, to the point where the audience must inevitably ask, who the hell is this guy?? Some movies might structure that sort of thing into the story- a mysterious character for instance. This is not what I saw in A Fatal Obsession. It was just sloppy all around. Bad camera angles, bad flow, bad emphasis on the wrong things... After rewinding a few times to try to piece together the plot niches, I got bored and said f it. Skip this one, my horror cohorts, it is not worth the time to even try to find a redeeming quality here.

****MAJOR SPOILERS**** Filmed in Mystic CT. in the dead of winter with the temperature at times dropping to -33 below zero you have to give the cast and crew credit that they were able to survive finishing the movie much less then survive the antics of its star Eric Roberts as burned out writer Michael Ryan. With his latest novel "Fatal Obsession" getting the thumbs down by the public Ryan too drunk and barley able to stand on his feet takes his frustrations out on his both wife Christie,Tracy Nelson, and teenage daughter Miri, Remington Moses, driving them out of his house as he almost strangled Christie to death. Now with both Christe & Miri starting a new life with crazy and drunken Michael out of it in Mystic CT. he suddenly seems to have come back to finish the job, by murdering them , that he at first started. We never get to see Michael but he seems to be all over the place as close to them as the tenant that they invited to stay in their house out of work actor and all around nice guy Harrison Reese, David Winning. As things turn out a number of people that the Ryan's know back home and in Mystic ends up being murdered by what they feel is Michael with Miri's new boyfriend Kyle, Colin Chase, ending up in the hospital after he's attacked by the mysterious stalker. ****SPOILERS**** The surprise ending that comes 3/4 of way through the film was a lot like the ending in the 1954 Ed Wood classic "Jail Bate" with Michael reappearing out of the shadows with a whole new look as well as, up until he reviled himself, personality. What was really strange about the movie besides the crazed and filled with revenge Michael Ryan was the so many shots of water falls and title waves in the movie? Where they the script writers trying to tell us, the audience, something but never seemed to connect with those, or at least me, of us watching.

A Fatal Obsession