Release Date: 3/11/23; Lifetime
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-14
Director: Jaira Thomas
Studio(s): Swirl Films, Lifetime Television
Cast: Remy Ma (Patricia), Tami Roman (Mia), Daijah Peters (Cameron), Danielle LaRoach (Nancy), Stevie Baggs, Jr. (Chris), Teisha Speight (Joanne).
Story: Based on real-life events. 10-year-old Cameron, who, after her mother Patricia suffered an aneurysm, is adopted by her Aunt Mia, despite having a record as a convicted murderer that was overlooked by overworked social workers. Soon after arriving in her new home, Cameron begins to hear strange voices at night coming from the basement’s locked door. She later discovers what was actually behind that door–people chained to the wall, innocent victims of her aunt’s schemes to enrich herself by cashing their benefit checks. It wasn’t long before Cameron was demoted down into the basement herself, where she would stay for the next ten years while her mother frantically searches for her whereabouts without much help from social services or the authorities. When Cameron finds herself locked in a closet with no food, no water, and no human contact, only her faith keeps her alive before she is rescued.
This is the latest in Lifetime’s “Girl In” movies which showcase harrowing stories of women who survive horrific circumstances, per the network’s news release. The movies include Girl in Room 13, Girl in the Basement, Girl in the Bunker, Girl in the Box and Girl in the Shed. Source: mylifetime.com.
Trailer:
The town’s dead, led by Melissa’s great-great-great-great-grandmother Lucinda Cavender, a witch who was put to death 300 years earlier, rise up from their graves and roam the town. As Melissa, Vinnie, Mitch, and Mary enjoy themselves at their annual Halloween costume party, Phil encounters a mysterious girl, named Sandra “Sandy” Matthews, dressed in a vintage 1950’s cheerleader outfit, who warns him that the whole town is in danger.
When the local police do not take Phil and Sandy’s warning seriously, Phil manages to get his father’s hunting rifle to make silver bullets from his father’s silver coins. When the couple ventures to the Halloween party, they discover everyone turned into undead zombies, vampires, witches or other evil beings. Phil manages to get the Grenville Spirit Ring from the zombie Vinnie. Phil and Sandy drive back to the town’s cemetery to break into Grenville’s crypt to take his remains to use to seal the scroll just as Lucinda and a horde of undead arrive and attack. Cornered in Phil’s car, he and Sandy manage to use candle wax to seal the parchment scroll and in a flash, Sandy and all of the undead vanish, plus the wounds that Phil sustains during this event disappear and the damage to his car is also gone as if the entire event never happened.
Phil finds himself all alone in the cemetery where he finds Sandy’s grave and finally learns that she has been one of the undead too, but that restoring the damage done has also made Sandy disappear too. As the time turns twelve midnight, Phil begins to drive back to town when he hears a music dedication on his car radio from ‘Sandy’ in devoting a song to him implying that she will always be looking after him from beyond the grave.
Release Date:
Black Cinema Connection 