Lifetime Review: 'Killer Body'

Dr. Katie Jones (Sunny Mabrey) has a picture perfect life: A successful career as a plastic surgeon, a doting husband in former surgeon Chris (Peter Benson), and amazing children in teenage daughter Jess (Abby Ross) and Aidan (Mason McKenzie). Even with Chris struggling to recover from a stroke, Katie has managed to keep things together for the most part.

However, that all changes when former medical school classmate Elizabeth (Lindsay Maxwell) shows up at Katie's practice, with Katie being stunned by her change in appearance and demeanor. As opposed to the shy Plain Jane she was before, Elizabeth is now confident and beautiful. Despite Katie's assurances, though, Elizabeth insists on undergoing surgeries from Katie. After her surgery, however, Elizabeth's true nature emerges—and Katie realizes that not only is Elizabeth obsessed with having the perfect appearance, she's also obsessed with her and will stop at no end to destroy her life.

In the grand scheme of things, Killer Body (originally titled The Wrong Patient) is a routine "Woman Scorned" Lifetime film. While the plot may not surprise anyone, there's one element that makes the story revitalized: Elizabeth Oakley, and how well Lindsay Maxwell throws herself into her magnificently unstable character. In the hands of Maxwell, Elizabeth becomes more than just a beauty obsessed psychopath; instead, she's transformed into someone who is able to use her newly found looks and surprising intelligence to do whatever she pleases without fear of repercussions. Her arrogance and confidence is so high, Elizabeth hardly wastes any time even pretending she doesn't have a secret agenda in mind for Katie. Behind her calculated and manipulating front, though, Maxwell shows in small doses that Elizabeth is teetering on the edge of insanity, making her ultimate digression into complete psychotics seem more natural.

Despite all that, however, Maxwell even allows for some moments of humanizing empathy for Elizabeth. For all her coldhearted scheming and deranged plans, it's clear that underneath it all, Elizabeth is essentially a miserable and cripplingly insecure woman desperately trying to achieve the perfection she believes will fix her problems. Her spiel in which she rants about how she wants to be Katie and have her seemingly perfect life not only highlights her instability, but also her immense unhappiness and insecurity in how she looks—in spite of her new look. By adding this element of humanity to her character, Maxwell makes Elizabeth a compelling villain while also keeping her crazy and manic enough to entertain drama hungry viewers.

That's not to say the rest of the cast doesn't hold up compared to Maxwell. Sunny Mabrey (fresh off The Perfect Mother, where she also finds herself victim to a villainess obsessed with perfection) makes for an instantly likable and sympathetic protagonist as Katie Jones, while also proving herself proactive when she realizes the true danger she and her family are in, with the climax having her at her best in this regard. Peter Benson is similarly developed as Katie's devoted and protecting husband and Abby Ross makes a surprising impact as Katie's teenage daughter, with Jess fully subverting the template for Lifetime teenagers and having a moment where she proves so in spades, while also showing she's not afraid to stand up for her mother against the unbalanced woman threatening to ruin her life.

Killer Body's biggest flaw is that it's a slow-burning thriller, which is bound to bore and drive some viewers away. But if you can get past the buildup, the twisted plot and the exceptional performance of Lindsay Maxwell will more than make Killer Body a thriller that appeals in regards to both high-octane thrills and character depth that makes for the best dramas. If you're looking to binge obsession thrillers courtesy of Lifetime, The Perfect Mother and Killer Body would make for excellent choices.

Score: 7 out of 10 perfume bottles of death.