Lifetime Review: 'Psycho Escort'

Even two years after her husband's tragic death, Diane Cooper (Victoria Barabas) finds herself reluctant to get back in the dating scene, despite her sister Lori's (Kat Fairaway) insistence. Reluctantly, though, Diane agrees to Lori's suggestion that she use The Companionship Collective--a service in which clients are matched up with escorts who can attend functions with them--to find a "date" for an upcoming work retreat. As a result, Diane finds herself matched up with Miles (Nick Ballard), who effortlessly charms Diane's co-workers and who Diane finds herself clicking with despite herself.

But as the days go on and Miles begins growing closer to both Diane and her young son Jake (Jacob Sandler), the more Diane begins to wonder just how well she really knows Miles. As Diane begins to notice strange things about Miles and learns some shocking secrets from his past, Diane grows fearful. Will Diane's next date be her last?

If one were to begin watching Psycho Escort without knowing its title or the channel on which it's airing, they would be forgiven if they thought they were watching a Hallmark romance drama. The chipper music accompanying many early scenes wouldn't be out of place in Dater's Handbook or Over the Moon In Love, and well-versed Hallmarkies could make a drinking game out of how many familiar tropes pop up (romance challenged leading lady, supportive sister who encourages protagonist to give dating another shot, charmingly quirky love interest, etc.) For at least the first half hour, a blind viewer might be wondering if a Hallmark film got aired on Lifetime by mistake.

On paper, such an idea would make for an interesting and darkly comedic premise: taking all the sweet, romantic tropes from a typical Hallmark film and infusing them with Lifetime-ian drama and mayhem. Coming on the heels of the spectacularly meta-humored Deadly Mile High Club, it would've made for another fun thriller with a witty edge. Unfortunately, the premise that Psycho Escort brought to mind for me proved to be far more creative and interesting than the movie itself. While Hallmark-identifiable tropes can be spotted by knowledgeable viewers, it would appear that they were either happy accidents on the part of the writing team behind Psycho Escort or their effort to make a Lifetime-ian spoof of Hallmark features was squandered by the film's painfully sluggish pace and dull mood.

Those two aforementioned flaws end up being what ultimately kills Psycho Escort's chances of being an enjoyable film: the pacing and tone of the film both prove so monotonous that it may be enough to send viewers away by the second act. The third act proves especially trying due to how much build-up there is to the climax, which ends up being a standard "Alone With the Psycho" conclusion that stretches itself out so thin that the climax is rendered virtually devoid of tension.

(SPOILER ALERT When Diane began opening up about how she hated her husband for leaving her and goading Miles into admitting to killing his wife for cheating on him, I was expecting a plot twist where Diane revealed she had actually also killed her spouse, and possibly had even manipulated Miles' instability to goad him into killing Kyle for her. That would've made for a much more interesting turn of events than the boilerplate climax we end up getting: Diane tricks Miles into thinking she accepts his insane love before fighting back and knocking him out, runs outside, and returns to find Miles gone--with the final shot revealing him watching her from afar after the police have arrived. Spoiler Alert)

But in spite of the overly drawn out pace, Psycho Escort's script somehow still manages to leave some of its plot threads and characters underdeveloped. While there are a good amount of well-handled scenes of Diane opening up about and dealing with her grief from the loss of her husband (scenes that are well-acted by Victoria Barabas), her character is hindered by the film being inconsistent on how she feels about Miles as he begins integrating himself into her life. Initially, it appears she feels a connection with him and wants to make their faux-relationship the real thing, but then she nonsensically shifts between wanting to trust him and becoming aware of his red flag behaviors. There's also a subplot revolving around Diane's troubled young son Jake and her attempts to help him process his grief over his father's death, which only gets about two minutes worth of screentime before Jake is otherwise completely forgotten about by both the movie and (as it would appear) Diane.

It's a shame Psycho Escort ends up flopping so badly in terms of pace and story, as the cast--particularly the leads--prove strong and do what they can with the shoddy material they're given. Barabas (fresh off a powerful performance in A Mother Knows Worst) allows Diane to remain a sympathetic protagonist despite her inconsistent character, with her best moment being when she first opens up to Miles about her husband's death. Nick Ballard, meanwhile, brings the same quirky charm to Miles as he did to Whit in the similarly underwhelming Deviant Love, striking chemistry with Barabas and following her example in scenes where he opens up about his own experience with loss. And while Psycho Escort waits far too long before letting Miles' dark side come to the surface, Ballard makes the most of what time he has to make Miles a disturbingly delusional villain who genuinely believes his deranged obsession is love.

(Between these two stellar leads, Ballard is the one who earns the most sympathy from me. Between this and Deviant Love, it seems as though the man's cursed to only play villains in subpar movies)

The supporting cast proves similarly strong, with Kat Fairaway using her surprisingly limited screentime (given how instrumental she is in setting the plot into motion) to keep Diane's sister Lori likable without hitting any unfortunate implications a-la Tempted by Danger's Angela. Joseph C. Phillips makes a strong impression as Diane's supportive boss Garrett, and Donovan Patton does well to keep Diane's work friend Russell likable, even as the film's events briefly steer him into "Self-Proclaimed Nice Guy" territory. Max E. Williams proves to be the gem of the supporting cast, however, as the impossibly smarmy and underhanded Kyle, playing him with such over-the-top sleaze that you can't help but love him.

Unfortunately, this strong cast is ultimately left stranded in a movie that proves too much of a boring slog for many to enjoy. The script is too dry and formulaic to be entertaining, several story beats feel underdeveloped, the pace is unbalanced and slow, and the potential for Psycho Escort to become a stealthy spoof on the Hallmark Channel is tragically abandoned. With better writing, that goldmine of a premise could've been salvaged and thus given the strong cast something they could all sink their teeth into. But as is, Psycho Escort is one movie date you're better off skipping.

Score: 3 out of 10 crab rangoons.