Villainess Review: Valerie Hudson (A Professor's Vengeance)

Lifetime Movie Network's "Homecoming Week" ends with this film, A Professor's Vengeance, which centers on grad school student Nicole Atkins' attempts to move on from her past affair with married professor Daniel Hudson. The quest is made difficult when Nicole ends up taking Daniel's writing class, and it gets worse with Daniel's continuous advances. The film also establishes that Daniel has strayed from his marriage before with another student; something that his wife, Valerie Hudson, won't let him forget, no matter how hard he tries to do so.

Nicole starts a budding relationship with classmate Brandon Davis, but all the while, she's being stalked and pursued. It started out as stalking, but on the morning after Nicole and Brandon's tryst, it became murderous, as Brandon was drugged and killed by someone entering Nicole's house. Nicole is convinced that Daniel is behind everything, leading to the Hudsons being interrogated by lead detective Kate Larson. Daniel denies everything but later admits to having an affair with Nicole, leading to Valerie (who actually claimed to be her husband's alibi) lashing out at Daniel after the revelation.

Nicole searched Daniel's office for evidence of his complicity, and later finds a story regarding the death of another student, Rebecca Reese, months prior. After evading her stalker yet again, Nicole went to the home of Rebecca's mother, Pamela Reese, who revealed that her daughter had also been seeing Daniel, while also mentioning that Rebecca was killed by an overdose of ketamine. Nicole later contacted Valerie, who arranged a meeting with her to discuss Daniel, only for Nicole to find two surprising things at the house: a sobbing Valerie and a deceased Daniel.

Daniel's apparent suicide didn't end things, as Nicole learned from Kate that Daniel had drugs in his system. An online search for ketamine revealed that it is often used by veterinarians, and after remembering that Valerie was one herself, Nicole returned to the library to search the video footage from the night she was stalked, and sure enough, she found it: video evidence of Valerie at the scene.

Nicole confronted Valerie at her home regarding Rebecca and Brandon, only for Valerie to deny everything; however, after being shown video evidence of her villainous persona, Valerie confessed. The deranged Valerie admitted to killing Rebecca months prior, doing so to punish Daniel, and while Nicole believed that Brandon's death was a case of mistaken identity, Valerie stated that it was intentional--her twisted way of punishing Nicole for her affair with Daniel. The villainess struck Nicole with a glass to thwart her escape, and after tying her up, she was preparing a dose of ketamine in her attempt to kill Nicole.

While Valerie used ketamine on Rebecca and Brandon, she didn't use it on Daniel. She drugged her husband with painkillers before strangling him to death in his sleep, and later set up the hanging body afterwards. Valerie scoffed over Nicole's statement about her not knowing that he was married at the time, and set out on her plan to kill Nicole and set her up as a suicidal and heartbroken young woman. Nicole freed herself and fought off Valerie, who continued her pursuit, only to be sprayed in her eyes by Nicole. The two women scuffled, and in the end, the villainous Valerie met her demise--as she was stabbed with her own syringe.

A Professor's Vengeance aired on Lifetime Movie Network on September 26, 2021, and the film featured Crystal Day as the villainess, Valerie Hudson. Valerie was a deliciously wicked villainess; in fact, she was one of my favorite types: a scorned woman who was driven to madness by infidelity and hatred. What I loved even more about Valerie was that she didn't really hide it. A lot of these scorned villainesses usually mask their bitterness up until the reveal. Valerie didn't. She was that vengeful and angry. Valerie's schemes included murder and mental torture, and what I saw was Day perform brilliantly while acting out Valerie's anger and her psychotic personality during her climactic reveal.

Crystal Day is not only an actress, she's also an author and singer/songwriter, so she wears many hats. She's done mostly short films, so this is her debut into the foray of Lifetime films, and what a debut it was! I hope to see Crystal Day play more epic villainesses like this; her performance in this film definitely proves that she is capable of doing so!

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