A movie in the vein of 'The hand that rocks the cradle', though with plenty of differences. What stands out the most is that a good guy who you'd expect to live through the whole film, gets killed within a good half hour, but we all remember such a twist from 'Psycho' (1960).I can't say the movie is áll bad, but the story deserved a lot more attention than it got. It remains unclear how things really are with a couple of the main characters; is Brandon really the asshole his 'friend'(?) Howie makes him out to be? If so, you can't help but sympathize with Shane a little. Is Shane's father right about Shane having lied to get a scholarship? If so, how did Shane get the scholarship? All he has to be is a good wrestler, which he clearly is. Then there's the relationship between Caren and Phil, or whatever is left of it. The biggest questions surround the death of Brandon, though. Why don't his friends speak up about Shane's setting up a spy cam and such? It is all so unclear and unbelievable that anything else positive hardly changes anything.Sure, Kelly Lynch is fine to look at, as I'm sure is Robuck for some, and the film is even atmospheric at times, but altogether this is just a doozie. Bad acting all around, except for some okay moments here and there. It's hard to believe 6 out of 7 reviews are so very positive up until now...A very small 2 out of 10.

Dreadful movie, rotten script, wooden acting. It looks cheap and was obviously made quickly. Even the make-up looks amateurish. The key scene involving an "accident" has an hilarious stunt dummy in it. That dummy puts in the single best performance. Even the props get in on the awfulness: there is a wonderfully bad moment when a very, very bad actor gets whacked on the head with a fake bottle of vodka by another bad actor.If it is raining outside, your wifi is down, you have no books to read, no chores to do, nobody in the house to talk to, no dog to walk, no tax return to file and no car to wash then I guess it might be worth giving up a couple of hours of your life. Otherwise, don't bother.

"Shane" (Nic Robuck) seems like a normal young man but under the surface he is a hot-tempered and mentally disturbed psychopath. As luck would have it, his new college roommate, "Brandon" (Brian Borello) makes the mistake of inviting him to his parent's house over a weekend. Once there, Shane takes the opportunity to embed himself deep into Brandon's family and like a malignant virus begins to spread destruction within it. Anyway, rather than spoil the film for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that for a film produced for "Lifetime" this one tested the boundaries just a bit when it came to a couple of passionate scenes. In that regard, I thought Kelly Lynch was terrific as the lonely and sexually starved housewife named "Caren". I also thought Nic Robuck did a pretty good job in his dark and volatile role as well. Now, while I would have preferred a format that was less restrictive this still turned out to be a slightly better than average movie in spite of it all.

We all know about Lifetime movies -or should I say Lifetime movie? These are variations on the same movie, which can admittedly take a (small) number of forms. Perhaps the most typical of these is the apparently ordinary but actually deranged individual who insinuates him- or herself into a family of innocents. Frequently the sicko will exploit an existing tension within the family for his/her own dastardly ends. Well, this is indeed what happens in this movie. But the similarity to a typical Lifetime movie pretty much ends there. This is no Anne Carlucci or Pierre David production. Nor is it directed by the ubiquitous, unimaginative, lifeless Douglas Jackson. Nor is the narrative punctuated with the characters' wholesome, sentimental, heartwarming chuckles. The film is directed with a sense of style, the actors are far above the level of mediocrity afflicting virtually all Lifetime actors, the camera work is relatively polished, the pacing and tempo never drag and the film is cut professionally. Armand Mastroianni is no star director, but he's way better than any of Lifetime's stable of inert "talents". What prevents Lifetime from turning out something like this more than every 3 or 4 years? A restricted budget? An obsession with low-budget Canadian dreck? Probably something along those lines. Lifetime would surely broaden its audience were it to look to put together more movies of this calibre. Make no mistake, Dark Desire is not a first-rate film. But it's got a polish and professionalism entirely lacking in just about every other of the network's products. It starkly underscores the low-rent, shallow and amateurish quality of most everything else Lifetime has tossed our way. It's time to put Carlucci and David out to pasture.