BLACKWATER LANE (2024)

Studio:   Lionsgate
Director: Jeff Celentano
Writer:   Elizabeth Fowler
Producer: Elizabeth Fowler, Warren Ostergard, Shaun Sanghani, Lucinda Rhodes Thakrar
Stars:    Minka Kelly, Maggie Grace, Dermot Mulroney, Alan Calton, Natalie Simpson

Review Score:

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Summary:

Implicated in a mysterious murder, a schoolteacher questions her sanity after haunting experiences continue to unravel her mind.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Following interactions with her 15-year-old student Andrew and her handsome colleague John Collins, schoolteacher Cass Anderson drives home on Blackwater Lane despite her husband Matthew advising against it. Along the way, Cass observes a woman slumped over inside a car parked on the side of the road.

A news report the next morning reveals the woman that Cass saw was murdered. At a birthday party for her friend Susie, Cass learns the dead woman was Jane Walters, whom Cass had previously met because Jane worked with Cass's longtime best friend Rachel.

Cass begins receiving static-filled phone calls and having strange experiences such as seeing fleeting visions and feeling as though someone tried drowning her in the bathtub. Matthew reminds Cass that she has suffered from memory issues since the traumatizing death of her mother, who suffered from dementia.

After a visit from a security man who appraises her house for an alarm system, Cass visits a roadside memorial for Jane. At the site of Jane's death, Cass finds an earring that matches a single earring she has at home. Detective Constable Lawson subsequently comes to question Cass after receiving an anonymous tip that she was on Blackwater Lane the night of Jane's murder.

Cass goes to her school to meet her colleague Mary only to learn from John that Mary is out of town and the text message arranging their meeting has strangely disappeared. In discussing Jane's murder, John reveals he was Jane's tennis instructor, but he stopped giving her lessons upon learning her husband Alex was jealous.

Following more strange experiences, Cass collapses while home alone. After waking to her mother's voice seemingly calling her name, Cass calls the police, who in turn discover Cass previously spent time in a psych ward after her mother's death.

With her husband supposedly out of town, Cass discusses recent events with John. Cass mentions her student Andrew might have a crush on her since he visited her house earlier to return a book. John tries kissing Cass, but Cass rebuffs his advance.

Cass visits Jane's widower Alex. Alex reveals Jane was only on Blackwater Lane the night of her murder because she supposedly had a late meeting at her office, but Alex wonders if Jane might have been having an affair, possibly with John.

After several events she doesn't remember such as ordering a baby stroller and signing a security system contract, Matthew compels Cass to visit Dr. Deakins for a psychiatric evaluation. Later, a letter supposedly from Dr. Deakins seemingly diagnoses Cass with early onset dementia like her mother had.

Detective Constable Lawson visits Alex Walters. Alex tells the detective that prior to her death, his wife mentioned that someone she knew was having an affair. Meanwhile, Cass continues having unsettling experiences that ultimately land her in the hospital after an apparent prescription pill overdose.

Lawson questions Cass again. Cass shows Lawson the earring she recovered from the crime scene that matches a missing earring of her own. Cass also mentions how she inherited her massive mansion from her parents, who bought the property from her friend Rachel's family following a financial scandal.

From Susie, Cass learns Rachel once had an affair with the husband of one of Jane's friends. A car then tries running Cass off the road. Finally, Cass discovers a discrepancy with the security system contract that reveals her husband misled her by drafting a second document.

At a lunch together, Cass tells Rachel she thinks Matthew might be having an affair. Rachel grows uncomfortable when Cass asks if she has ever had an affair with a married man. While Rachel is in the bathroom, Cass swipes a burner phone from her purse.

Text messages and voicemails recovered from the phone reveal Matthew and Rachel were having an affair. When Jane caught the two of them having sex in the office, they conspired to kill Jane and frame Cass for the murder with an elaborate scheme to make it seem like Cass was suffering a mental breakdown.

Enlisting Andrew, John, and Lawson to help her with a plan to expose Matthew and Rachel, Cass fakes her own suicide. Matthew and Rachel use the opportunity to search for the incriminating phone. John tries to subdue Matthew, but Rachel knocks John unconscious. Matthew and Rachel then chase Cass into the woods and capture her.

Matthew and Rachel futilely attempt to continue gaslighting Cass. Rachel confirms she was jealous of Cass's large inheritance and purchase of Rachel's former family estate. In an ensuing struggle, Rachel accidentally stabs Matthew, who dies. Lawson arrives to arrest Rachel.

Cass revisits Alex Walters. Cass recounts the entire story of how Matthew and Rachel were romantically involved for a long time, and how Rachel purposefully introduced Matthew to Cass with the intent of pulling a long con that involved driving her to suicide. Cass adds details on how she convinced Andrew, John, and Lawson to participate in her counterplan to bring Jane's killers to justice.

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Review:

If you want to steer clear of thriller or horror movie situations in real life, one smart move would be to limit your locations to addresses with innocuous names like Pumpernickel Boulevard or SE 137th Street. Scary circumstances in fright films are always exclusive to places with ominous names like Witch Cauldron Canyon or Haunted Hangman Hollow.

Which is bad news for schoolteacher Cass Anderson. The quickest shortcut to her remote mansion runs through the dark woods of Blackwater Lane, so you just know something awful is bound to happen there. Cass is one of three characters specifically described as "half-British," which "Blackwater Lane" makes a conspicuous point about, seemingly only to address why the movie takes place in the UK, yet is headlined by three American actors. It's almost as sore of a thumb as Cass's pretentiously poetic narration about her favorite time of the year being when summer gives way to autumn, because "the falling leaves seem to remind us that the only constant is change." This is odd as it prefaces a scene where Cass says goodbye to her students since the current term is over. Shouldn't school be starting in the fall, not ending?

On her nighttime drive home through Blackwater Lane, which coincides with a rainstorm of course, Cass sees a woman inside a car stopped on the side of the road. Cass doesn't think too much of it until a news bulletin the next morning reports the woman was found murdered. More shocking than that, it turns out Cass casually knew the woman as a coworker of her longtime best friend Rachel.

Not long after, Cass begins experiencing strange events. These things start with the usual static-filled phone calls and a random figure seen standing on her lawn, then escalate into being nearly drowned in a bathtub by an unseen hand and completely forgetting various encounters she swears never happened. Cass's husband Matthew, a textbook "disbelieving spouse" trope, reminds Cass she's had memory issues ever since her dementia-afflicted mother's tragic death, so his concern extends as far as gaslighting Cass into thinking any unusual occurrence is probably just another "crazy wife" hallucination.

Cliched characters continue popping in as Cass ends up implicated in the mysterious murder. First on that docket is the dogged detective who forgoes the phone in favor of coming all the way out to Cass's isolated estate whenever she needs to ask a follow-up question, even if it's just one.

Next come the red herrings as "Blackwater Lane" expands its story to introduce romantic affairs linking Cass, her husband, her friend, the victim's husband, and others to having possibly salacious motives for murder. By far the best of these, and by "best" I mean "most stereotypical," is Cass's handsome colleague John, who teaches alongside her during the day and is also a tennis instructor, uh, I guess not during the day but maybe on weekends? It's like "Blackwater Lane" insisted on having the standard hot tennis coach as a possibly murderous side piece, but could only connect him to Cass by making him her coworker at a totally different job, too.

Based on B.A. Paris's novel "The Breakdown," "Blackwater Lane" is obsessed with ending every other scene on a fade to black even more than George Lucas was fascinated with wipe transitions in "Star Wars." Standing out for all the wrong reasons, clunky editing like that appears to be par for this film's course. It's just a shame that of all the conventions "Blackwater Lane" predictably follows, trimming a flabby 105 down to a svelte 90 minutes wasn't on the checklist. With a rate of roughly three producers to every one person in the cast, you'd think someone would have covered that base.

The real mystery of "Blackwater Lane" is how it ended up independently produced when it fulfills all the common criteria for a filler film Netflix likes to overpay for. It has a good-looking cast of mid-level names, any of whom could feature on a "Law & Order" spinoff. It has an easy-to-follow formula for featherweight suspense. It has a potboiled plot tailor-made for wine sippers who like tawdry tales. One thing "Blackwater Lane" doesn't have is a single element to set it apart from every similar slow-burn yarn going through the motions of someone questioning their sanity only to discover, surprise, they were never really crazy at all. I don't know what goes on over on Pumpernickel Boulevard, but I'm confident it's a million times more interesting than what happens on "Blackwater Lane."

Review Score: 40

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