| A Christmas Murder Mystery is a poor man’s version of Lifetime murder-of-the-week movie. Most people don’t think that there is a lower production of a movie but this is it. Lighting and filming are soap opera level, editing is worse, and dialogue and acting which naturally go hand-in-hand are atrociously bad and unnatural. This could have been directed by a computer in addition to being written by one. | | 2025
Directed by: Peter Sullivan
Screenplay by: Jeffrey Schenck, Peter Sullivan
Starring: Morgan Bradley, Vivica A. Fox
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Where do we begin? Well this is a difficult question because the movie itself doesn’t even know where it begins. Ellen, the matriarch of a rich family, has discovered her husband has died. Random cut to a newspaper office where the boss (Vivica A. Fox) can’t find her keys – there is no point to this other than finding screen-time for the only famous actress in the cast who has been sloppily written into the movie. It also introduces us to Vera – a puzzle editor who also works for the sheriff (huh? Just go with it, you won’t get an explanation).
Vera is smart and what she lacks in social skills she makes up for in observational skills. This is a common character type for murder mysteries, but it works way better when they’re funny. This is not a fun character for a drama, and it’s an even worst fit for romance.
Back to the plot, Vera has been invited by the rich family to spend the holidays with them “because they know I don’t have anyone else to spend it with” is the reason given, but you’re not going to get anymore than that, like what the connection is. As Vera and all the adult kids arrive back home for New Year’s Eve dinner, the normal sibling squabbling occurs (but with worse dialogue than you’re prepared for). And then Ellen the matriarch discovers her husband has died. I don’t think the husband died twice, I think the movie forgot that he had already died.
As I said, the editing is bad which is an understatement, you should at least be able to keep track of how often the lead character dies and if it’s more than once, something is wrong. There is a lot wrong here and it’s certainly not going to get saved by AI-level dialogue and stereotypes of a rich family. A Christmas Murder Mystery is unwatchable.
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