Newlywed and Dead (2016) Shenae Grimes-Beech, Christopher Russell, Samantha Ferris, Venus Terzo, Brent Stait Movie Review

Newlywed and Dead (2016)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Newlywed and Dead (2016)

Mummy Issues

Despite not having known him very long Kristen Ward (Shenae Grimes-Beech - Date with Love) finds herself not only falling for her boss, Jay Morgan (Christopher Russell - Wedding Bells), but marrying him and moving in to his impressive home in the valley. Kristen's mum, Annie (Samantha Ferris), a deputy sheriff, is not overly happy about this hurried marriage especially when she looks in to Jay's past and discovers he was arrested for assault, not that it concerns Kristen as it is in his past. But when Jay's aunt, Barbara (Venus Terzo - Reluctant Witness), shows Kristen how much she looks like Jay's mother she becomes a little spooked especially when she learns that his mother died in mysterious circumstances. When other people start to die in mysterious circumstances Kristen becomes concerned for her life.

They should have added on to the end of "Newlywed and Dead" the word "déjà vu" as that is the sense I got whilst watching it. That comes from the fact I need more than just my hands to count the number of made for TV movies I have watched where we have a young woman rushing in to a relationship, this time marriage, only to discover their other half has dark secrets and she ends up in a life threatening situation. But there is more to "Newlywed and Dead" than that as we learn early on that Kristen looks a lot like Jay's late mother and that he has a few mummy issues, thanks to a variety of flashback scenes which detail his relationship to his late mother.

The trouble is that between "Newlywed and Dead" reworking the familiar theme of the new wife not really knowing her husband and the less than subtlety when it comes to Jay having anger issues there isn't much else to this made for TV movie. Okay so Shenae Grimes-Beech is attractive and does vulnerable quite well whilst Christopher Russell seems to be the text book definition of tall, dark and handsome but it is their looks which are appealing rather than their characters. And all the characters in "Newlywed and Dead" are that mix of being generic and unrealistic.

The question of course is as a thriller does "Newlywed and Dead" work? For me I couldn't get past the routine and familiar nature of it making it all incredibly predictable. But it made me think back to the first Lifetime movie I watched which went with the newly wed storyline and remember enjoying it. And I guess for those who have never watched one of the many similar movies then "Newlywed and Dead" could be quite entertaining.

What this all boils down to is that "Newlywed and Dead" is an extremely typical Lifetime movie which reworks the new husband with secrets storyline and whilst doing an okay job it doesn't do anything that you won't have seen before.


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