Deadly Delusion (2017) (aka: The Lease) Haylie Duff, Mike Faiola, Teri Polo, Louis Mandylor, Melissa Mars, Michael Rene Walton, Josie Achaval, Cheryl Anderson, Justin Bigelli, Del Brown Movie Review

Deadly Delusion (2017)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Haylie Duff in Deadly Delusion (2017) (aka: The Lease)

Reality King

With her husband, Shane (Mike Faiola - Fatal Flip), getting a promotion, Julia (Haylie Duff - Bad Twin) finds herself relocating to LA to a fancy new home. Whilst it might be a new place her old demons are still present as she has a dream of being chased, thinks there are intruders in her home, is convinced she saw a snake in the sink and is basically struggling like she had prior to moving. It is why she not only calls Shane many times a day but also remains in touch with her psychiatrist, Dr. Leary (Teri Polo - J.L. Family Ranch), by video chat who has her on medication and tries to reassure her that when she was young her parents were not murdered but died due to a carbon monoxide incident. But with things getting worse Julia takes it upon herself to try to get to the bottom of what is going and is shocked as to what she discovers.

Having been around the TV movie block for a few years now I am use to the same ideas doing the rounds each year or so. As such when "Deadly Delusion" starts with Julia having a nightmare about being chased and we quickly discover she is having specialist help I quickly assumed that this made for TV movie, which is also known as "The Lease", is another mind games movie. By that I mean that I recognized the elements to suspect that someone in this movie was trying to mess with Julia's mind to make her go insane. What I couldn't immediately work out was who or why but I had a bit of an inkling.

But credit where it is due as whilst "Deadly Delusion" has its flaws it is still engrossing. Firstly we have a variety of people who due to the way Julia reacts to them makes us question whether they are involved, giving this an almost cluedo like element as we have many potential suspects even if they don't initially appear to have a motive. Then there is the camera work and from the slight movement of a camera to give an observational feel the movie starts to feel creepy in a stalking sort of way even if at times it feels like it goes a little too far and forces that feeling. And on top of that there is Haylie Duff who gives Julia a sense of quiet hysteria, struggling to cope in a world where every time something unsettles her those near to her seem even less believing of what she says.

What this all boils down to is that there is a very familiar side to "Deadly Delusion", one which may make some people a bit bored of it. But this has plenty of positives from the camera work to the way Haylie Duff plays Julia as hysterical but not completely psychotic.


LATEST REVIEWS