A Fatal Distraction
Taking into account that "Hush" is a TV movie and so certain weaknesses are expected I sadly have to report that "Hush" is still not a good movie. Here we have a movie which takes the familiar ground of a psychotic woman wanting to get her claws into a man, we are not in one night stand territory as in "Fatal Attraction" but an ex who still has feelings for a former lover and plans to get him back by any means. Whilst there is some shall we say ingenuity to this routine storyline as infertility treatment is brought into the mix it plays out in a very predictable manner and unfortunately never reaches the terrifying point that these sorts of movies strive for.
Nina (Tori Spelling - A Carol Christmas) and Noah Hamilton (Tahmoh Penikett) are desperate for a child but nothing they do including invetro treatment is working and with moving back to Noah's hometown to take over the practice his father set up it is a stressful time for Nina. It becomes even more stressful when she meets Callie (Victoria Pratt) because whilst on the surface she seems friendly Callie has a secret, she use to date Noah and now wants him back and nothing is going to stop her. Discovering Nina's issues with getting pregnant Callie masquerades as her to have infertility treatment using Nina's last two frozen embryo's which miraculously make her pregnant, just another step closer to getting Noah.
So lets say what is good about "Hush" first and that is the whole pregnancy aspect of the storyline. I'm not saying it's handled realistically, I can't believe for a minute Callie would be able to pull off the whole masquerading aspect to have the last infertility treatment but it adds a nice twist on the norm. And that twist involves something which happened between Noah and Callie when they were younger and a big reason why she wants to get pregnant.
But get beyond this semi clever embellishment the rest of the movie is routine as we have Callie behaving psycho. When she has a bunny boiling moment and kills Nina's cat it is not that surprising and when she tries to manipulate her way back into Noah's affections it is just flat out routine. And so it goes on because this whole psycho woman aspect of the movie never reaches the point of terrifying which it really should.
Now part of the problem with this is the character of Callie because whilst Victoria Pratt pulls off the devious and manipulative look she never ever appears to be truly psychotic just very bad. It needed to be more; she needed to border on the cackling deranged ex rather than sexy bad which is how Pratt plays her. But ironically Pratt's is the best performance because both Tori Spelling as Nina and Tahmoh Penikett as Noah are so flat they are dull, in fact during the whole opening as we have the understanding husband being supportive it borders on the cheesy.
What this all boils down to is that "Hush" attempts to be a terrifying psycho woman movie but in truth never comes close to reaching the ball shrinking ferocity it needed to. That is not the only problem because flat characters, routine drama and some seriously cheesy moments makes it at times quite laughable.
