Locked In My House

There are people out there who do not want complicated plots or original ideas, they prefer traditional TV movies that follow a certain pattern that are very easily constructed so you can easily enter the film without thinking too much. I can appreciate certain TV movies as long as they are good enough to be entertaining and i do believe there is a market for TV movies since not everyone likes movies that cost 200 million U.S. dollars. Back in the early 2000´s i actually had The Hallmark Channel on my digital box. I barely watched that many films on there since so many of them seemed so similar and the only ones i could appreciate were mostly western films. Since then a lot of things have happened and TV channels like Lifetime have gone in a different direction than Hallmark Channel and produced more criminal drama films, even some thrillers sometimes. I personally feel that Lifetime have managed to balance TV movies better than Hallmark Channel and actually made an effort to do something more interesting with a simple plot. Every film they release are not good but i do feel they have more powerful stories to tell compared to Hallmark Channel. Over the years on my movie review blog i have reviewed a couple of Lifetime movies even though i don´t look for all their releases. Sometimes i review one title just to mix it up a bit and perhaps please some of my readers who happen to be Lifetime fans. Sometimes i watched a Lifetime movie and didn´t even review it and that´s exactly what happened with a film called Safe Room from director Boris Kodjoe. This is actually one of my personal favourite Lifetime movies that i have seen, it reminded me of the 2002 thriller Panic Room with Jodie Foster except in Safe Room the mother Lila Jackson ( Nicole Ari Parker ) is not only trying to survive against criminals but have to make sure her autistic son Ian Jackson ( Nik Sanchez ) doesn´t struggle more with his diagnose. Too bad this film never had a physical DVD release because this is actually pretty good for being a Lifetime movie. Recently i went through a list of Lifetime movies that´s been released within the last couple of months and decided to review one title, just to give one of them a try and see if i would enjoy it. I picked the film Locked In My House from director Adrian Langley without knowing that much about the plot. Is this a TV movie that you probably will enjoy this summer or is Locked In My about as exciting as watching a grass field grow?

Caris Carter ( Natalie Brown ) is hoping to get pregnant by going to a very well known clinic getting help from Dr. Ryan Marrick ( Damon Runyan ) through IVF treatment. While she gets a health check from Dr. Ryan he touch her innapropriate and this causes Caris to feel sick and disgusted. She goes straight to the police station and let her partner know what happened to her. She get to speak to Detective Corali ( Conrad Coates ) who promise to look into Dr. Ryan and see if they can get more information from him. Caris finds out more women have gone through the same thing as her, and this is where she takes matters into her own hands.

While the 2022 Lifetime film Safe Room at least had some suspense and some interesting characters i feel that Locked In My House could have delivered something more than what we are served. Not saying this is a horrible film for being a TV movie regarding sexual assault because it is a very important topic that should be told, they just tell the story too soft and too polished. I think if you want to make an impact with such an important topic you should avoid polishing the surface too much, because then the subject itself doesn´t get the same impact as it may have if you tell the story more raw ( without showing any specific details ). The most interesting detail is when victim Caris Carter ( Natalie Brown from TV horror series The Strain, a must watch ) kidnap Dr. Ryan and keep him locked inside her basement. This is where i feel Locked In My House works best in the scenes where she tries making him confess his crimes. Not that she does it in a effective way but i would imagine she just decided to do anything she could to get his confession. I think if she would have been more violent towards Dr, Ryan, pushed him much more in certain scenes that would have helped Locked In My House be more interesting as a revenge film. I fully understand this would not help the fertility story anything but let´s be honest, that part of the story is lost very early in the film so i think they should have gone for a revenge story instead. Actress Natalie Brown is the best actor in the film and even though the performance may not be really strong it matches the character and that´s good enough for me. Actress Lora Burke from the independent horror film Lifechanger is not too bad either in this film. At the end of the day it feels like Locked In My House had potential to be an interesting revenge story but decides to go all over the place instead of focusing on that particular part of the story. Since this is a Lifetime movie i know it can´t be too violent, too bad it actually would have needed that. Director Adrian Langley directed the 2020 solid horror film Butchers that i enjoyed. His film Locked In My House looks good but should have been made to a more raw revenge story and not a softly polished female empowerment drama. A Lifetime movie i am pretty sure will be forgotten unless you are a fan of actress Natalie Brown.

Rating: DD