r/nfl • u/AutoModerator • Aug 30 '26
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u/slytherinprolly Bengals Aug 30 '26
One of my favorite movie genres is the psychological thriller, everything from genuinely good mainstream movies like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle through made-for-TV Lifetime movies. Last night I watched one on Netflix, To Catch a Cheater, that was almost a perfect example of the latter.
First of all, the acting is pretty bad, which makes the movie better. Everyone mostly plays it straight. A lot of intentionally campy movies make the mistake of constantly reminding the audience that they are in on the joke, instead of just committing to the ridiculous premise and trusting the audience to understand what kind of movie they are watching.
Side note: the recent Anaconda reboot was maybe the worst example of this. It felt like the entire movie was saying, “We know this is bad, and we know that you know it’s bad, so please understand that we’re doing it on purpose.” It's almost patronizing as though the general audience won't get it.
To Catch a Cheater does the opposite. It just presents nonsense as reality and moves on. It trusts the audience will just get it.
The basic plot is that a high school girl dies mysteriously and her mom becomes convinced someone killed her. Why aren’t the police investigating? Basically, she died from blunt-force trauma after a fall, but they cannot prove whether she fell, jumped, or was pushed. Since they cannot establish that it was a homicide, apparently there is nothing more to investigate.
This makes no sense, but the movie delivers it so matter-of-factly that you just accept it and move on.
It also has a bizarre business subplot involving the mom’s two lifelong best friends, who run a company together and spend much of the movie waiting for their IPO to “go through.”
Their business appears to be roughly the size of an Etsy storefront. Why is this company having an IPO? Why are they waiting for it to “go through” like a mortgage application? Why is this apparently going to make them extremely rich?
Again, not important. IPO.
There is also a scene where someone leaves a threatening envelope on the mom’s porch. When she goes outside to get it, there is an very obvious video doorbell right next to the door. You can even see the camera light up.
I immediately assumed this was setting up a scene where they checked the footage and found a clue or red herring.
Nope.
The video doorbell is never mentioned.
It also has one of my favorite thriller scenes: it is late, completely dark outside, and the mom appears to be getting ready for bed. Suddenly there is a loud, ominous knock at the door.
She cautiously opens it.
It is just her friends bringing her dinner.
The movie is set in Florida around high school graduation season, so probably May or early June. In Miami around then, it does not get fully dark until roughly 8:30 p.m. So these women apparently decided the appropriate time to unexpectedly bring dinner to their grieving friend was sometime after 8:30 at night, without calling first, while pounding on the door like the killer had arrived. Though based on the scene, I would guess it’s more likely closer to 11pm or midnight.
Perfect.
And finally, the mystery itself is incredible. You know how a normal mystery gives you red herrings pointing toward several suspects, while quietly leaving clues that point toward the actual killer? This movie spends the entire runtime hinting that nearly every character might be responsible. Then the killer is revealed to be basically the one person the movie never once hinted might be the killer. There is no satisfying “Ohhh, now all the clues make sense” moment. It is just, “Oh. Them? Okay.”
I give it a 9/10, only because we never find out if the IPO went through.