Amy Barrett’s latest Lifetime thriller, “A Model Murder,” features a highly predictable plot line along with very average casting compared to other recent Lifetime releases. The film follows the story of Kara, a model who is being stalked online. Later, the stalker comes into her life, eventually threatening her in many ways. The film, no matter how vague it becomes after a certain point, carries a very important message: advocating online safety, especially for women who are focusing their careers on acting, modeling, or both. These women must do everything themselves online and be wary of divulging too much personal information.
Spoilers Ahead.
A Model Murder (2024) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
“A Model Murder” starts with a model named Maxine going live on an exclusive site named ModelFans, where she reveals how lonely she is since she has gone through a breakup recently with her boyfriend, Roger. She seeks comfort among her fans who are seeing her live, and among them, an account named ‘Blaze’ (along with a fire emoji) puts a weird comment. Soon, Maxine finds out that the ‘Blaze’ person is standing right outside her house. Maxine has no clue how that person has found her address. Subsequently, she stops the live streaming and calls one of her friends, informing them that she will be staying there that night.
However, before Maxine can get out of the house, that person enters the house and finds Maxine. Tragically, she is killed. This news circulates around the models who use the same website for side income. Among them is Kara, a beautiful woman who is rising up the follower list on that website. Kara performs on the website to maintain her bank balance and followers. But she aspires to be an actress. She doesn’t like to reveal her private parts online because that is not who she is, even though being on the website somewhat gives a negative impression to other people, which does not worry her much.
How does Kara meet with Cody?
Just like Maxine, Kara starts receiving weird texts from an account named ‘Blaze.’ Her assistant/best friend Emily blocks the account. However, when Kara goes online on ModelFans, Blaze makes some bizarre comments as she blocks the account immediately. Later that night, Kara breaks up with her boyfriend Gabriel as he wants her to stop pursuing her career since he will soon earn enough to take care of her. Kara is an independent woman, and this conversation hurts her deeply. Therefore, she breaks up with Gabriel right at that moment.
The following day, when Kara and Emily are running in the morning, we see that someone is stalking them and clicking random pictures of them talking. Later, when Kara posts some of her pictures, an account named ‘Rocket’ comments that Kara can try blocking, but the person wouldn’t give up. The account even posts a picture of Kara and Emily from the morning. After seeing the image for the first time, Kara’s peace is disturbed as she knows her privacy has been invaded by some stalker, and she is not safe anymore.
While discussing the matter with Emily, Kara finds an email about free security installation from an organization called ‘Fortitech Security.’ Kara is surprised to see that moment after her visit to their website, she receives a text for assistance from the company. Since Kara is in need of some security to protect herself from the stalker and the company is already offering free service for six months, Kara sets up a meeting with them.
At Fortitech’s office, Kara meets with Cody, the company’s CEO. He somehow judges her for performing on ModelFans. Cody wants to clarify that these sites bring more security threats because of the vulnerability of the models. Kara refuses to have security because she doesn’t want any random person to judge her, as she is not doing anything wrong. She leaves the place, saying that it is her body and that anything she does with it should not concern anyone.
Why does Emily Go On a Break?
Kara and Emily take part in a meeting with some brands where Kara will be promoting their products, and her system gets hacked. Some of Kara’s exclusive contents are shown during the meeting and Emily tells Kara to keep aside her ego and call Cody to install the security system. Cody comes and does his part. The following day, some fan of Kara enters Emily’s home. Emily knows that she has not revealed her address anywhere, so she seeks help from Kara.
Emily shows Cody that someone has written on ‘Kara’s Konnoisseurs’ (perhaps a Kara fan discussion group) that the best way to find Kara is to meet with her best friend, Emily. Her address is written there and since it is an open group, now everyone has Emily’s address. Emily does not want to be in the spotlight amidst all of this. So, she decides to move away for a couple of days to remove the stress, and once she feels okay, she will come to help Kara with the situation.
Why does Kara doubt Gabriel as the Stalker?
Since Kara is living alone in her house, one night, she sees a shadow of someone outside her house. She calls up Cody, and when Cody arrives, he finds Gabriel’s phone outside. Kara calls the police to file a complaint against Gabriel. But the detective says that she will visit the house in the morning before filing anything in the middle of the night. The following day, a team of SWAT attacks Kara and later finds out that it was a misunderstanding as someone deliberately gave SWAT the wrong information.
The detectives tell Kara that Gabriel’s involvement is completely out of the question because he was seen playing while his phone was found at Kara’s. Gabriel even mentioned losing his phone, so the stalker remains unknown. Meanwhile, Cody decides to stay with Kara and they start to build up a chemistry together until Dexter, Kara’s photographer, comes to her house to shoot. Seeing Dexter touching Kara’s body makes Cody very jealous. It somehow makes Dexter doubt his motives as being a person who takes care of Kara’s security, Cody seems to be overprotective.
What happens to Bea?
Cody manages to block Emily’s phone calls and texts so that Kara is not able to talk to anyone regarding the situation. Cody wants to prove that Emily has abandoned her by showing her that she is not answering the calls or texts. But, in reality, Emily has tried numerous times to reach Kara. In fact, Cody has hacked Kara’s phone so that she can never talk to her. Cody even makes Kara’s housekeeper, Bea, disappear, as she could have spoiled his plans. Unable to find Bea, Kara visits the police station to seek help from the detectives.
To remove Dexter from the equation, he creates a fake restraining order and shows Kara that he gets it to stay away from Maxine. Kara knew that Dexter and Maxine were close. But when she sees this, she believes that there is a slight chance that Dexter could be the stalker. However, when the police tell Kara that there is no restraining order against Dexter, she starts to doubt Cody’s intentions. But Cody somehow manages to escape Kara’s doubts by playing a good boy in front of her.
A Model Murder (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Who Is the Real Stalker?
Kara sees a drastic loss in her follower count. Hence, she takes suggestions from Dexter and decides to give a live performance on ModelFans. Kara goes beyond her ethics and values as she starts revealing her body parts on live streaming. Emily sees this and fails to understand why Kara is doing this. Right at this moment, Cody sees Kara doing such a performance and enters the room to switch off the camera. Kara is very angry with him as she explains how much she cares about money and fame. In order to maintain that, she needs to do these kinds of performances.
Later that night, when Gabriel holds Kara’s hand to make her talk to him, Cody punches him pretty hard. Kara shouts at Cody and asks him to leave as she comes to Gabriel’s place for the night. The following morning, Cody comes to Gabriel’s place to find out whether Kara is inside or not. He reveals that Gabriel is cheating with Kara as he knows how many women Gabriel has flirted with. Gabriel then reveals to Kara that Cody used a certain phrase that those ‘Blaze’ and ‘Rocket’ accounts used to use. Kara and Emily now understand that Cody is the stalker they are looking for. He has planned it all from the very beginning.
How do Kara and Emily Catch Cody?
Emily comes up with a plan. Later that night, Kara goes live to perform a very intimate scene so that Cody comments and they can catch him red-handed. However, without commenting on anything during the live stream, Cody comes straight to Kara’s house to stop her from performing. Kara playfully brings Cody in front of the camera so that everyone can witness the stalker who is responsible for Maxine’s killing, and now he has come for Kara.
Emily had already dropped a text to the detectives before the live streaming started that there would be a hint about who the stalker was. But, since Cody’s face is seen on live streaming already, the detective, along with the full squad, heads for Kara’s place since she is in danger. Finally, Cody is captured by the police. Kara leaves the station with a happy face. Emily tells Kara that the live show hits big and she can now look for the top spot at ModelFans. However, Kara decides to retire from this as she intends to focus on her career in acting.
