Directed by Olivia Kuan, ‘Catfish Killer’ is a new suspense thriller film on Lifetime. It tells a severally cliched narrative of a teenager getting catfished and harassed during the last days in her present school. The film is written by Sandra Bailey, who has mostly worked on thriller narratives throughout her writing career. The film’s cast includes Nicolette Langley, Daniel Grogan, Emary Simon, Alicia Leigh Willis, Anthony Carro, René Ashton, Elliott Bush, Erin Anne Gray, Anthony Fanelli, and Jerod Powers, among others. Shot by cinematographer Daniel ‘Buddy’ Thomas, the film is edited by Wendy Elford-Argent.
Catfish Killer (2022) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Catfish Killer is suffering from a shoddily derivative approach that makes it give a constant déjà vu of every other film you would have seen from this genre. It begins with a scene inside Hannah’s (Nicolette Langley) home, who speaks with her mother, Marianne (Alicia Leigh Willis), about the prospects of her future education. While the mother is pumped up to see the daughter being shortlisted for an ivy league school, the daughter does not consider it as an absolute certainty in getting an admission since the six other students, who are part of that particular list, she considers are more eligible than her due to their higher GPS.
In case she does not manage to get into that school, she is also ready to go to Palm Vista with her friend, Scott (Daniel Grogan). Marianne is still confident that she will go to her dream school, and in case Hannah does not get a scholarship, she is ready to fund this education. Scott drives her to school, and over there, Principal Edwards (René Ashton) asks her to come to her cabin and informs her that she has received the grand scholarship. She shares this news with Scott, and her other friend, Jane (Emary Simon). Back at home, Josh (Jordan James Smith), a new neighbor, arrives at their doorstep and hits on Marianne.
Later, when the three friends go out to have some fun, Scott shows suave confidence while bowling. Jane tells about a new app called Clique, which she says is much better than a dating site and includes chat rooms with specific interests. Hannah decides to use it herself so that she can speak with students from Kenzer, the school she is getting to attend. On her way back to her car in the parking lot, she meets bespectacled Eli, her classmate, who is angry that she got the scholarship even if he deserves it, in his opinion. Scott saves the night by helping her out with this creep.
Back at home, Hannah downloads Clique and starts speaking with a guy from Kenzer called James. She tells Marianne about it, who warns her to be more cautious about such online friends. Back in school, she clicks with a classmate called Kevin (Anthony Carro), and Scott gets jealous of it. Jane pushes her to pursue this love interest, who is handsome, charming, and rich. Back on the app, James shares his knowledge of Kevin going to Hudson university, which creeps her out. However, she is psyched to meet Kevin, who also gets a green signal of good personality from her mother.
Meanwhile, online friend James gets unnecessarily jealous that Hannah is spending time with friends instead of being with him. Later, he apologizes for speaking rudely with him. She keeps ignoring him. Meanwhile, janitor Jim (Elliot Bush) from her school gets hit in the school for some unknown reason. Eli confronts her for not being eligible for Kenzer. Later at night, something strange creeps her out of her home. The next day, she is asked to be in the principal’s office with her mother, where she is questioned about her heavily plagiarized paper. Hannah is firm in her belief that the paper she gets with her name is not hers. But on her laptop, she finds this different version. This becomes a reason for the suspension of her lofty scholarship fund.
Back at home, she finds out her original write-up in her draft and realizes that someone has purposefully altered the document. But she is unsure, which is why she decides to investigate. At school, she looks at the security footage implicating someone with Eli’s signature tee entering their lab. The principal catches her red-handed and brings her to her office. Due to reasonable doubt, Eli is still on the radar of suspicion. Meanwhile, Jane argues with her arrogant father and feels better when she hears some words of comfort from Hannah.
Upon returning home, Hannah sees a bouquet of flowers on the doorstep. While Marianne assumes that it is sent by Kevin, she sees a letter that states that it is sent by James. Since she had not shared her address with him, she gets confused about how he could possibly trace her location. They speak with Detective Wilson (Jordan Hubbard), who denies pursuing the case since there was no damage. Hannah decides to hunt James down with his available photograph and learns that the guy is not actually James.
Marianne opens up to neighbor Josh about this problem, who offers his help as an IT expert. In school, Scott is jealous of her, getting closer to Kevin. Someone meanwhile intentionally tries to hurt her (to make it incredibly clear, Scott literally says it as a dialogue). Hannah later goes on a date with Kevin and shares her plan to delete the Clique app from her phone. In the parking lot, they both get hit by a car, by what Kevin considers a psycho’.
Meanwhile IT expert explains the simple and widely known concept of VPN, which makes it difficult to trace James’ location and would take longer time to know more details about him. Back in school, Eli Johnson gets hit in the library and dies that very day. Scott tells Hannah about her romantic interest in her. Hannah gets locked inside a sauna room and luckily gets saved by Scott. Jane, who decides to study with Scott at home, rushes out to head to Hannah’s place, with proof of him cat-fishing as James. The logical reasoning she gives about him is his interest in Hannah.
Catfish Killer (2022) Movie Review:
While every single point of the narrative is being spoon-fed to the viewers, Catfish Killer struggles to keep the sense of mystery intact. There is hardly anything redeeming about this film that churns out every conceivable cliché of high-school mystery thrillers. The characters literally speak out the subtext that the writers are trying to present to the viewers. Such storytelling choices pulls you constantly out of this movie, which is supposed to create an illusion of organic drama.
Adding to that, the campy nature of all of its laughably shoddy performances turns it into an atrocious film that becomes difficult to sit through. Whatever emotion that the film is trying to evoke seems cheap and heavily borrowed from the worst of the genre. Unfortunately, that leaves this cyber-crime suspense thriller to become another addition to a pile of forgettable films.
Catfish Killer (2022) Movie Ending, Explained:
Who is the Catfish killer? Why was this person cat-fishing Hannah?
Hannah and Jane head to Scott’s place to find him unconscious in his car. Marianne feels terrible that there is nothing she can do to help her daughter. Meanwhile, in school, Hannah sees Kevin with another girl, and while until now, he was kind and attractive, he becomes mischievously bad. All these events make her feel sad enough not to care about the scholarship at that moment. She spends time with Jane and later goes to her place. She soon notices all the signs, including Eli’s signature T-shirt.
Meanwhile, Josh comes up to Marianne’s place to tell her that the catfish killer is Jane. At her home, Jane terrifies Hannah and shares all the details of the crime she committed. She shares the justification as her parents never being able to afford to help her go to the school for which Hannah was getting a scholarship. While she tries to drown Hannah, Marianne reaches her place and heroically saves her daughter. In the end, Hannah gets the scholarship, Scott gets Hannah, and all ends well for these teenagers. Hannah becomes so smart that she even deletes a text from an unknown person.
Read More: My Sister’s Serial Killer Boyfriend (2023) Movie Ending, Explained
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eNlscWShLc
