Killer Stepmom (2022): Killer Stepmom, a recent television thriller from Lifetime TV, captivated me until the end. As I have been watching some of the awful movies coming on this network in the past weeks, I have already created a certain kind of skepticism about the content before even encountering its first glance. But on the contrary, the movie stands out as a well-executed domestic thriller.
The script is tight and on point, which the director executes well, sticking to the end and not trying to outsmart the story’s main crux (which was a significant problem for the previous films coming out on this network). Though in some places it stumbles, overall, it can be classified as an edgy binge-worthy stress buster.
I want to discuss the film in more detail in the next paragraph. So, the readers are warned not to read further as there will be spoilers about the movie’s plot.
Killer Stepmom (2022) Movie Synopsis & Plot Summary:
Brianna is a high school student who seems over it and is acting out. She blackmails a teacher, and the school counselor catches her doing so. The school counselor is very concerned about Brianna’s future, and she calls a meeting with her parents, who have recently divorced. She gives them parenting advice, and Brianna is grounded.
Although disgusted, Brianna stays at her dad’s house for the weekend with her new mom, Suzanna. Despite her reservations, she goes shopping with Suzanna at his father’s request. While shopping, a man in a Hawaii shirt calls Suzanna, mistaking her for a woman named Kate. Suzanna tells him that he has been mistaken. But Brianna gets a little suspicious about the whole thing. Later, she observes Suzanna arguing with him but doesn’t hear what he says, which raises her suspicions even more.
That night, Brianna sees Suzanna sneak out of the house. Brianna follows her throughout the town in the middle of the night, untrusting. She sees Suzanna get into the car with the Hawaii shirt man to make a money drop. Then Brianna witnesses a murder, and Suzanna mixes the man into cement! She tells her boyfriend about what she saw, and he is pretty relaxed about the whole thing.
Suzanna lurks outside Brianna’s bedroom and watches her while she sleeps. She tells Brianna that she wants to work on being friends. Brianna doesn’t do that and tells her mother and father that she saw Suzanna murder someone the other night. Suzanna denies any wrongdoing and mentions that Brianna is acting out because Suzanna and Daniel are trying to have a baby.
Brianna and her boyfriend investigate the crime scene and look for a missing nail. They are arrested and taken into custody. Daniel is upset that his daughter is acting out and takes away her cell phone as punishment for being arrested. Brianna’s mother believes her daughter. They look into Suzanna’s past.
Annie, Brianna’s mother, meets with her ex-husband Daniel and shows him the evidence they found about Suzanna. Annie finds out that Suzanna is using an assumed identity. Daniel can’t believe that Suzanna is a liar and confronts his wife. Suzanna admits to changing her name to get away from an abusive ex. Daniel sides with his new wife and kicks Annie out of his house. Suzanna murders the woman who is giving Brianna and Annie advice. Then she goes home and tells Daniel she is pregnant, like a true psychopath.
Annie tries to go to the police, but they think she is a jealous ex-wife. Meanwhile, Suzanna steps it up and drugs Annie’s Mr. Coffee in the middle of the night. It works because Annie gets in a car accident the following day on her way to work. Annie is grievously injured but survives. She tells Brianna that she thinks she was drugged. Daniel files for full custody of his daughter.
Annie works with a patient to dig more into Suzanna’s background. Suzanna is involved in some Ponzi scheme. Annie questions a prisoner who knows the criminals Suzanna/Katie are involved with. Suzanne hires a hitman to take Annie out, but her patient saves her at the right time.
In the meantime, Brianna goes out with friends to escape her evil stepmother. With Annie out of the way, Suzanna drugs Daniel and taunts Brianna to come to the same site where she murdered the man. Brianna reaches there and finds out that Suzanna is there. Suzanna sticks Brianna with a syringe, planning to stage suicide via OD. Brianna runs away and hides in an abandoned construction site.
Annie tracks Brianna down and knocks Suzanna over. Suzanna tells Annie that she is getting revenge because Daniel’s company bought her husband’s company, and they lost everything. Annie isn’t going down like that and takes Suzanna out with a brick. The police arrive and take her away.
After all the ruckus, Brianna is a well-adjusted teen who gets good grades. Annie starts dating her patient, whom Brianna approves. The final scene cuts to Suzanna in prison, confronted by Roxanne, the person she and her husband falsely accused of a crime she did not commit. It becomes clear that Roxanne is now trying to get her revenge on Suzanna, aka Kate.
Killer Stepmom (2022) Ending, Explained:
Who is Suzanna?
The whole story of the movie Killer Stepmom is based on one question – who is Suzanna?
From the movie’s beginning, we learn that our protagonist, Brianna, is having difficulty adjusting to her parent’s recent divorce. Her father remarries a much younger girl of his age named Suzanna. But no one precisely knows who she is and what her past is.
One day, when Brianna and Suzanna go shopping, a mysterious man in a Hawaiian shirt approaches Suzanna as Kate. Suzanna immediately denies the claim and tells him he mistakes her for someone else. But sometimes later, she meets with the man again, and they have a fallout with each other. The conversation between them happens afar from Brianna (when she waits for her stepmom in the car), and she can’t hear the conversation between them.
Brianna gets suspicious about the whole thing, and that night; she sees that Suzanna is sneaking out of the house. She follows her and finds out that she is meeting with the same mysterious man. Eventually, she kills him with a tire iron and gets rid of his body by cementing it.
Scared by the whole incident, Brianna tells the whole thing to her mother, Annie. Though initially hesitant to believe her, she does some digging and learns that Suzanna has the real name, Katherine Dunham. But apart from that, Annie needs to find further information about her past with much digging. Brianna’s mom, Annie, seeks help from one of her patients, Howie, and with his help, she finds out that Suzanna is involved in a Ponzi scheme in the past, and one of her associates is still serving her sentence in the state prison.
She goes to meet with the associate, Roxanne. Roxanne tells her that Suzanna, aka Kate, was one of the main culprits of the Ponzi scheme, and she falsely accused her of a crime she did not commit. She also reveals that the mysterious man was a private investigator hired by Roxanne to blackmail Suzanna, aka Kate, so she takes the necessary steps to bail out Roxanne.
What Happened to Suzanna in the End?
In the end, Suzanna, aka Kate, destroys everything, from attempting to murder Brianna and her mother to drugging his father and covering all the loose ends via a killing rampage.
In the finale, Annie confronts her, who comes at the right moment to save her daughter from being ODed. There she learns that the whole thing is pre-planned by Suzanna/Kate as she tries to get revenge on Brianna’s family. Suzanna/Kate reveals that Daniel’s company bought her company, and thus, she lost everything. Her husband gets arrested, and he hanged himself out of that.
After revealing that, she attacks Annie and tries to kill her, but Annie somehow beats her with a piece of brick, and she gets unconscious. Suzanna/Kate ends up in prison, confronted by Roxanne. It becomes clear that now Roxanne is trying to get her revenge on Suzanna, aka Kate.
