This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Drama, Horror, L, Thriller/Mystery, True Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Paul Donovan
Starring: Joan Gregson, Stephen McHattie, Nancy Beattie, Joseph Rutten
This was a Canadian made for TV movie about a wife who starts the story by blasting her drunk, passed-out, husband to Hell with a shotgun. I guess that qualifies as the ‘till death do us part’ thing. The acting is adequate, but a little uneven, except Stephen McHattie who is convincing as the awful Billy Stafford. This is a true story about a horribly abused wife who kills her tormentor. It is emotionally disturbing, and has inconsistent production quality, but it is also undeniably compelling.
Billy Stafford is killed at the beginning of the movie and the true story of this family is told by flashing back to life in his house for his wife, and children. This is split with telling us about to the life, investigation, and trial, of his wife. There are very disturbing scenes of spousal, and child, abuse, but, thankfully, the horrific tales of sexual abuse are given at the trial and not shown. This guy got what he deserved (Hell, he got better than he deserved!), but will his wife get what she deserves? The mystery here is not who killed Billy, but what will happen to his killer.
Not a great piece of cinematic work, but a riveting and disturbing tale that might be worth catching on TV, if you can handle the unsettling scenes of domestic violence, which are at least not overly graphic. I started watching it, thinking I would go to bed an hour into it. I didn’t.
