Based on the true story of the "murder of Joanne Witt" (look that phrase up and you can read all about it), this film was reasonably performed but had enough flaws in the characters' behavior, the acting, and the script to deflate it to just average.
The mother, Joanne -- blandly played by Kelly Sullivan -- was no saint by any stretch. She beat her daughter up when she was five years old (in the movie they changed it to 10), losing her for six months to foster care, and they had a contentious relationship their entire lives. In real life Joanne was emotionally unbalanced, had a violent streak, and was a controlling, awful mother, and that was only halfway portrayed in the movie.
The daughter, Tylar, inherited her mother's personality, except it was all twice as severe for her...and maybe more than that. Leigha Sinnott was decent in the role but couldn't raise that sense of simmering fury and twisted passion that Tylar's character required. In real life she was 14 when this happened, and Leigha seems every bit of 17 here...which only makes you wonder why she did what she did because in a year she would've been free of her mother anyway. The filmmakers should've kept her 14 and it all would've been more plausible (and more frightening).
Tylar's boyfriend, Boston, was deceptively crazy and harbored a violent nature that was actually a little hard to believe as the character was portrayed. Played by Zacharay Roozen, he wasn't terrible, but he was the weakest of the three leading characters, considering the frenzied savagery he eventually unleashed. But the weakest link in the movie was the neighbor Val, played by Alicia Ziegler, who was just a painful stereotype and a terribly self-righteous friend of Joanne.
There were a couple of fairly demented scenes (including a wild sex-and-blood scene that was all too brief) towards the end that elevated the movie, but it still basically fell flat because it didn't capture the demented perversion of the characters and seething hatred between mother and daughter. Still, it's worth a single watch, mostly because it's based on a true story and doesn't veer wildly off base.
Tylar Witt was paroled in August, 2022 at the age of 28 and is a free woman today. Boston got life without parole...and he deserved it.
