Fatal Lessons: The Good Teacher (2004)

Gold digging poisoner/femme fatale extraordinaire Victoria (Erika Eleniak) is fresh from her last caper and eying a new one. She adopts a new identity and takes a job in a small town as a schoolteacher.Quickly she targets a wealthy young couple with two children, one of whom is a pupil of hers. She becomes best friends with the wife and her gullible husband and continues to weasel her way into their lives stealthily threatening all that they hold dear. They come to find that the truth about Victoria is much darker than they ever could have imagined but it might be too late.Eleniak was Playboy magazine's Miss July for 1989. Often people define her by that title only. But she is arguably the very best of Playboy Playmates turned Hollywood actresses. In fact she was an actress (Child star) before she ever posed for Playboy. That was her in E.T. getting kissed by Elliott in the classroom scene. In feature film roles like Under Siege and Chasers she was more than passable. In this one however she bit off way more than she could chew and it comes off like a bad caricature.Ex-TV star Patricia Kalember (Thirtysomething) is not very convincing in her role as the wife/heroine. She does not play the role as the classic passive victim we are used to seeing in movies. Her own pro-activeness actually gets her into trouble and allows her to shape the plot.But she seems to look down upon the material here as well as the production itself. I do not just find her unconvincing as the character she plays. I actually think her distaste for the work she has settled for in this drek comes through despite whatever professional face she may have put on during shooting. She looks like she knows this one was headed direct to video or cable. Could she have known where it really did end up? Specifically, it is being marketed as a discount item for sale in dollar stores by an outfit known as Direct Source Special Products. Can you guess what price it commands? This looks like a TV movie and plays much like any movie of the week has but particularly like the not very good ones. It gives you some idea of why TV movies of the week are looked down on by audiences and often snubbed by actors who are offered roles in them.The controversial subject matter designed to win over audiences is another one of those Hollywood thriller clichés. Eleniak's character is to teachers here what Glenn Close was to mistresses in Fatal Attraction.As in other movies made for the small screen much of what is shown is sanitized, the supporting characters are played by no-name actors and the location is British Columbia doubling for the American Pacific Northwest. Casting was actually key in producing the dud that this turned out to be. The no-name actors in supporting roles are no-names for a reason. A non-descript guy portraying a Floridian victim of the title temptress spouts off his lines with an unmistakable Canadian accent.

I vote zero for this trite. And not only for the writing but for the choice of performers. I have always disliked Erika Elaina (whatever) in anything. She comes off like a bimbo from Playboy magazine.Here she attempts to be a killer and a teacher pulling the wool over everybody else in the movie. The worse being the stupidity of the wife. She gets drugged and doesn't know it. She get's stepped on keeping her away from a trip of which bitch Erika takes her place. She has things stolen from her making her seem out in space. She almost stabs her husband. You want her to go away.Whenever anything goes wrong with wifey, she runs to the teacher who is obviously out to kill her. The husband doesn't have a clue and quick to blame wifey. I think the actress playing the wife is good but the lines she is given are ridiculous. The neighbor gets blamed for everything and wifey is quick to accuse because the teacher, a stranger, tells her so.I don't see how money can be spent for this trite and a performance by a no-talent actress as Erika. I only hope I never have to see her on screen again.

I didn't even watch this whole film which may or may not be fair judgment. But when it started out with my least favorite actress in the lead, Erika Eleniak, I knew it would be awful. I have never liked this actress in all that she's done and am amazed her career still exists. She's God-awful. And to top it off she plays a bitch. When you saw the doom of the cute dog, you knew the predictable would happen. Why do writers always kill the loving pets? Is it because we love animals more than people? But rest assure Casey T Mitchell, the author, kills the dog first off. Thanks Mitchell for your bad taste. Then there's Patricia Kalember and Ken Tremblett as the parents and victims of the bitch. And of course, like all LMN victims, they are clueless, even when they are forewarned. Again I ask why are victims so stupid in figuring things out? Mitchell doesn't disappoint me. He makes them so stupid you already figure the ending out. And I also picked the next victim. Now mind you, I didn't see the rest of this crap, but I'll bet the neighbor was next. Am I right? Lori Ann Triolo appeared briefly in the beginning before I switched channels. But I'll bet she got done in.Michael Scott directed this boring piece of crap. Beware this Erika Eleniak. She's terrible in all she does.

. . . is that you often end up cheering for the villain. (Well, at least I do.) "The Good Teacher" is no exception. What makes it mildly interesting is that as the killer's psychosis is presented as a fait accompli -- from her first scenes, the audience knows she's a predatory lunatic and the film's mildest suspense and dramatic irony is generated by how long it takes for the intended victims to figure it out. However, the psycho, as played by Erica Eleniak, is so brittle and blatantly manipulative that the rest of the characters have to be thoroughgoing dimwits to figure it out. And Jesus, they are -- every stalker should have such clueless prey. The good doctor, his devoted wife and cute children (the boy who plays the pre-teen son may be the worst child actor in history) are so damn gullible you start to think they deserve their impending doom. Erica Eleniak isn't great, but she's at least entertaining, especially in a semi-comic episode where she picks up a loser in a bar and takes him back to her hotel room for a little "rough sex" that gets a little too rough. The rest of the cast seems pretty zombified, except for the too-smart neighbor and a cute dog that, of course, meets an unfortunate end (why do the makers of these movies hate animals so much?). Mild, mindless entertainment that's almost as much fun to ridicule as it is to watch.