I grew in the '90s a time where many of us miss and wish that we could go back in time and relive the good old days. One of my favorite things from the 90’s would be the awesome movies that Lifetime dished out. I remember being a kid and binge watching their movies on the weekends. But in the past few years their movies have been less than stellar. Many people including myself chat about the Saturday night movie together using the title of the movie as a hashtag on Twitter. On Saturday August 20, 2016 Lifetime premiered the movie “The Boy in the Attic.”
The synopsis seems pretty decent and it gives me high hopes that it might be pretty good. The trailer however is a little lacking. It just shows the boy hiding seeing a girl at a coffee shop then looking down on her and her mother staying at the deceased grandmother’s house.
I came home late so I couldn’t watch this in real time with the other viewers at 8 o’clock eastern standard time. But because of modern technology I was able to start the movie from the beginning with my DVR. I also kept with tradition and live tweeted the movie like I always do. But because I was about 30 minutes behind the other viewer’s tweets were pretty much spoilers to the movie. But, reading the tweets I got a generalized idea of what the movie was about.
Right of the bat the granddaughter (Callie) thinks that the house is old and creepy and as she describes it haunted. Her mother dismisses all of her claims even the locked bathroom door, which she told her that it was stuck because it’s old.
My first thought was that Michael (the boy living in the attic) was a killer. But he was actually homeless and falsely accused of murder. But in the end it turned out to be self-defense. Michael first met the grandmother at the market and helped her put groceries in her car and ended up doing odds and ends around her house. After that he drifted around form place to place and ended back up at the grandmother’s house, sneaking into the attic when she was out and staying there until Callie and her mom arrived for the funeral. Michael falls for Callie and the story then takes a Romeo and Juliet turn as they try to flee the sheriff. Who is also the uncle of the person Michael is accused of killing.
The two of them end up trying to flee to Canada and Michael is willing to take the blame telling Callie to tell the authorities that he made her go. For the sheriff it’s more personal than it is him doing his job. He wanted to nab Michael because he believes that he killed his nephew Ed over $800. Michael told Callie that he did some work for Ed and he didn’t think that his work was up to par so he decided not to pay him. Michael needed the money and decided to take it anyway. Ed later pulled a gun on Michael and they fought and Ed ended up hitting his head and dying. When actually Michael was defending his self after the sheriff’s nephew pulled a gun on him.
While Michael and Callie are fleeing to Canada her mom is giving the sheriff’s a heads up of where they’re going. The two of them end up spending the night in the woods and in the morning the sheriff finds them. Callie distracts the sheriff while Michael makes a break for it and ends up getting away. Later, Michael sends Callie a video message thinking her for what she did and that she wishes she was there with him.
In true Lifetime fashion this movie has a good build up but then it leaves you feeling disappointed. It wasn’t as cheesy as other movies and I kind of wish that Michael was really crazy instead of sweet and innocent. But I guess there has to be some movies where the good guy wins.
