Murder Most Obvious
Children's author, Lauren Kessler (Barbara Niven - The Perfect Neighbor), moves in to her new home with her father Stan (Daniel J. Travanti - My Name Is Kate), who having retired as a full time prosecutor has found himself lecturing on law at the local university. It is the same university where Brian (Gary Hudson - A Lover's Revenge), who lives opposite them, works and who clearly has taken a shine to Lauren as soon as she moves in, inviting her to go running with him and then out for dinner. But it isn't long after moving in that Lauren gets a shock when she learns that the previous owner of the house was murdered in his guest house where he ran his business from. It sparks Stan's curiosity as he finds himself looking in to it and seeing some glaring issues in the conviction of the murdered man's wife.
"Murder in My House" is one of those movies which tells you everything in the first 20 minutes and I am not going to hold back from telling you what you learn as well. We see a married man who is having an affair with a married woman ending up murdered. Then two years later Lauren and her dad move in to the house and we learn that nice guy Brian is in fact the killer next door. Now it tries to be a bit clever when it comes to this but "Murder in My House" is the sort of made for TV movie which is obvious at best and I am sure most will be able to work out the revelation before it comes during the first 30 minutes.
What this means is that "Murder in My House" ends up about three things; Stan snooping into the case, Lauren falling for Brian and Brian feeling a bit of stress due to Stan prying in to the old case. As such will Stan uncover the truth, will Brian do some thing before he does and will Lauren realise that Brian has a bit of a split personality before she ends up in real danger? But the real question is do we care? And sadly the answer to that one is not in the slightest as "Murder in My House" lacks mystery and thrills. It simply plays out in the most obvious of manners and Barbara Niven, Gary Hudson and Daniel J. Travanti can't do a thing to improve it.
What this all boils down to is that "Murder in My House" is one of those movies which thinks that it can be thrilling even when it tells us stuff early on but the truth is it can't and it ends up offering little to enrich the journey to an inevitable climax.
