Brutal Brainwash

I've seen a lot of lifetime movies, and over time, they get pretty formulaic. This one, however, manages to break that formula. It centers on a teenage girl who goes to college and gets invited to this strange club. Throughout the film, the members of the club manipulate her in various ways. It's genuinely exciting to watch, and you don't quite know where it's going next.

I will say that I tend to approach lifetime films as comedies, which makes them a lot more enjoyable. Whether you watch these ironically or seriously, I think you'll enjoy this movie. It does something new and it certainly fits in the "thriller" category- I'd argue it's better than a lot of theater thrillers, actually. However, it does explore some pretty dark themes (including exploitation, brainwashing, and hazing), so keep that in mind before you watch.

Aubrey is a freshman at a local college who gets invited to a get-together at a new girl's club. She ends up joining and moving out of her home and into the "club" with no strings attached. Her mother, Charlotte, becomes suspicious when Aubrey spends less time with her and more time with them. Aubrey gives more control over to the rules of the club to the point where they start drugging her and telling her to sever all close friends and family but Aubrey is lying to them and resisting so the members blackmail her into doing what they want. Charlotte thinks she's mixed up in a cult when things go from bad to worse and someone in the club ends up dead! This movie reminds me a little bit of the NXIVM cult. Good acting and a solid script make this one of the better Lifetime movies so far this year!!! Definitely worth a watch!

Don't waste your time! When I read the synopsis and the reviews in here I thought the movie could be interesting, but it's just not. You can see that it's maybe a low budget production and that's okay. The real problem is that the story is full with holes, a lot of total unrealistic and unrelatable situations, and when you think the movie is going in a direction of some kind of cult, or maybe human trafficking or kidnapping, the story just end up making no sense! I still don't know what was the point of these girls doing all that stuff, the movie had zero closing. Some of the acting was fairly good, but the dialogues were poor and superficial, the soundtrack was bad and cheesy, and I don't even know we're to start about how many unexplained and out of touch with reality situations the movie had. I like the premise of secret and kind of obscure cults in frats, but this one didn't delivered at all.

It´s a cliché that I seldom use, since I hate clichés, but here goes: This movie´s only positive quality is that it really is so incredibly bad that it becomes not good but enjoyable and funny. When D´Andra Simmons popped up playing the cop I felt like it was the icing on the cake for me (I´m a huge real housewives fan). I wish Lifetime would take all the elements of this movie and actually work on it a little, get better actors and a better script, and make it a nice little thriller with teenagers and psycho cultists. It seems easy in theory so I don´t know how they could possibly have ruined it in every way with this movie, but I´m not even joking, there is not a single thing that works here, except the main actress was okay.

Aubrey - a freshman college student - accidentally joins a cult and chaos ensues. It's up to her mother to free her from the Kinship's control.

I was pleasantly surprised at this movie. Looking at the preview, it seemed like another over-the-top college drama but it was pretty good as far as these kind of shows go. The storyline was decent and felt fresh, the acting was good - the standout being "Elle", and the movie as a whole just had a great feel. It's clearly inspired by Raniere's NXIVM cult. Overall, it was a great watch and a great Friday night thriller.

It's definitely one of the better LMN films.