Lady Terror shrouds sinister motives in a nostalgic feel

Lady Terror is a film about Jake Large, a 40-something-year-old Australian lawyer whose practice consists of accident victims seeking to recoup money for their injuries. Despite this being a major part of his practice, even Jake, played by writer/director Nathan Hill, wonders about the legitimacy of some of the claims, especially those that seem unfathomable from the jump. This skepticism is evident when a woman enters his office insisting that she was injured by a cat that scratched her while she was buying something from a clothing store. When Jake finally accepts her case, she is so relieved that she invites him over for a “nice dinner,” completely ignoring his engagement ring. He smiles and politely declines.

When Jake arrives home after work, he and his fiancée Celine (Trita DeViSha) are, in the words of Barry Manilow, “like two ships that pass in the night.” He enters his home, sits on the sofa and turns on the TV, and the two barely say “hello” to one another. When he asks her about her day, she responds in one-word utterances. 

Unhappily engaged, Jake’s personal fortunes turn while leaving the grocery store one day. He stumbles upon a man attempting to rob a woman of her purse while she is getting into her car. Jake intervenes and the would‑be‑thief confronts him for interfering in his crime but the guy soon runs off. After the mild raucous, he meets Candice (Phillyda Murphy) who is quite gracious. He takes her to a nearby medical facility to address pain she is experiencing in her abdominal area and leaves her with his card. The next day, she calls and invites him out, surprising him with a private sensual dance at a sex club. 

As Candice’s calls increase in frequency, the two spend time having very long audible kissing sessions and eventually winding up in bed. Tension enters the relationship, though, when Anton, the husband of Candice’s late mother, bursts into the bedroom on Candice and Jake and says nothing. When he leaves, Candice complains about Anton and insinuates that she would “be happy” if he were gone. Coincidentally, her calls to Jake increase in urgency, begging him to come over because something happened between her and Anton. Not surprisingly, she again muses with Jake about murdering him. But Jake now takes her seriously, asking for details on how they would do it. Clearly, Candice’s motives are less than honest, but will Jake realize this before he does something that is both criminal and out of character for him?

On one level, Lady Terror feels like a soap opera filmed with a low-gauge film stock. Its faded colors suggest an era recently removed from monochrome, giving the film a nostalgic feel. The settings are largely sterile with empty kitchen countertops and desks displaying everything in its proper place. While this and other aesthetic elements are likely driven by budget constraints, in some instances, it produces the desired effect. The colorlessness and sterility of the settings, for instance, promote the lack of a connection between the characters. The emptiness of Jake’s sitting room and kitchen convey he and Celine’s emotional detachment from one another. 

There are a couple of scenes in the movie, however, that take place in a bar. While the tavern has the obligatory furnishings, it lacks the social atmosphere of a bar. There is also little informal engagement between Jake and his friend, the usual banter buddies have when drinking beer together at a bar. This emptiness makes the scenes seem staged. They lack the context needed to convey the authenticity of the characters’ relationships.

These aesthetic elements coupled with the film’s lack of character development make Lady Terror difficult to grasp. While watching the film, I could not get a sense of Jake’s personality nor the depth of the other characters and the relationships between them. For example, the flashback scene showing Jake and Celine early in their relationship indicates the two cared deeply for one another. But there is nothing to explain what happened that caused them to become so distant (and in some cases hostile) toward one another today. In one scene, Jake arrives home to find Celine and a man she says is her boyfriend, and they are in the process of moving her out. Among the things she says to Jake is that she “can’t stand him.” This is a stark contrast from their early relationship, yet nothing explains what happened nor how much time has passed.

Rather than an emotional reaction to Celine’s declaration, Jake responds calmly and rationally, asking “what did I do?” A more apt response in the moment would be something angry or hurt­‑filled like “I hate you too” or “yeah, good riddance, get the heck out of my house and take that a**hole with you.” Jake’s apathy makes his center unclear.

Based on his modest office and home, Jake is an experienced and moderately successful accident lawyer who settles cases outside the courtroom. Given this, it is fair to assume that he is not a felon and that he understands the law. Yet, he shows no signs of alarm bells ringing when Candice begins to talk about being “happy if Anton were gone” and even adding details on how to kill him. These are huge waving red flags that should have signaled Jake to get away and stay away from Candice and perhaps report her to the authorities, particularly given his role as an officer of the court. Jake did neither and instead allowed himself to be manipulated by her. This, along with his lack of emotional reaction to his situation with Celine, makes him an enigma - not one who is intriguing but one who is disappointing and perplexing.

At one point in the film, Candice urgently invites Jake over and he arrives to find her friend, Tonina (Challise Freer), a woman Candice introduced to him earlier in the film. Suggestively dressed, Tonina invites him in and explains that Candice will be back “much later.” This seems off but other than mild curiosity, Jake has no reaction. In fact, Jake and Tonina fall into bed together when Tonina insists that “Candice won’t mind” because they “share all the time.” While it becomes clear that the two are scheming over Anton’s money, who the women are to one another and what they want with Jake are still unclear.

Nathan Hill’s Lady Terror feels nostalgic. It reminds me of The F.B.I., a drama I used to watch as a child with my mother on early Sunday evenings. The weekly 60-minute show ran for nine years beginning in 1965 and starred Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Philip Abbott (I remember this because it was spoken during the show’s opening.). Lady Terror and The F.B.I are similar in appearance, presenting in tints rather than full color or monochrome. Neither have deep character development and both shows have unnatural dialog and frequently sterile sets. I can easily see an F.B.I story similar to Lady Terror’s premise, centering a gullible man being taken advantage of by people with dishonest motives (of course, being a weekly procedural, The F.B.I. covered a broad range of cases.). 

The current push for authentic characters and relationships suggests The F.B.I. would not be a successful show today as it was when it aired 50 years ago. Indeed, today’s version of the show, FBI, is not only hard‑hitting but emphasizes the relatability of the characters. Like The F.B.I., Lady Terror presents a compelling story but its characters need to be flushed out to make them multidimensional and relatable.