Sunday, February 13

Mez: Unsavory Agenda -

The Lifetime Cable TV movie about the
Perugia Slasher murder is neither fair nor balanced.

Careful, your agenda is showing!

Giving the dramatization of this homicide the name of the convicted killer is a sleazy attempt to displace Meredith Kercher as the victim in this story and to transform Amanda Knox into the central Maiden in Peril - a stock ingenue character in the genre of Teen Slasher movies. Having accomplished this sly switcheroo, Lifetime is introducing Recreational Murder as an accepted form of American entertainment.

When I was a child, the government established the Comic Book Code, which was only recently discarded. I don't think anyone wants to introduce a similar code for violence in teen movies, but this Lifetime presentation is making a good argument to do that.

Shortly before Meredith Kercher was slaughtered, she appeared in photos accompanied by Ghostface, a character in the Scream series of Teen Slasher movies. The appearance of Ghostface seemed to foreshadow the tragic events that followed. To this day, it remains a burning question: This after that or this because of that?

Then, just to pile Pelion on Ossa, Lifetime would have us believe that it is merely a random coincidence that Hayden Panettiere, who is a ensemble member of the Scream franchise, was chosen to star as the fake Maiden in Peril in Perugia, a meretricious substitute for the real victim.

On a bet or a dare, just how tacky could they get? If they wanted to see how much they could get away with, surely this has got to be the pinnacle of bad taste.

Lifetime's Perugia Slasher movie will only inspire copycat crimes. The timing of this movie is atrocious and the motivation is unsavory.

:: NY Post ::

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