Lifetime’s wackiest movies
Think the networks go a little overboard with specials around the holidays? You obviously haven’t watched enough Lifetime, which has a back catalog of holiday movies long enough to program a whole new channel. Our pick for the craziest of these movies stars perennial TV stud Harry Hamlin as Santa’s son, a money-minded businessman who decides to take over Santa’s North Pole workshop. Special bonus for “Star Wars” fans: Rebel pilot Porkins, from “A New Hope,” plays Santa himself. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)
Janine Nielssen, (Brooke Shields) has finally found happiness -- with a loving lesbian partner, Sandy, and thanks to artificial insemination, with a new baby (which her partner bore). But when Sandy dies five years later, her scheming parents plot to take the baby away from Janine behind her back. Now Janine will have to go to court and fight for what she (and we) know is rightfully hers. (Stephen Shugerman / Getty Images)
Angie Harmon stars as Susan Wilson, a woman living in Louisiana who discovers that a normal-seeming neighbor and churchgoer had secretly installed video surveillance in her home and was spying on her and her family. When it turned out to be legal, Wilson went to court, helping to make secret video surveillance in other peoples homes illegal in nine states. (Stephen Shugerman / Getty Images)
What makes this interfamily affair movie better than all the other interfamily affair movies that have been on Lifetime over the years? Well, the directness of the title helps (no mystery there!). Terry OQuinn stars, and we like the added twist that the rivalry between father and son will ensure that both of them wont make it out of this seedy story alive! (Richard Drew / Associated Press)
Thanks to after-school specials and Lifetime movies, we know there are often severe consequences to teenagers having sex. And if the teenager is especially young, and is part of group whose members have multiple sexual partners, then those consequences become all the more consequential. Marcia Gay Harden stars as a mom who discovers her seemingly good-girl teen daughter is part of such a group, and when kids in the high school start getting a whole host of sexually-transmitted diseases, it may be too late for her daughter. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)
