“God, Mom, you’re so lame. You never let me sleep with danger!”

It always happens like this, doesn’t it? You try to spread holiday cheer by writing about Ebbie, an old Susan Lucci Lifetime adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and through a convoluted series of events find yourself weeks later watching Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? because of it. Who among us hasn’t done it? It’s the tale as old as time that Angela Lansbury so touchingly warbled about in Beauty and the Beast.

After mentioning this 1996 telefilm—which first aired on NBC, not Lifetime as I’d originally thought—I felt obligated to watch it. It was time for a change of pace after a slew of family-oriented Rue McClanahan fare (there’s a “Who Slew Auntie Rue” joke in there somewhere that I can’t presently locate) and this was one I’d mocked my mom for viewing 25 years ago. If it was genuinely as terrible as I’d always assumed, that meant I could confidently mock her anew, which was a neat bonus.

It is, indeed, terrible. But not egregiously so, which would’ve made it more fun. The setup has a modicum of promise: Laurel Lewisohn (Tori Spelling) is an overachieving undergrad juggling a double major with other scholastic endeavors and some demanding extracurricular activities—like a raging eating disorder. “I worry about you, honey. You don’t know your limits. You do too much,” her mother, Jessica (Lisa Banes), frets.

Laurel’s parents are divorced and her father apparently absent. When her mother informs her track coach about her eating disorder (a responsible thing to do in response to overexercise), Laurel gets into it with her. “Honey, I realize I can get out of hand,” Jessica says by way of apology. “Can we make a deal? I promise not to stick my nose in your business if you promise me you won’t get in over your head.”

Laurel: “Mom said I can’t sleep with danger.”
Billy: “That’s so unfair.”

That is not a good deal to make with someone in the throes of an eating disorder, and it threatens to prove equally dangerous when it comes to Laurel’s new romance with Billy Jones (Ivan Sergei), a murderous young man pretending to be Kevin Shane, a former love rival. At the start of the film we saw Billy kill his girlfriend (who was about to dump him for Kevin) in a rage, to the tune of a Lilith Fair soundtrack with some lyrics that were a little too on-the-nose: “I’m stormy… again.”

It’s not long before Billy’s indulging in some light Vertigo pathos, remaking brunette Laurel in the image of his deceased blonde obsession. He attempts to isolate her in a cabin in the woods and is forever lurking on campus, hand shaking with rage any time she interacts with another human. “I don’t have a life unless you’re in it!” he tells her during an argument. They’ve known each other for about two minutes.

The ’90s were a fertile time for films about stalkers and abusive relationships and this is one of the lesser entries of the genre. Spelling and Sergei look moderately confused and constipated throughout, slogging through pedestrian dialogue such as: “I know you follow me. People see you spying.” To which Billy replies, “Your friends are against us! I told you that.”

Scenes from Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?

There’s the requisite scene where a concerned Jessica confronts him and he warns her “Laurel listens to me now” and “Laurel and I are in love. Both of us would rather die than let you come between that love.” Banes is Mother‘s one bright spot as an intelligent woman who is willing to work patiently behind the scenes to nail Billy’s ass to the wall.

She’s also a reminder of the squandered potential of the screenplay, which gave Laurel realistic personal and family baggage that was quickly discarded in favor of extended make out and exercise scenes. The handling of the eating disorder was particularly crass, with lingering shots of Spelling’s toned abs and an ending song that, per the captions, contained the lyric “No, that’s no way to be slim.”

DVD and streaming availability

Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? is available on DVD. You can also stream it through Amazon Prime for free if you’re a member.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.

… But wait, there’s more!

This makes my inner Swoosie Kurtz want to yell “wig fur!”

Because I currently lack the will or knowledge to explain Lifetime’s bizarre 2016 reimagining of this film, which involves lesbians and vampires and features Tori Spelling as the mother of the victimized girl, and because bad wigs are always good for a laugh, I leave you with these beautiful screenshots. You’ll have to watch the film yourself if you want to understand.