If there’s a sensitive ’80s sitcom dad you never expected would chase Little House on the Prairie’s Half-Pint through the woods with a bloody knife and murder in his eyes, it’s probably Steven Keaton of Family Ties. (Give Jason Seaver a little coke or booze and who knows what he’s capable of doing.) That element of surprise lends a subversive jolt to the opening scenes of With a Vengeance, a 1992 TV movie also known as Undesirable, when Frank Tanner (Michael Gross) frenziedly slashes a Washington mother and her children to death and sets off after Melissa Gilbert, the only witness to the crime.
Six years later, she’s living in California as Jenna King, a nanny who breaks down when her newest employer, Mike Barcetti (Jack Scalia, Sweet Deception), questions her phony background. She admits to living under an assumed name and tearfully confesses “I don’t know where I went to high school. I don’t know if I went to high school. I don’t know where my family is. I don’t know if I have a family. The truth is, I don’t even know who I am.” Luckily for her, he’s not just a ruggedly handsome single father but a tenacious DOJ attorney determined to help cure her amnesia and uncover her true identity.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.