‘Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?’ Recap: James Franco’s Newest Masterpiece Did Not Disappoint

(Photo: Lifetime)

Warning: This recap for Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? contains spoilers.

Quick question: Who was this even for? A remake of a 20-year-old TV movie that was only ever notable for its (admittedly perfect) title and the presence of Tori Spelling? But with lesbian vampires? And on Lifetime? The answer is, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? 2016 edition was for executive producer James Franco and James Franco only.

Related: What It’s Like to Write a Lesbian Vampire Lifetime Movie With James Franco

But as we all know, sometimes the most fascinating art comes from artists who seek only to entertain themselves, and Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? is absolutely fascinating. It has all the touchstones of a typical Lifetime thriller — small-scale ambitions, limited locations, endless aerial stock footage — but with an undeniable number of inspired touches… Queer representation, long passages of Shakespeare, music by Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha, and, of course, Tori Spelling. Now, don’t hand me a calculator and tell me I’m wrong, but Tori Spelling is TOO YOUNG to play the mother of a college student. That being said, she is never less than incredible in this film. Tori Spelling forever.

Hey, let’s talk about Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?!

We began with a couple of very photogenic women with cool hair doing what sapphic lovers do best: Impromptu photo shoots! Because if there’s one thing to be learned from Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?, it’s lesbians love photo shoots. Anyway, this one ended with a bit of cuddling, but the pillow talk was somewhat ruined when one of the girls ‘came out’ to the other…

…About being a vampire! Well, a “night walker” anyway. In this world, vampires don’t have any special powers except being able to walk in slow motion in tableau and also eat blood. But this blonde one with the crimped hair REALLY wanted her girlfriend to become a vampire also, so that they could spend eternity eating each other’s blood, back and forth, forever.

Unfortunately the girlfriend (whose name is Pearl, because obviously) did not want to become a vampire yet! So she stabbed the blonde crimped one with a shard of glass and she died. But it was too late, as Pearl had already been bit. Then she didn’t just receive the vampire curse, she also received a brand new circle of friends!

Now it was five years later, and Pearl was walking around with her low-rent knock-off clique from The Craft. It was one of those friend circles where nobody seemed to like each other and they were constantly badgering the new girl into creating more lesbian vampires to hang out with. You know that clique. So Pearl was feeling a lot of pressure and she was already very annoyed by it.

Then we were treated to our first of what felt like DOZENS of scenes of a college professor explaining the queer themes in common literature. Did you know that Bram Stoker’s Dracula is gayer than Tales of the City? This guy did. Also, fun fact, he was played by Ivan Sergei, who played the titular “Danger” in the original film. Now he’s merely a college professor hunk.

Meet Leah, our protagonist. Her first scene involved an impassioned defense of the coolness of Twilight, which is the opposite of a Save the Cat moment, but fine. Sometimes even know-it-alls with bad taste can be sympathetic, as we learned later when she tried out for the college play and insisted on auditioning for Macbeth instead of Lady Macbeth. Takes guts, girl! Now I like her.

Oh, look at who the play’s director was. Some guy, his name escapes me. But he had a wonderful sweater collection throughout. Kudos!

And I already told you this, but Tori Spelling does not look like the mom of a college student (specifically THIS college student, who appears to be in her early 30s). Anyway, Tori Spelling is great and spent most of her screentime either hiding behind trees, entering a room holding tongs, or staring angrily into a glass of red wine. It was a wonderful performance and probably the best part of the film.

Things got complicated when Leah brought her girlfriend Pearl home for supper, and Tori Spelling basically lost her s–t over her daughter being gay.

Honestly, I had always imagined that coming out to Tori Spelling would be easy and natural — how many thousands of strangers do you think have come out to Tori Spelling on the street by now? — but in this case, it did not go over well. I think it was because she was supposed to be a sad widow whose husband was murdered in a mass shooting in Florida (too soon, Lifetime!) or maybe she was just slightly homophobic. Either way, angst!

For a movie that was really only about 80 minutes long without commercials, a full third of it was aerial photography of Los Angeles while another third of it was very long re-enactments of scenes from Macbeth. This particular scene involved the title character attempting to make a speech while the witches (actual vampires) molested his face, neck, head, and mouth. It was good theatre, stirring theatre.

I laughed out loud at how sad this frat house looked. But honestly it looked more realistic than most frat houses in movies do, so credit where credit’s due.

One fascinating thing about the vampires in this saga was they only killed “bad” men, and in this scene they directed their thirst at a frat dude who was currently in the middle of raping a lady. So yeah, in other words, the “danger” that mother did not want you to sleep with was actually a group of righteous avengers. There are worse dangers to sleep with, is what I’m saying.

Okay, now it’s time for my favorite game. Can you spot Tori Spelling?

She’s hiding behind that tree in the middle there. Okay, this one’s a little bit trickier: Can you spot Tori Spelling?

If you look closely, she’s off on the right, just behind that sawed off tree stump. How about this one: Can you spot Tori Spelling?

If you squint your eyes just right, you can see Tori Spelling crouched down in those bushes! Man, where will Tori Spelling be hiding next?

So yeah, based on a tip from one of Leah’s jilted exes, Tori Spelling began to look into this Pearl girl and discovered that she wasn’t actually enrolled in the college, and also she takes too many sexy photos of Leah, and also she might be on drugs. But Leah wasn’t about to dump her girlfriend on her mom’s orders, so Tori Spelling took it upon herself to stalk her daughter around town. Was this good mothering, or criminal behavior? You be the judge.

I love a college production where full buckets of blood are splashed on the lead DURING REHEARSAL. That poor janitor.

So, then Pearl finally “came out” to Leah, and though Leah was put off at first by Pearl’s fangs, her love was strong enough that she demanded to be turned ASAP. But Pearl didn’t want to be rash about it, so they settled for some cemetery softcore instead. Everybody loves cemetery softcore, but especially lesbian vampires.

So then Tori Spelling threw a Halloween Bash at the local country club, which as it turned out was a great place for Leah to be roofied and sexually assaulted by her ex-boyfriend Bob. Fortunately a trio of creepy ladies in papier maché masks (which were almost certainly made by James Franco himself at 3 a.m. a few days earlier) attacked Bob mid-assault. So basically Leah was saved by Danger! Unfortunately they forgot to kill the guy completely, so next thing we knew it was opening night of Macbeth and he was onstage shouting at Leah about being a vampire or whatever right in front of the paying crowd!

The fact that he was still alive and somehow also friends with the other three girls really poked a hole in their reputation as only eating bad men, but whatever. Leah just didn’t even want to look at him anymore.

So in an unorthodox bit of improvisation, Leah and all the characters ran offstage and out into the cemetery where they tussled like crazy! But then Tori Spelling ran up to get involved and she was immediately clotheslined!

At this point Tori Spelling was murdered, so that was sad. R.I.P. Tori Spelling! Fortunately Pearl was NOT about to let Leah get hurt, so she systematically began mauling her ex-besties!

I loved when she ripped one of the girl’s windpipes out. This sequence was surprisingly gory, like something out of True Blood.

And then she also poked another one’s eyes out. (I also laughed out loud when she pushed the one vampire wearing the Siouxie Sioux wig into a tombstone and broke it.)

Ultimately Leah was too shaken by her mother’s murder to continue on as a human, and she finally convinced Pearl to turn her. So even though she was now officially an orphan, at least she was now an immortal blood-sucker who got to chill with her girlfriend forever. Merely okay consolation prize if we’re being honest.

But the story wasn’t over yet! One year later it was Halloween again, and guess who showed up wearing VERY convincing gore makeup?

That’s right, the vampires were all still alive and trying to be the danger that your mother would prefer you didn’t sleep with! Oh, PLEASE let there be a sequel. Please?

Anyway, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? was weird and boring but kind of wonderful also? It’s almost hard to describe. I’m glad it got made, and I love that Lifetime continues to experiment with expectation by letting things like this happen. This flick may not have been for everyone, but I know at least one person who loved it.

And sometimes that’s all that matters.

Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? airs on Lifetime