Now Is The Time To Get Hooked On Hallmark Mystery’s ‘Curious Caterer’

Nikki DeLoach and Andrew Walker are back with the fourth installment of the series with ‘Curious Caterer: Foiled Plans.’

Nikki DeLoach and Andrew Walker are back with the fourth installment of Hallmark Mystery’s popular series, Curious Caterer. This one, Walker told Southern Living, “is the best one yet. I don’t know how it couldn’t be.”

Curious Caterer: Foiled Plans, A Preview:

In Curious Caterer: Foiled Plans, we rejoin our favorite residents of Elk Park as caterers Goldy and Marla are excitedly setting up for a Medieval themed fundraiser, benefiting the Elk Park Fencing Club. Goldy’s daughter Olive has just taken up the sport and all are a buzz. All of the elements of the party are keeping to the theme from the food, to the decor, to period costumes for all working and in attendance, and even the venue itself–a castle. All is going well until a murder occurs just as the festive feast was about to be served.

Their wealthy host and owner of the lavish castle met his sudden fate by the blade of a fencing foil. Immediately, the unlikely crime solving duo of catering chef Goldy Berry and police detective Tom Schultz are on the case once again. Luckily, the whole town is in attendance so they have plenty of help both in the form of Tom’s fellow officers of the law, Mason and Trach, but also civilian help from Marla and a few new characters. But, this also means they are all locked into a castle in the middle of a storm with a murderer.

In tandem with the quest to solve the murder, two love stories are also developing. DeLoach spoke first of the emerging sparks between Marla and Trach. “I would say that Marla and Trach had a bit of a spark in the last movie so we’re picking up where they left off in that way. Except Trach is a really mysterious, very guarded person in that way. So she doesn’t really know where she stands with him and she wants to figure that out.”

As for Goldy and Tom, Walker said, “Their relationship has moved along,” and DeLoach jumped in with, “a date on the table for them to go out. And she’s really excited about it coming into this movie.” The tension builds between these two lead characters and it’s less of a “will they/won’t they and more of a “when will they?”

"This one has a lot of romance. But it’s not just us, it’s also Marla and Trach and their romance. It’s a romantic scenario. You’re in a castle, you’re in these costumes, its a ball. It’s set up for that and I’m really happy that we leaned into it. Because we’re finally in this movie giving the audience a little bit of what they’ve been asking for," DeLoach said.

Between the castle, the costumes, the quick pace of the dialogue, and the action in this movie, it is easy to see that this installment in the series is paying homage to one of the best murder mystery films ever made, Clue. It’s like Clue, but with the extra addition of a good dose of romance.

Behind the Scenes

Another big element in the story this time is that we learn much more about Tom’s history and what made him the way that he is. We learn more about the relationship between Tom and his estranged father and just what happened to his father that put him behind bars for 20 years. But we won’t give too much away. There is an interesting moment where Tom pulls out a photo that is to be Tom and his dad when Tom was a young boy. Walker actually told us that the photo is really a childhood photo of his own and that the older man in the photo is actually his uncle.

“My actor uncle,” Walker said with a proud grin.

Walker continued, “Some fun facts too: This castle was the same castle in X-Men. The wardrobe which was great, they brought in a lot of this wardrobe from Once Upon A Time. The ABC Show. That’s how they had a lot of access to these costumes."

Deloach piped in with, “my dress was about 5,000 pounds. I don’t know how people wore those outfits, they were so heavy. I felt like my shoulders and my neck and my back, everything was getting a workout.”

She also shared, “I would also say, something really fun about shooting in one location is you utilize every inch of that castle and a castle that was actually haunted in real life. There’s a whole story  behind the castle where this husband had built his wife this beautiful castle on Vancouver Island and she sadly and tragically lost her son. And never ended up going to the castle to live in it. So this beautiful place was built for her and then she suffered this huge loss. And so they say the spirit of the son is in the castle and there were some very other side moments that happened when our crew was upstairs in certain parts of the castle.”

The Georgia native then added, “we also filmed in the governor’s house. It was one of the other locations and the governor was living in it when we were filming. Which was kind of fun. The governor would come through with her dog and I’d be like ‘hello ma’am’ in my Medieval outfit and I would courtesy and bow and she was like, ‘you don’t need to do that.’ I was like I just feel it’s appropriate when you’re in a dress like this and I’m in your house,” she said with a laugh.

A Great Supporting Cast

Both actors sang the praises of their supporting cast and background actors. Walker said of his co-stars, “supporting roles, that can really make or break it.” He noted how the bond he’s built with these actors has just enriched the story for each and every film in the series and help him to further develop Tom’s many layers.

“I will also say in every single scene, we had upwards of 40 people in a scene. And it was days and days of that and we were just so fortunate  because all of the background actors were really incredible and really, brought it to make everything come to life. I’m just so grateful. From top to bottom we had just an amazing crew and amazing cast and we had a lot of lot of fun in between takes. Nobody went back to their trailers because it was too far to get to the trailers so we were at that castle from the moment we landed to the moment we got home every day. It’s like we all went away to camp and it just provided so much more quality time that everybody got to spend with each other. Which was really fun,” Deloach said.

To Catch You Up: A List of the Curious Caterer Films In Order

If you need a refresher or you haven’t yet gotten on the Curious Caterer bandwagon, there is no time like the present to catch up. There are three earlier films in the series that are currently available to stream on a variety of streaming platforms including Hallmark Movies Now, Philo, and Frndly TV. The earlier movies are:

Curious Caterer: Dying For Chocolate, 2022

Curious Caterer: Grilling Season, 2023

Curious Caterer: Fatal Vows, 2023

“I hope we’re delivering on what the fans have asked for and what they wanted because at the end of the day they are the most important ones out of the equation. We do these to make them happy and bring them joy and I hope this movie does that. It’s a fun movie. I hope that everybody’s properly entertained and also they walk away getting what they came for," Deloach concluded.

Curious Caterer: Foiled Plans premieres on Hallmark Mystery on Friday, April 26 at 9 p.m. EST.

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