Psycho Wedding Crasher (also called The Wedding Stalker) is a 2017 Lifetime Movie of the Week Psychological Thriller directed by David Langlois and written by J. Bryan Dick.
Jenna Kravitz (Heather Morris) is a shy, orphaned young woman who lives with her Aunt Daisy (Joan Van Ark of Knots Landing fame), who owns Daisy's Wedding Corner. Making wedding dresses for Daisy's business, Jenna dreams of becoming a beautiful bride herself, though cruel Daisy repeatedly tells her she'll never find love. Jenna thinks she's found Mr. Right in Glenn Cooper (Jason Cermak). Problem is, he's the groom for the bride, Marci (Fiona Vroom), whose wedding dress she just finished making. After crashing their wedding, Jenna befriends Marci to get close to Glenn, but her obsession with Glenn becomes deadly.
Obviously no relation to Wedding Crashers, though if you took the script of that movie and asked V. C. Andrews, Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams and Charles Dickens to rewrite it, it might end up looking something like this.
Psycho Wedding Crasher contains examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer:
- Scott (Glenn's best man) has been pursuing Chelsea (Marci's bridesmaid and former girlfriend of Glenn) for years, but his oily personality turns her off.
- Jenna becomes one for Glenn at the climax when she tries to murder Marci, then traps him and tries to make him have a "wedding" with her, witnessed by a bunch of stuffed animals.
- Abusive Parents: Jenna describes her late father as having been a horrible man, suggesting he was this and that his abuse was the reason why her mother killed him.
- Ashes to Crashes: Aunt Daisy keeps the ashes of Jenna's father in an urn on the mantle. During her spree, Jenna, who hated him, flushes the ashes down the toilet.
- Asshole Victim: It's doubtful anyone watching will shed a tear over the murders of Jerkass Aunt Daisy and slimy horndog Scott.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Jenna (blonde), Chelsea (brunette), Marci (redhead).
- Casanova Wannabe: Scott would rather chase women than settle down, but apparently is considered a sleazebag by most women (Glenn teases him about this).
- Chekhov's Gun:
- An actual gun in Chelsea's dresser drawer, later used by Jenna to kill Scott.
- Chelsea specifically mentioning her favorite brand of lingerie at the wedding reception, since seeing that brand of panties in her bed (planted by Jenna) leads Marci to conclude that she's sleeping with Glenn.
- Cute and Psycho: Jenna is an attractive and friendly (if shy) blonde, and a cold-blooded murderer.
- Daydream Surprise: Twice used after what appears to be Glenn romancing Jenna, but only in her imagination.
- Dead Man's Chest: Jenna places the body of Aunt Daisy in a trunk, leading to a Rope-style scene where a homicide detective unknowingly sits on the trunk as he questions her.
- Evil Old Folks: Aunt Daisy subjects Jenna to constant verbal abuse, telling her she's undatable, no man will ever want her, and flat-out calling her "worthless".Aunt Daisy: Nobody would ever put up with you! Especially a man!
- Every Car Is a Pinto: After Marci escapes from the car wreckage, it explodes.
- Frame-Up:
- Jenna steals jewelry and a pair of panties from Chelsea, and plants them in Marci's house to make it look Glenn is sleeping with Chelsea.
- She also makes it look like Scott assaulted her, tearing her own dress and giving herself bruises.
- Here We Go Again!: In the final scene Jenna successfully manages a Villain: Exit, Stage Left gambit and goes back to working with a wedding planner and crushing on a future groom.
- The Ingenue: As a mild-mannered, bright-eyed, Endearingly Dorky blonde, Jenna ostensibly counts, which gets reinforced in the scene at Scott's apartment, where it's implied that she's a virgin (a detail she confirms in her Motive Rant in the final act). But as she's slowly revealed to be obsessive, psychopathic and murderous, this ends up being subverted.
- Lingerie Scene: Jenna strips down to a bra and panties after sneaking into Glenn and Marci's house.
- Lipstick Mark: Jenna puts one on Glenn's pillow, to lead Marci to think he's having an affair.
- Loners Are Freaks: Jenna is shy, doesn't seem to have a social life, and is extremely disturbed.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Jenna tries to kill Marci by knocking her out, putting her behind the wheel of a car, and pushing the car over a cliff, to make it look like a suicide.
- Meet Cute:
- Jenna met Glenn when he showed up to drop something off at Daisy's house and he bumped into Jenna as she slipped on the front steps. In her mind, anyway, this was a straight version of this trope.
- Her obviously staged "don't I know you?" encounter with Marci at the golf clubhouse to kick off their "friendship" is a variation.
- Nephewism: Jenna's parents both died and Daisy, her father's sister, raised her. Daisy's hatred of her former sister-in-law motivates much of her abuse of Jenna.
- Old Maid: We never get any kind of hint that Aunt Daisy was ever married, so she may well have been one (making the owner of a wedding shop a darkly amusing case of The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes). Also implied when she chides Jenna for wanting a man, spitefully accusing her of not wanting "to end up like me."
- Parlor Games: When they get back to his place, Scott asks Jenna to play a special version of Jenga in which the wooden blocks have racy instructions on them.
- Played for Drama: Jenna, the lovelorn wedding dress maker pining for a shot at being the same kind of bride that she makes dresses for, would be a perfect heroine for a Hallmark Channel romance movie. Instead, she's a mentally disturbed Lifetime villain.
- Revisiting the Roots: With its low-key, slow-burning suspense style centered on a well-developed villain played by a familiar television face, this feels like a throwback to Lifetime's older thrillers and their NBC Monday Night at the Movies ancestors, as opposed to the more frantic, over-the-top thrillers with obscure actors that modern Lifetime favors.
- Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Jenna sincerely believes that Glenn loves her and wants to leave Marci to be with her, going so far as to scratch out Marci's face on the picture of her and Glenn on her copy of the wedding invitation.
- Shirtless Scene: While Jenna is in their house, Glenn comes home to take a shower and has one of these.
- Shrinking Violet: Between getting subjected to Daisy's rants and her social awkwardness, Jenna often comes across as one, though she's perfectly capable of being outgoing as needed for her schemes.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Jenna has this for Glenn, emphasized when she goes back to Scott's apartment for what he clearly assumes will be a sexual tryst, but ends things after one kiss and runs away. In her Motive Rant at the climax, Jenna clarifies why that happened—she's a virgin and wants Glenn to be her first.
- Sinister Suffocation: Jenna uses a tape measure to strangle Aunt Daisy.
- Stalker Shrine: An early scene reveals that this isn't the first time Jenna has obsessively crushed on a groom from one of the weddings she assists. Her bedroom wall is full of pictures from past weddings.
- Villain Protagonist: The movie centers on Jenna as she becomes more and more unhinged.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: After running out on her date with Scott, Jenna dishevels her clothes and bashes her own head before going to Marci and claiming Scott tried to force himself on her. Ironically, while Marci is quick to believe her claims, Glenn (the target of Jenna's obsession) is more apprehensive.
- Yandere: Established from the beginning for Jenna, as she sneaks in to watch the wedding of Glenn and Marci and whispers "I do" along with Marci.
