Reviewing Lifetime's 1st Thriller and 1st Villainess of 2025

For the last few years, I get my info on upcoming Lifetime thrillers from a site called Futon Critic, and I took a look at the films that would hit Lifetime and LMN in January. As I wrote my year end Lifetime villainess list for 2024, I instantly looked forward to what Lifetime would give us in 2025. Sure enough, three days into the New Year, Lifetime Movie Network gave us this wonderful gem, Dressed to Kill, which brought back the normal routine of LMN premiering movies on Fridays.

Anyway, after we are introduced to a random murder, the film begins at some point prior to that scene, and we are introduced to Amy Ross, one of the employees at Silver, a fashion company owned and run by Vanessa Silver, who we see scolding her daughter, Blair, over her latest partying escapade. Needless to say, the mother/daughter relationship has more holes than the Cincinnati Bengals defense and offensive line combined. The argument triggers Vanessa's asthma (that's definitely not going to come into play later), and Amy saves the day by bringing Vanessa her inhaler.

A grateful Vanessa, the latest in a long line of Anna Wintour imitations, decides to promote Amy, but on one condition: she has to fire her BFF Wanda. Despite the immense hesitation, the proverbial bandaid is ripped off, and Wanda is being taken away, shocked at what's transpired. Amy laments over everything, but the lamentations increase on the following day, as Amy enters to the news that Vanessa has suddenly passed on. What took Vanessa, you ask? A bad asthma attack.

After being interviewed by two cops who are clearly sharing a single brain cell, Amy and Blair are at the reading of Vanessa's will, and in it, Amy receives 90% of Silver, and is the new CEO, while Blair receives the remaining 10%. Blair is livid, as she feels that she should have the company because she's Vanessa's daughter, and this leads to Blair accusing Amy of killing Vanessa, as well as Blair making various attempt to antagonize Amy, which included getting herself invited to Amy's house and having dinner with her and husband Kevin, and bringing a bottle of wine... which was clearly drugged. In addition, Amy had to deal with Wanda suddenly appearing and saying that with Vanessa now deceased, she's back with Silver, making all sorts of crazy statements against Vanessa and even Amy in a drunken fit.

A big fashion show takes place, and Blair wanted her BFF Clara to model a particular dress, only for Amy to inform her very junior partner that she already had a model in mind. Blair takes the news well, but suddenly, the planned model, Audrey, is attacked, allowing Clara to take her place. After the disaster, Amy lets Clara and Blair have it, but we later see the pair of mean girls laughing it up over Amy's embarrassment. However, the enjoyment ends there, as this is the scene we came in at, and it's Clara who's being strangled to death.

Amy learns about this and also hears that Blair was hospitalized as well. At this point, Amy's not sure who to suspect. She still suspects Blair, though she even thinks Kevin may have done it. After all, Kevin wanted to start a family with Amy, and this big time promotion got in the way of that. Amy confronts Blair, who still says Amy's the killer, though she also mentioned that her and Clara's attacker wore a certain perfume that Amy remembers Wanda wearing. So now Wanda's the prime suspect, and Amy and Kevin head to the shop looking for more answers. What occurs is Kevin being attacked, and Amy having to deal with those same two cops, Tweedledee and Tweedledumbass. So of course, Amy has to handle things on her own, and she returns to this shop fully convinced that Wanda's involved. However, Amy finds Wanda knocked out, and she turns around to find...

So to the surprise of absolutely no one, Blair's the killer. She killed Vanessa by taking her inhaler following what would be her final asthma attack, and she was behind the attack on Audrey as well. Once the video of Amy's outburst went viral, Blair decided to strangle Clara to death, and then attack herself to cover her tracks. She planned to frame Amy for everything; she had planted the inhaler in Amy's house, but Amy found it before the cops did. Blair wanted Silver to herself, feeling that she deserve to have Silver due to being Vanessa's daughter, and also voicing her plan to kill Amy and claiming to have killed both Kevin and Wanda.

Just as Blair's about to knock off Amy, she's suddenly knocked out by the still-alive Wanda. Afterwards, Amy, Wanda, and the also still-alive Kevin watch as Blair's taken away in handcuffs, and regarding the ending, it skips ahead six months and shows Amy and Wanda as partners in the renamed Ross & Lovell, and Amy is expecting. Wonderful!

Dressed to Kill aired on Lifetime Movie Network on January 3, 2025, and the film featured Annie Sullivan as villainess Blair Silver. Again, Blair was predictable, but I did love her as the main villainess. She was evil and nasty and made absolutely no attempts to hide it. From the moment we see Blair, we know what she's about. In Blair's mind, the world revolves around her, and those who can't see that, well, they get dealt with. In addition to being scheming and greedy, Blair's also sociopathic, which brings me to yet another trope: You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. This definitely applies to Clara, who was seen by Blair as a means to an end. She wanted Clara featured, and attacked Audrey to get it, with the added bonus of humilating Amy on video. The two girls laughed about the incident, but once the video was leaked, Blair turned heel on Clara, and the reason is in the aforementioned trope.

Annie Sullivan's performance was very brilliant; she played that spoiled, narcissistic persona to perfection, and she absolutely shined when it came to Blair's bloodthirsty demeanor and her unveiling in the climax. This is actually Sullivan's second Lifetime film; she previously appeared in 2024's first Lifetime thriller, Dying for Fame. I truly hope she does more Lifetime movies; she totally stole this one!

If you like this story and review, click the heart and the subscribe button, and feel free to comment below! Tips and pledges would be greatly appreciated, but only if you want to do so!

Check out Blair Silver's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!