Villainess Review: Angela Daniels (Who's Stalking My Family?)

I do enjoy the month of November; the World Series is over, the Grey Cup's about to be awarded, hockey and basketball are still in the early stages, and the NFL is in the last "calm" period of the season. Regarding Lifetime, it's around this time that the holiday movies start to appear, but LMN still gives us the normal thrillers. As a Lifetime movie fan, I do love November, and it's mainly because it was three Novembers ago that we received a fabulous treat: Pauline Egan's first villainous role in Secrets of an Escort. That came out during the first week of November. Would the first week of November 2024 deliver again? Let's take a look.

The latest thriller, Who's Stalking My Family?, centered on Ivy Miller and her daughter Sadie, who appears to be close to fellow student Colton Daniels. Very quickly, however, we see Colton sneaking into the Miller household late one night, and as we know, stuff like that in a Lifetime movie raises alarms. You know what else raises alarms? Murder. We got one very quickly when a supposedly similar hooded figure bludgeons an elderly neighbor to death. Meanwhile, Sadie and Colton are spending quite a lot of time together, and that draws some concern from Ivy.

Speaking of Ivy, she has another crisis to deal with: her sister, Lily, left her abusive and controlling husband, Pete, and yeah, he's a real piece of something, all right. Controlling, demanding, toxic, misogynistic, you name it. He pleads for Lily back, and directly blames Ivy for the downfall of his marriage. Yeah, because you being a misogynistic twit had nothing to do with it. So we have control freak Pete obsessively trying to get Lily back, and we have Colton suspected of having a thing for Ivy, who is suddenly attacked outside her work place! The subplots thicken, folks.

Regarding Colton, Ivy voiced her concerns to his mother, Angela Daniels, and they both feel that Colton should keep his distance from the Millers. However, this falls on deaf ears, and circumstances also result in Colton and the Millers crossing paths. What circumstances, you ask? Oh, nothing. Just psycho Pete holding Ivy and Lily at gunpoint and demanding that the latter returns to him. That's all. Colton does save the day, much to the worry of Angela, who scolded her son for actually dealing with a gunman.

Speaking of guns, a mysterious person carrying one suddenly drove up to Ivy and her new man in her life, Leo, and fired a shot, which struck Leo's shoulder. With everything that happened, Pete is suspect #1. There's one problem: Pete is no more. Ivy was informed by a detective that not only is Pete now deceased, he had been gone for at least 12 hours. Meanwhile, after being caught by Sadie with a photo of herself and Ivy, Colton shows up at the house and wants to talk to Ivy, who ejects Colton, who later shouts three words that I kinda expected him to say:

"I'm your son!"

Something told me that Colton would be revealed to have some sort of connection to Ivy, and I did kinda expect that. So we see a bio mom and son reunion, and it's followed by Colton saying something that I did see coming: the person behind all of the evil things that have been occurring--it's Angela. Yeah. So adopted mommy dearest has a possessive nature when it comes to Colton, who revealed that it was because of this that he couldn't have girlfriends. Colton revealed that Angela had been planning to kill Ivy after finding out that Colton's true reason for moving to their current home was to be near her, and her quest included killing the neighbor, attacking Ivy, and even shooting Leo (who survived), with Ivy as her true target.

As for Angela, she was visited by Sadie, as she informed Angela that Colton told her that he was Ivy's son. Those words triggered Angela, and she shifted from a welcoming demeanor to her psychotic persona, especially after Sadie figures out that Angela actually murdered her husband (Colton's adopted father) some time ago, as he was set to leave her for another woman. Sadie attempts to leave, only for Angela to track her to the garage and knock her out with a crowbar.

Ivy and Colton arrived at the latter's house looking for Sadie, only to encounter Angela, who claimed that she hadn't seen Sadie. Even as Sadie's backpack was found in the house, Angela kept that lie going. Colton confronted his insane mother regarding his knowledge of her actions, only for Angela to lash out at Colton for lying about his reason for moving to their current home. During this rant, Angela admitted to killing Colton's father, claiming that he was abandoning them, and also stated that she was not going to lose Colton to another woman just like she lost her husband. Ivy finds Sadie in the trunk of Angela's car and rescues her, but the pair ended up confronted by a crowbar-wielding and fully insane Angela.

Angela claimed that Colton was hers and accused Ivy of not wanting him, while also voicing her plan to kill both Ivy and Sadie, who she saw as obstacles between herself and Colton. At that very moment, Colton appeared and talked Angela down from her rampage, doing so by mentioning all of the wonderful things she had done for Colton in the years she raised him. That moment of warmth resulted in Angela dropping her crowbar, and after she was arrested, we are treated to an ending scene that sees Colton with his bio mom, his sister, his aunt Lily, and with Leo.

Who's Stalking My Family? aired on Lifetime Movie Network on November 7, 2024, and the film featured Liz DeCoudres as the maniacal Angela Daniels. Angela was very delicious and very insane, and the most chilling thing about Angela is that she wore a maternal mask over her psychotic and deranged demeanor. I figured Angela was villainous when Colton mentioned his father's death. A fall down the stairs? Yeah, I wasn't born yesterday. It can be said that Angela is definitely an "Oedipal mother," or at least close to it. After all, she wouldn't let Colton have any girlfriends.

I also loved that Angela was a cross between a pair of earlier Lifetime villainesses: Susan Hardy (Social Nightmare aka Mother) and Tracey Watson (The Pregnancy Promise). Much like Susan, Angela was obsessed with having her offspring with her, with an assumed fear of loneliness being one reason. And that last scene did remind me of how Tracey was talked down from her own rampage as well. DeCoudres absolutely stole this film as Angela; she portrayed Angela's maternal demeanor very well, but shined when Angela's insanity came out in the film's climax. This was an absolutely stellar performance.

This is actually Liz DeCoudres' second Lifetime film; she was also in Nightmare Pageant Moms (which also had Muretta Moss--who played Lily in this film). I can see DeCoudres doing the villainess thing again, at least I hope she does.

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Click here for Angela Daniels' profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!