Blood, Sweat and Lies (Fancy Pants Films, Lifetime, 2018)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2021 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

As if three Lifetime movies in a row last night wasn’t enough for me, this afternoon I grabbed the hair of the dog and watched a fourth one, called Blood, Sweat and Lies – though if Christine Conradt had written it (instead of the actual writer, Amanda Bermudez) she’d have probably called it The Perfect Physical Trainer. The film opens with our heroine, art-gallery owner Melissa Barrett (Hannah Barefoot – one wonders whether she ever co-starred with Boti Bliss for a movie of Barefoot Bliss!), breaking up with her homely and terminally boyfriend Carter (Drew Roy) after five years of a relationship she feels is going nowhere. At the urging of her best friend Leslie (Briana Lane), Melissa signs up for a gym called “Perfect Fitness” and gets offered a personal training package from a hot young man named Trey (Adam Huber). Of course, we hardened Lifetime movie-watchers immediately realize that Trey has a lot more interests in Melissa than just building up her muscles so she can do pull-ups. Melissa actually meets a potential new boyfriend, Adam Diaz (Matt Cedeño, who’s not only taller than Adam Huber but considerably more muscular, even though Huber is playing the guy who’s supposed to be the physical trainer), and the two go on a few dates and ultimately hook up, but Trey quietly seeks to sabotage their relationship.

First he steals Melissa’s cell phone when she gives it to him to lock up during her workout and uses it to block both Adam’s and Leslie’s phone numbers. Then he tells Melissa that she can’t have any distractions in her life while she works out, and he orders her to take a “24-hour break” from Leslie. He lures Adam to the gym at 5:30 a.m. – a half-hour before it officially opens (though who in the real world does workouts at 6 a.m.? Maybe if they’re training for the Olympics or something … ) – and agrees to spot him while Adam does some bench-pressing, then disappears on him and Adam has to use his last ounce of strength to avoid being crushed by the bar of the barbells. Then Trey tries locking Melissa in the gym after one of her workouts so he can have his wicked way with her at last, and when she gets him to let her leave he responds to her rejection by breaking into her art gallery and vandalizing the paintings. Leslie comes close to the usual fate of a Lifetime heroine’s best friend when she sneaks into the gym (courtesy of Melissa, who got a key to the place from Trey so she could work out – and hopefully rendezvous with him – any time), goes through Trey’s private papers and photo collection, and discovers at least part of his motive: as a young man Trey was a fat schlub who put himself through a workout regimen that would turn him into a young stud.

Only Trey catches her and puts her in a choke-hold, then locks her in a gym closet. He also lures Adam there and ties him to some of the gym equipment in such a way that he’s already in excruciating pain and Trey can kill him at any moment. Melissa comes to rescue her friend and finds her boyfriend there, both held hostage by Trey and his craziness, and Melissa finally learns What Makes Trey Run. It seems that once again a Lifetime writer and director (Lane Shefter Bishop, who gets some genuinely interesting neo-noir compositions into the film, especially during the final scenes) have motivated the villain through a trauma dating back years in the past. It seems that Trey and Melissa went to college together and he had an unrequited crush on her, but she wouldn’t look twice at him because he was fat, so he determined first to perfect his own body, then to attract her to his gym and do the same for her, so they could be two hot studs together and live happily ever after. Only Melissa places a 911 call and both the police and an ambulance get dispatched to the gym – Trey steals the phone and tries to intercept the call, but too late – and at the end all the good people get rescued and Trey ends up in prison, where he obsessively tears red paper into heart shapes and manages to send one to the reopening of Melissa’s gallery. Were the people behind this movie hoping it would do well enough to merit a sequel in which Troy would get out of prison (we’re told that, since he never actually killed anybody, he only drew a five-year sentence) and put Melissa through even more miseries? About the only entertaining aspects of Blood, Sweat and Lies are the neo-noir shots and getting to look at the nice hot bods of Adam Huber and Matt Cedeño.