Happy Valentine’s Day! We are celebrating the best we know how - with a really messed up love story, courtesy of Lifetime! We watched Salem Falls because it stars AJ Michalka - Lainey from the Goldbergs, and TV’s James Van Der Beek, who for a brief period was the star of several Lifetime movies. It was too ridiculously awesome to pass up! Bring on the… love?
The film opens to 3 teenage girls who’ve collectively read like one book on being Wiccan and now they are so totally witches. They spend a good chunk of this time while the opening credits roll, talking about how cool they are. And it is so totally not like a knock off of the Craft, because their witchcraft is real, because they totally live in Salem Falls, Mass. Because they’re like high school witches. And like no one knows. And like they’re super powerful because they are so totally like witches. Witches who do totally cool spells. They like, are totally going to get what they want. Because they did like spells for each of them to get like one cool thing they really, really want for themselves.
That cool thing is a totally grown middle aged man. And that man, is James Van Der Beek.
So the cool witches totally skipped school and are hanging out sipping milkshakes at the local diner while talking about how awesome their spells are and how they are so totally going to work. Lainey, oops, I mean Gillian, looks up to see a James Dean like James Van Der Beek, who plays Jack, pull up to the diner and walk in. Gillian is like you guys, my spell totally worked because Dawson just totally pulled up on his sex bike and he’s totally ready for me! The other girls are weirded out because her new crush is a grown up. But Gillian is, haha, spellbound, and walks up to James Dean Van Der Beek and starts checking him out hard and throwing sad innuendos his way, while the Beek is just like hello, who’s kid is this!?! And why is she macking on me so uncomfortably hard? Not interested! But who he is interested in is the weird lady who runs the diner that talks to her dead kid and makes her pancakes every day, Addie. Love connection!
Now Jack is working at the diner as a busboy. And the diner lady, Addie, and he are definitely feeling those love vibes. The Beek doesn’t even seem to mind the dead kid thing, he finds it endearing. But then a cop walks in and he has been doing some serious digging. Turns out the reason why Van Der Beek is in town is because he just got out of jail….. for being a pedo! Oh no! While Gillian is in the next booth with her parents doing anything she can to get him to notice her, she hears the news and is elated. There’s a chance he’ll diddle her yet! She pockets the pedo info for future use, and goes home with her dad. Meanwhile Addie the diner lady is mad as hell, because she really liked JVDB and thought he was special. Why is he messing with those young girls?
So yada yada yada, in an awkward fight JVDB tells diner lady his story. That he was falsely accused of messing with a girl, didn’t occur to him to ask for ID. Low and behold it turned out she was 16 and she had ulterior motives of her own, and now he’s spending time in the slammer because no one believed him. But now he’s out trying to start over, but has to register as a sex offender and now the whole town is up in his business. Just as he is wrapping up his story and he and diner lady Addie are chill, guess who comes pulling up saying OMG Jack JVDB I need to totally talk to you, like right now. It’s Gillian the Teenage Witch! And boy does she like to make this shit look weird. Gillian has a fight with Jack, that seems suspiciously like a lovers quarrel and Addie goes apeshit. She’s weirded out and wonders, is Jack really a pedo?
So Gillian has now made it her life goal to fuck up Jack’s life. If he’s not going to slip her that sweet sweet Van Der D, then she’s going to frame him and send him back to jail. Because she is totally a witch, and a rich witch on top of it, and she gets what she wants. So Gillian and her totally cool witch friends decide to meet in the woods at night where they can get totally naked and do some rad spells. Meanwhile, Jack’s got a huge case of the sads because his girlfriend of like one day doesn’t believe he’s not into teenage girls. He saddles up right next to Addie’s alcoholic dad who also works at the diner. The Dad tells the Beek he’d better not break Addie’s heart, she’s been through too much already. Jack looks at him hard and says, well what if she breaks mine. Dad thinks for a minute, he says - if she breaks your heart, I’ll buy you a drink. Start buying Pops, because Jack is feeling plenty thirsty and sad!
Cut back to some skyclad teenage witches in the woods. Gillian’s latest spell is to bring Jack to her. Convinced that they belong together and she just needs a little help from magic. So the girls start working the spell and Gillian is way too into it. Crazy shit starts happening and the girls hear someone coming. Her witch friends are so ready to like put their clothes on and like leave. Suddenly a drunk Jack comes running through the woods and smashes straight into Gillian. They both fall on the ground. Gillian is still naked in the middle of the woods by the way. This is not looking good for the old JVDB.
After another refusal to get it on with her, Gillian tells everyone, including the police, that Jack touched her and is totally a pedophile. She uses her friends as false witnesses and suddenly there is a witch hunt for Jack (get it, haha!) Everyone except Addie thinks he’s a diddler.
Now here is where things get tricky. Please bare with us. And seriously, SPOILERS - there’s no turning back! Things for Gillian start to get out of control. Her friends are weirded out she would take things this far and are the only ones who know she’s full of shit. They’re ready to turn her crazy ass in. Gillian gets introspective and gothy and starts acting the part of a victim. Addie decides to take things into her own hands and confront Gillian to try and save Jack, her true love, of like what, a week? She goes to Gillian’s palatial estate where she is chilling with her Dad, who has been all kinds of crazy with the townsfolk since he heard his daughter was touched and is pretty much behind the lynch mob out to get Jack. Addie tells Gillian a story about when she was her age. She worked for the richest guy in town, which was Gilligan's dad. And he was a pompous ass who thought he owned everything, including her - since she worked for him. And that’s when Gillian’s Dad started raping Addie. AND that Addie knows he was probably raping Gillian, his own daughter, as well. WHAT!?! If you are sitting here reading this and saying what in the fuck? Where did that come from? Believe us, we know! All three of us Plisskens literally jumped up and started yelling at the tv. Nothing could have been so out of nowhere as this little detail.
Gillian breaks down and it turns out it’s all true. She leaves with Addie to go tell the police. Jack is cleared and lives happily ever after with Addie and the dead kid. The End.
This movie’s plot line seemed soooo slow and boring in the beginning, and then incredibly rushed at the end. I went on IMDB to see what the overall consensus was. Fans of the book seemed to find this film confusing and deplorable. Some stating that the movie changed a lot of the plot for what seemed like no reason. A lot of new things were inserted while key plot points were completely removed. Might make for why the pacing is so off. There is no build up to anything, very little foreshadowing and no character background let along development. You’re just suppose to know who is good, who is bad, and what motivates them without any details. It left me wondering if there were other movies, was this one in a series about this town and characters? But that would make way too much sense! There are other movies based on Jodi Picoult’s books, but they are not a series.
On the other end of the spectrum, this is a Lifetime Movie. So you know there will be camp value, and something shocking to exploit. If you can make it to the end, it is worth the wtf factor. If not, I am pretty sure you can find the ending for this on YouTube. Just do that.
You can also catch this flick for free on Lifetime Movie Club this month.
The Breakdown:
The Best Parts: - JVDB
The Worst Parts - A poorly adapted script.
Ty - 2 Plisskens Jill - 3 Plisskens Matt - 2 Plisskens
References:
IMDB Salem Falls page - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2011218/
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