Glass House: The Good Mother

“***An idyllic house (mansion) is not necessarily a home*** An orphaned teen girl (Jordan Hinson) & her little brother start a new life in remote Simi Valley, Ca, with their adoptive parents (Angie Harmon & Joel Gretsch), a seemingly-ideal couple who tragically lost their son a year earlier. Jason London is on hand as the kid’s acting-godfather. “Glass House: The Good Mother” (2006) naturally has a similar plot to the first film, but the kids are a little younger here and, as the title implies, the mother is now the key adversary. Being a direct-to-video release it lacks the budget of the first film with Leelee Sobieski and Stellan Skarsgård (2001) and therefore lacks the theatrical pizazz thereof, having a Lifetime movie vibe. As with that first movie, the awesome mansion itself is a highlight, located just a dozen miles north of the Glass manor used in the previous flick (in real-life). Unlike the first film, however, the actors are all no-names. Yet they rise to the challenge, especially Harmon as the increasingly not-good mother and Hinson as the formidable girl, who essentially becomes the “final girl” à la slasher flicks. Not that this is a horror movie, but there is that element. It’s more realistic than the conventional slasher, which typically involve some eye-rolling psycho wearing a mask and brandishing a machete, etc. Here, the diabolic individual is more every-day and perfectly harmless on the surface, which somehow makes it more chilling. The flick effectively addresses the mental illness factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), aka Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP). These types of psychos actually exist, unfortunately. The film runs 1 hour, 34 minutes, and was shot in Simi Valley, Ca, with some stuff done in Hollywood. GRADE: C”