not horrible nor great

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Gold digging poisoner/femme fatale extraordinaire Victoria (Erika Eleniak) is fresh from her last caper and eying a new one. She adopts a new identity and takes a job in a small town as a schoolteacher.Quickly she targets a wealthy young couple with two children, one of whom is a pupil of hers. She becomes best friends with the wife and her gullible husband and continues to weasel her way into their lives stealthily threatening all that they hold dear. They come to find that the truth about Victoria is much darker than they ever could have imagined but it might be too late.Eleniak was Playboy magazine's Miss July for 1989. Often people define her by that title only. But she is arguably the very best of Playboy Playmates turned Hollywood actresses. In fact she was an actress (Child star) before she ever posed for Playboy. That was her in E.T. getting kissed by Elliott in the classroom scene. In feature film roles like Under Siege and Chasers she was more than passable. In this one however she bit off way more than she could chew and it comes off like a bad caricature.Ex-TV star Patricia Kalember (Thirtysomething) is not very convincing in her role as the wife/heroine. She does not play the role as the classic passive victim we are used to seeing in movies. Her own pro-activeness actually gets her into trouble and allows her to shape the plot.But she seems to look down upon the material here as well as the production itself. I do not just find her unconvincing as the character she plays. I actually think her distaste for the work she has settled for in this drek comes through despite whatever professional face she may have put on during shooting. She looks like she knows this one was headed direct to video or cable. Could she have known where it really did end up? Specifically, it is being marketed as a discount item for sale in dollar stores by an outfit known as Direct Source Special Products. Can you guess what price it commands? This looks like a TV movie and plays much like any movie of the week has but particularly like the not very good ones. It gives you some idea of why TV movies of the week are looked down on by audiences and often snubbed by actors who are offered roles in them.The controversial subject matter designed to win over audiences is another one of those Hollywood thriller clichés. Eleniak's character is to teachers here what Glenn Close was to mistresses in Fatal Attraction.As in other movies made for the small screen much of what is shown is sanitized, the supporting characters are played by no-name actors and the location is British Columbia doubling for the American Pacific Northwest. Casting was actually key in producing the dud that this turned out to be. The no-name actors in supporting roles are no-names for a reason. A non-descript guy portraying a Floridian victim of the title temptress spouts off his lines with an unmistakable Canadian accent.

I vote zero for this trite. And not only for the writing but for the choice of performers. I have always disliked Erika Elaina (whatever) in anything. She comes off like a bimbo from Playboy magazine.Here she attempts to be a killer and a teacher pulling the wool over everybody else in the movie. The worse being the stupidity of the wife. She gets drugged and doesn't know it. She get's stepped on keeping her away from a trip of which bitch Erika takes her place. She has things stolen from her making her seem out in space. She almost stabs her husband. You want her to go away.Whenever anything goes wrong with wifey, she runs to the teacher who is obviously out to kill her. The husband doesn't have a clue and quick to blame wifey. I think the actress playing the wife is good but the lines she is given are ridiculous. The neighbor gets blamed for everything and wifey is quick to accuse because the teacher, a stranger, tells her so.I don't see how money can be spent for this trite and a performance by a no-talent actress as Erika. I only hope I never have to see her on screen again.

. . . is that you often end up cheering for the villain. (Well, at least I do.) "The Good Teacher" is no exception. What makes it mildly interesting is that as the killer's psychosis is presented as a fait accompli -- from her first scenes, the audience knows she's a predatory lunatic and the film's mildest suspense and dramatic irony is generated by how long it takes for the intended victims to figure it out. However, the psycho, as played by Erica Eleniak, is so brittle and blatantly manipulative that the rest of the characters have to be thoroughgoing dimwits to figure it out. And Jesus, they are -- every stalker should have such clueless prey. The good doctor, his devoted wife and cute children (the boy who plays the pre-teen son may be the worst child actor in history) are so damn gullible you start to think they deserve their impending doom. Erica Eleniak isn't great, but she's at least entertaining, especially in a semi-comic episode where she picks up a loser in a bar and takes him back to her hotel room for a little "rough sex" that gets a little too rough. The rest of the cast seems pretty zombified, except for the too-smart neighbor and a cute dog that, of course, meets an unfortunate end (why do the makers of these movies hate animals so much?). Mild, mindless entertainment that's almost as much fun to ridicule as it is to watch.

FATAL LESSONS: THE GOOD TEACHER: Samantha Stephens and her unsuspecting family befriend a school teacher, Victoria, and suddenly a series of incidents occur, including mysterious phone calls, missing household items and strange family illnesses. Now Samantha must prevent Victoria from repeating her deadly actions of the past to save her family's future. Stars Patricia Kalember (Signs, Thirtysomething), Erika Eleniak (Baywatch, The Librarians, Betrayal) and Ken Tremblett (The Guilty, Tourist Trap, First Shot). Well the movie isn't that bad. If you don't have nothing good to watch, it's worth giving it a try. Patricia Kalembar must save her family from falling apart and all ends well..6/10