What does a woman do when a man starts to stalk her just after she gets out of an abusive relationship? You can badmouth Lifetime thrillers in front of your friends, but you can’t look into your lover’s eyes and say you actually don’t enjoy them all. Alexandre Carriere’s A Chef’s Deadly Revenge is a great addition to Lifetime’s favorite genre. A restaurant owner faces danger when the previous owner starts to stalk her incessantly.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the movie?
Lucy opens a new restaurant after escaping a relationship so abusive that she started feeling mentally ill. Looking for a fresh start, Lucy and her best friend and fellow chef, Megan, revive a three-star restaurant. With a great haul of customers showing up at their opening night, things look good for her, until a mysterious man leaves Lucy’s mother’s watch and her pictures at the restaurant. The next day, a man shows up in a dog park to start an absurd conversation with Lucy, and she freaks out. The stalker named Frank starts showing up at Lucy’s house at night, and Lucy decides to get back at him. She’s had enough abusive men in her life, and the dynamic soon changes when Lucy starts to give Frank a taste of his own medicine.
Why does Lucy befriend Frank’s wife?
Lucy starts to install security cameras around her restaurant, and she starts to follow Frank when he shows up. Frank drives off when chased. Lucy also finds out about Frank’s wife Emily through social media. Megan keeps telling Lucy that she shouldn’t get herself into this mess and should focus on being the chef she is. But Lucy has set her mind on showing Frank his place, and she goes to Emily’s antique shop. Lucy fakes her identity as Leah, a food critic who’s just come into town. Emily is kind to Lucy and spills her secrets about her husband once owning a restaurant. Frank’s grandfather built the building the restaurant is in, and he had to sell it when the profits stopped coming in. The new owners promised Frank to keep the rent to a minimum, but when he missed a few months of rent, they kicked him out and shut down his business. Frank is apparently still hopeful about reacquiring it, but Emily tells Lucy that he doesn’t have the money for it. Emily asks Lucy to join a book club she’s in, and Lucy comes in the next day to be a part of it. Lucy drops a dead fish on Frank’s doorstep, with a note saying she’s not going anywhere. The next morning, while sorting vegetables, Lucy finds a ghastly looking doll filled with worms, along with a goat skull.
What happens when Frank sees Lucy in his house?
Lucy joins the book club, which is an informal one and only consists of two or three women other than Lucy and Emily. They hold their meetings in Emily’s kitchen, and they feast on tea and cookies as apparently all middle-aged women do. Frank comes back home to see Lucy hanging out with his wife and her friends. Emily tells him that she’s a food critic, and he brings up the new restaurant on Water Street, which Lucy owns. He tells the women how on the last day, they couldn’t feed the patrons and sent everyone back because apparently they ran out of food. Frank warns her that she must avoid that one restaurant, and Lucy plays her part in pretending to be someone else. Their battle has become too personal now, as they stand right next to each other.
What happens when Lucy reveals the truth to Emily?
Lucy gets tired of Frank’s terror, and she goes to Emily to tell her her actual identity and how Frank has been stalking her since she moved in. Emily refuses to believe her and asks Lucy to leave. Emily goes back home to check on Frank’s phone, and she sees all the pictures he’s taken of Lucy. She realizes that Lucy wasn’t lying, and she dumps Frank right away. Lucy was out stalking them right outside their house, and she saw Emily leaving. Frank notices Lucy’s car and tries to chase it, but she drives off.
The next morning Lucy was supposed to take Megan for lumpectomy surgery, but her late-night stalking tires her out, and she wakes up late. She runs to Megan’s house to apologize, and Megan tells her that she should get her act straight. Lucy was getting too deep into all of it, and the changes in her were noticeable to Megan. After this, Lucy goes for a jog, and Frank shows up to take his revenge. He blames Lucy for Emily leaving him, and he runs after her for a long time before Lucy gets to a safe place. Lucy’s restaurant is hosting Taylor Abott, a bigshot food critic. Everything is going well until Lucy notices her ex-boyfriend Ayden sitting on a table with a woman. The trauma triggers Lucy, and she goes after him, humiliating him in front of everybody. Ayden claims that he’s been invited by the owner, like everybody else, but Lucy asks him to leave. Taylor notices everything, and one would imagine that’s not a very good impression to make when a celebrity critic is sitting in your restaurant.
Who killed Ayden?
Lucy wakes up in the morning to an anxious voice note from Megan, asking her to check the link she sent. It’s a news article that states that Ayden was stabbed to death the previous night, hours after Lucy shouted at him in the restaurant. Detective Sharma calls Lucy to the station for interrogation and asks Lucy where she was at the time of the murder. Lucy claims she went for a drive, but she didn’t kill Ayden. Sharma shows her the murder weapon, and it’s one of Lucy’s signature knives with her name engraved on it. Lucy refuses to speak any further without a lawyer, but she knows Frank is behind this.
How does Lucy take her revenge?
Frank attacks Megan at the restaurant, and Lucy’s patience with him finally runs out. She promises Megan that it’ll all be over in a day, but Megan disapproves of her methods and asks her to contact the police. But Lucy has had enough of men controlling her life, and she lures Frank out to chase her. She goes back to the restaurant, with Frank following right after. Frank claims that Lucy can’t hide anymore, but she makes him talk enough to get a confession out of him. Frank wants to pin every crime he commits on Lucy, and he won’t stop until she’s out of his restaurant. Lucy offers him to partner up on the business, but Frank refuses to listen. After he confesses everything and his wish to kill Lucy, she tells him that the whole place is surrounded by hidden cameras. Frank acts smart and thinks security cameras don’t catch sound, but Lucy took an extra step to make sure the security agency wired the place with microphones too. She throws flour on Frank to blind him for a bit, and then locks him in the freezer. Detective Sharma arrives to take Frank in, and Lucy finally gets rid of her stalker. In the closing moments of the film, the restaurant is booming again, and Megan has come up with a signature dish. Emily tries the new dish, and it blows her mind and taste buds, and Lucy acknowledges her appreciation.
A Chef’s Deadly Revenge is actually a decent movie if we ignore the production value. Lifetime’s tendency to end a film with a happy ending isn’t worth complaining about. The acting performances are pretty okay, and minus the absurd cuts, it’s pretty much a fun ride to hop on.
