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crime drama
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Why Is Everyone Obsessed With the 'Miami Vice' Movie This Week?
Once in a while, a movie gets it so wrong that it’s almost incredible. We’re talking something like The Room, a film so objectively bad and unfailingly earnest that it manages to be watchable. Murder on the Cape, now streaming on Netflix, has certainly earned its spot among the ranks of this kind of bafflingly bad film, and it’s based on a true story. You likely won’t really recognize any of the actors here; Jade Harlow, best known for soap opera Passions, stars as Elizabeth Baldwin, and newbie Josh Walther plays her sexy, grizzled shellfish warden companion Mike Luna. Starting to get the picture? Allow us to paint it a little clearer for you.
By some strange twist of fate, Murder on the Cape is actually loosely based on the murder of fashion writer Christa Worthington, a single mom who was found stabbed to death in her Cape Cod home in 2002 with her 2-year-old daughter Ava clutching to her body. It’s a dark, tragic story, but it’s undoubtedly perfect crime drama material. The minds behind Murder on the Cape evidently took notice of this, and spun their own version of Worthington’s story somehow not even Lifetime movie caliber, but boy, is it entertaining.
The premise is ripped from the headlines; a fashion writer from New York comes to stay in Provincetown, shacks up with a married, out-of-work fisherman, and ends up returning two years later with his child in tow. Her presence doesn’t thrill everyone in town, and yes, you guessed it, she gets murdered. This isn’t a spoiler – it’s pretty clear from the beginning that Elizabeth is doomed. And between the inconsistent storytelling, bad dialogue, cheesy music, and parody-quality performances, it’s occasionally difficult to believe that Murder on the Cape is even a real movie, let alone one based on actual events.
Despite the film’s inherent predictability and slew of other flaws, it is worth watching, if only to lead you further into the true story of Worthington’s life and the crazy drama in the legal proceedings that has followed. If you’re interested in the Christa Worthington murder, you can find out more here. If not, you can stream Murder on the Cape on Netflix.
