'Stalked by My Husband's Ex' Review: Lifetime thriller wins big with an unexpected climax

Spoilers for 'Stalked by My Husband's Ex' 

Lifetime is famous for making thrillers that often touch upon behavioral patterns in humans. While some succeed in terrifying you, a few just don't make the cut despite premising on intriguing concepts. However, its latest offering 'Stalked by My Husband’s Ex' stands out from the rest of the network’s thriller dramas, owing to a twist in its plot which manages to leave you baffled.

Protagonist Kristen Carter (Alex McKenna) lives the quintessential life, thriving in hospitality and living with her boyfriend Ryan and his 10-year-old daughter Lisa, who is eager to make Kristen her mother. Kristen has also accepted Lisa as her own and even says it’s alright if her boyfriend’s daughter addressed her as "mom". However, becoming Lisa’s mother poses Kristen with challenges and threats due to Ryan’s parched relationship with his former wife Nina (Juliana Dever), Lisa’s biological mother. Nina is restrained from being associated with her daughter after getting arrested for attacking her husband in a drunken state and trying to take Lisa away when she was just an infant.

Lisa, who is now grown up, convinces her father to ask for Kristen’s hand in marriage. Soon, the family is ecstatic as they celebrate a new beginning. They organize an engagement party with close friends and family, which is unfortunately interrupted by Nina. While Ryan manages to get rid of her before Lisa learns about her biological mother, a tragedy befalls them on the same night as their best friend Sierra (Melissa Ordway) dies in a car accident, which comes across as extremely suspicious. 

On the other end, Nina is devastated to know that Kristen would soon become Lisa’s mother and considers questionable means to find her way back into her daughter’s life. With this, you would have already established that Nina is Sierra's killer. 

Nina follows and stalks Lisa until she manages to befriend her by pretending to be a child of the same age on Instagram. Although Lisa seems quite thrilled at the beginning to meet her biological mother, who by now has revealed her true identity, the little girl begins to freak out when she senses Nina’s strange obsession with her and soon alerts her father and Kristen. 

For those of you who would have started to despise Nina for her alleged crimes and creepy behavior, ‘Stalked by My Husband’s Ex’ surprises by showing her dead in Ryan’s arms. Not only does Nina’s death make you believe that the menace has ended, but it also makes you briefly wonder if Ryan committed a crime. Similarly, even Kristen is seen wondering what exactly happened to Nina as she doesn’t believe Ryan would have hurt her, until her former boyfriend Matt makes an appearance and admits to killing both Sierra and Nina, only to have Kristen back in his life.

‘Stalked by My Husband’s Ex’ is one such movie that makes you want to stop watching midway due to its predictability, but leaves you in a state of shock with the least expected twist at the least expected time. For a movie that offers nothing extraordinary in terms of characters, dialogues or action, a single twist in the plotline acts as a defining factor. 

However, one could appreciate it for its brilliant climax only if the viewer is patient enough with the rest of the story, unaware of what’s in the store for them in the end. Perhaps, introducing Matt a little earlier in the movie could have worked better, for he comes across as an interesting psychopathic character. 

‘Stalked by My Husband’s Ex’ premieres on July 25 at 7 pm ET on Lifetime.