Dr. Valerie Cross (Louise Linton, who was in the 2015 remake of Cabin Fever) is one of those people who seemingly does it all. She’s a professor of literature and psychology at Berkeley. The author of two children’s books and two novels about an antihero serial killer named Jason Manson with a third — and a $3 million offer just to write it — on the way. She used to be the lover of her agent Leonard (William Baldwin, once the villain of an American giallo in Sliver, now just content to be the big name in the credits) but after disappearing for two months took up with David (Pierson Fode), the owner of a gym where everyone — Hannah (Christy St. John), Thomas (Quinton Guyton), Tori (Michelle Jubilee Gonzalez) and Angela (Jackie Moore) — are all investigating the Harbinger serial killer.

David seems creepy — he claims he doesn’t have to breathe — and Valerie seems fragile, but things get even stranger when Angela hangs herself after claiming she knows who the killer is. It seems like she suspects David, who she’s also sleeping with — David and Valerie don’t believe in the archaic institution of marriage — and she also has a boyfriend Matthew (David Wachs) who was planning on scamming her to pay back Ian (William McNamara).

As Valerie goes to a cabin in Tahoe — and everyone else at Mixtape Fitness, their gym, quits due to their fear of the killer — she nearly dies when the brakes fail. This brings her into the orbit of Sophia (Joana Metrass), a restaurant owner whose husband died in his sleep. And now Matthew has moved in next door to start scamming them.

Everyone is beautiful but everyone is crazy. If this were the 90s, we’d call this an erotic thriller. If it was the 70s, it would be a giallo. In 2023, it’s a Tubi original.

Directed by Brian Skiba and written by Sean Crayne, this finds Valerie and David being the suspects in the murder of Angela while more girls go missing. Matthew believes that everything that Valerie is writing about in her books is actually the true things that David tells her, proving that he’s the Harbinger. Matthew starts blackmailing them, asking for Bitcoin.

David starts wiping out everyone while they swim and rock climb all while Valerie sighs and hangs out with Sophia at ladies night. She nearly warned Thomas in time, but then David shows up when he starts his car and it blows up real good.

Man, Sophia has a lot of questions, getting out that Vanessa and David met on the Isle of Bondi when she was writing a children’s book. She was kidnapped and nearly murdered and then David saved her, which became the premise for her first Jason Manson book. Let’s take a break for a second here. She’s a best-selling writer and no one was like, “You named your serial killer character Jason Manson. A little on the nose?”

While our female protagonist is flirting with Sophia at the bar and dealing with the blackmailer, David is busy, knifing women. When she gets home, David accuses her of being the person blackmailing them. They argue, she shoves him and he hits his head, bleeding all over the kitchen. As she cleans up, the cops call to tell her that all of her gym team are dead.

Cut to Leo as Valerie calls him for advice on David’s injury. He brings his own doctor (James Moses Black) instead of dealing with a girl who just wrote a book, Confessions of a Cult. David gets stitched up and has a concussion. Also: David is such a sociopath that he chews he pills instead of swallowing them.

David then relates the story of how he had a dog named Luna as a child and instead of giving it back to its rightful owner, he set it on fire and watched it burn. He then tells Valerie that he will never hurt her and kisses her in a way that says, “I am going to set you on fire.”

While all this is happening, Valerie gets with Sophia as Leo comes with the contract for the book deal. Slicing limes for tequila turns into David stabbing Matthew but missing and killing Leo. He’s such a great serial killer that he leaves blood all over the place, then someone knocks out Valerie and duct tapes her arms behind her back. And oh yeah, Sophia did kill her husband.

Nobody in this seems human. Where is the Gregory Dark of today that can make these erotic thrillers and have tension, heat and an actual story? People just arrive, drop exposition or more mystery, and then either have PG-rated makeout scenes or get killed.

Anyhow…

Valerie finds Sophia being hung, just like how Angela got killed. Matt is behind it all and David is poisoned by the tequila that knocked everyone out. Meanwhile, Matt is getting his bitcoin and then Valeria reveals that she and David killed Angela. Somehow, David is able to throw everyone into a rowboat and take them all out onto Lake Tahoe, then toss them overboard with cinderblocks tied to them. How strong is this guy?

David wakes up and everyone goes into the water and we get the closed captioned description “muffled bubbles” which makes me laugh out loud. Val is saved at the last minute by Sophia as David and Matt go down together. Of course, David lives, Jason Manson is dead and the Harbinger is gone as well. There will be a new Jason Manson novel and Sophia is her new inspiration. Val is going to Rome and she invites David to win her back.

Oh man, what a goofy movie. Pretty people doing dumb things and having unsexy sex is a better genre when it has fog, neon and sax solos, as the 90s proved to us all.

You can watch this on Tubi.