User Reviews

This movie is better than average for a Lifetime movie. Personally I was rooting for Penny. When the bully guy showed up at the bbq, the friend should have acted much more quickly and strongly to protect Penny. What Penny went through in high school would have been extremely traumatic.

At the very.beginning they try to make Penny look like a rogue cop, when it came to the break-in, but from what they showed it was a righteous shooting. The 2nd cop that showed up at the scene criticizes Penny for not calling it in, was a lame attempt to make her look like a bad cop, even though another commentator (NijazBaBs) thought this was a good example of police corruption. It's not until later we see the real reason why she goes bad. What transpires later, turns out to be a good plot line for bullying and the ramifications that can come from it. This would have made a good episode of a police drama on a tv show.

How did she pass the psych test? Not only is Penny harboring serious anger issues, but she's delusional as well. Remembering things as they didn't happen. It's amazing that she was able to keep all that buried for so long.

I don't consider this a revenge movie necessarily. Had she kept her targets to the people she felt wronged her, that would be slightly more understandable. Not justified but understandable. Killing her partner for finding out. Attacking the husband. Whenever the nutjob's victims extend outside of their enemies, they become less sympathetic. The set up was decent, and I could believe that randomly running into an old bff who she believed was party to humiliating her, could bring back bad memories.

This movie had a pretty swift pace which was great. The protagonist had her faults but she wasn't an idiot like a lot of Lifetime's other movies. I remember Kaitlyn from Hart of Dixie and I've seen her in a couple other movies. She did a good job. Penny's actress was good too and played a good villain without being campy or a ham. She was an awful person though and the movie didn't give her any redeeming qualities. There was so little of them as teens and it would have helped to contrast her psycho nature. Aside from the flashback, there was really no reason to sympathize with her because her manipulations started right away.

Poorly written, feels like gender of villan was switched. Comes accross an appologist piece for American school shooters who are mostly male. The villain cop would never have passed academy and service psych evaluations. Very cringeworthy.

The filmmakers of "Hometown Killer" were successful for over half of the film in making the villainess, Penny Blake, a sympathetic character. After being mercilessly hazed in high school, Penny went on to become a crackerjack policewoman. Now, it is payback time.

On the receiving end of Penny's venom is Tara Henson, now happily married to her devoted husband Charles. When Penny comes back into Tara's life, it begins as a friendship with promise as the contrite Tara does everything in her power to make amends for participating obliquely in the hazing that involved humiliating "Penny Pig," tying her to a chair and thrusting her onstage in the high school auditorium in front of a jeering crowd. There is no attempt on the part of the filmmakers to reveal if the perps were ever punished.

The ringleader of the high school students, whom Penny never forgot, was Nolan. He reunites as well with Penny, but with no sense of the genuine contrition of Tara. Nolan will now be no contest for the policewoman, who becomes his nemesis. Penny also bumps off the character of Kutter, one of her fellow officers, when he gets in her way.

It is inevitable that the action will return to the original scene of the crime in the high school auditorium. It is there that the decorated officer Penny Blake will have her final showdown with her past. Will she redeem herself, or will she fall prey to a personal vendetta that can only reduce her humanity to the basest level? A good ending for the film might have been when Penny was being cuffed and taken off to jail, Tara could have asked her, "A penny for your thoughts?"