
The evil and manipulative Vanessa Redlynn
Vanessa Redlynn, aka Amanda (Jessica Lowndes), is the main villainess of the 2012 Lifetime film A Mother's Nightmare, as well as the 2018 sequel, A Father's Nightmare.
Background[]
Amanda Redlynn is the daughter of Zofia Redlynn and Matt Carmichael, though when Amanda was very young, she was abducted by her grandmother after Matt left them, with Zofia later changing her name to Vanessa after regaining her daughter. Zofia suddenly turned heel when she attempted to kill Vanessa as part a murder-suicide attempt. Vanessa survived and was left for her entire life believing that her mother's suicide attempt was successful.
Since then, Vanessa bounced around various foster homes, and eventually became a psychotic seductress in adulthood, killing any man who tried to reject her, doing so by drugging them and goading them into committing suicide. The opening scene of A Mother's Nightmare shows her at the funeral for one of her victims, tearfully claiming to have loved him before being forced to leave.
1st Film[]
Vanessa enrolls in a new school at the beginning of the movie and instantly gains the attention of student Chris Stewart, whom she instantly charms. Her first sign of instability comes when she threatens Chris's vindictive ex-girlfriend Cheryl to stay away from Chris. Vanessa then continues to seduce Chris, revealing her troubled past to him and the fact that she cut herself. When Chris's relationship with Vanessa began damaging his personal and academic life, his mother Maddie became concerned and confronted Chris along with his father and her ex-husband Steve, leading to Chris trying to end the relationship.
Angered, Vanessa schemed to get back at Chris by befriending Cheryl and having an affair with Chris's rival Jake. She then called Chris during a breakdown (it's not clear if it's real or staged) and he comes rushing over to the pet store where Vanessa worked, where she gets him drunk and has sex with him until Maddie bursts in and forces Vanessa to let her take him home. In retaliation, Vanessa accused Chris of rape, turning the high school against him and possibly arranging for a gang to beat him up, leaving him in crutches. When Chris contacts Vanessa over Skype, she manipulates him into thinking he had raped her and was too drunk to remember it before arranging for them to meet up.
As Maddie finds out more about Vanessa's evil nature, the seductress meets up with Chris at an isolated park, giving him a drink laced with PCP. Once Chris started to feel the drug's effect, Vanessa manipulated him into cutting his own wrist, eventually causing enough blood loss for him to pass out. She then claims that Chris was just like the other men in her life before preparing to leave him. But just then, Maddie arrives to save Chris, pushing Vanessa aside to tend to Chris. Vanessa then attacks Maddie and the two women brawl, with Maddie subduing Vanessa by hitting her with the metal box Vanessa brought with her. She then attempted to choke Vanessa before being stopped by the police, who arrest Vanessa. The ending shows that Chris survived and that Vanessa was put in a mental hospital, where she is shown talking to a young male nurse about her past, clearly targeting him as her latest victim.
2nd Film[]

Vanessa in "A Father's Nightmare"
In her return in A Father's Nightmare (airdate July 22, 2018), Vanessa was released from the hospital after five years, though she was still showing clear signs of her crazed and deranged personality. In the sequel, Vanessa targeted Lisa Carmichael, Matt's younger daughter and Vanessa's half-sister, doing so as a twisted revenge plot against Matt. She enrolled in Lisa's college and managed to manipulate Jim (who was in charge of student housing, among a few other things) into placing her in the same room as Lisa, and from that point on, Vanessa befriended Lisa, while working her manipulation towards her.
Just like in the first film, Vanessa convinced Lisa that her friends and fellow gymnasts, Katie (Lisa's original intended roommate) and Sasha, were talking about her being her back, and after a bad performance, Vanessa coerced Lisa into taking Adderall, which originally improved her performance. Matt begins to notice Lisa's strange behavior and realizes that Vanessa's the cause, but the villainess' stranglehold on Lisa was too strong at this point. Meanwhile, Vanessa continued seducing Jim into extending her stay, with the latest instant including blackmail, as she showed Jim video of him giving drugs to Lisa. When Jim called her crazy, Vanessa cozied up to him, only to "accidentally" send the video.
After Vanessa and Lisa are busted for cheating on a test, Lisa goes into a deep despair, allowing Vanessa to coerce her to commit suicide. She drugs Lisa into a heavily sedated state, and in the film's climax, she takes Lisa to a makeshift balance beam, which she walked on earlier in the film. This time, the evil Vanessa placed a noose around Lisa's neck, and videotaped her walking the beam when Jim suddenly appeared. The deranged villainess threatened to kill Lisa, and responded to Matt's plea for his daughter by stating that she was also his daughter. Matt confirmed the reveal as Vanessa's father by referring to her as Amanda, her real name, and it was after this that Zofia (with Laney) appeared at the scene, revealing herself as Amanda/Vanessa's mother (who was believed to have committed suicide). After Zofia's tearful apology for what she had done to Vanessa, police arrived and arrested Vanessa for attempting to kill Lisa. The final scene of the film showed Vanessa back in a mental hospital, receiving a letter from Matt telling her that he hopes she gets better and wanted to reconcile with her.
Alternate Endings[]
A pair of alternate endings aired during Lifetime Movie Network's reairing of the sequel on July 27, 2018. In the first one, after Matt's reveal as Amanda/Vanessa's father, Zofia appeared and revealed herself as her mother, while detailing everything that she had done in her mental state. The scene also included mother and daughter embracing each other, with Vanessa in tears as Zofia sung her familiar song--which Vanessa sings as an anthem to her psychotic actions. Similar to the original ending, Vanessa is arrested and back in a mental hospital, but the final scene shows Vanessa being visited by Matt, much to her pleasure.
In a second ending, Vanessa is only confronted by Matt, who ended up having to save Lisa after she slipped and nearly succumbed to her evil half-sister's attempt to kill her. The villainess escaped while Matt came to Lisa's aid, with Laney and Zofia arriving at the scene--the latter asking where her daughter (Amanda/Vanessa) was. The final scene of the second alternate ending showed Vanessa in a different city, giving the indication that she was still up to her villainous actions.
Trivia[]
- Jessica Lowndes would play a villainess character Bridgette Gibson in the 2015 Lifetime film A Deadly Adoption.