Film / The Wrong

Vivica A. Fox as roughly one-sixth of her characters in this series.

The Wrong... is a Made-for-TV Movie Thematic Series of Thrillers produced by Hybrid LLC for Lifetime. The first one, The Wrong Roommate, debuted in January of 2016, and, as of this writing, there are nearly 30 (!) movies, which have all been directed by David DeCoteau, with Vivica A. Fox executive producing and also customarily appearing in a supporting role.

Each movie is called The Wrong <something>, typically in reference to the story's villain. While there have been a variety of scenarios throughout the series, the basic formula goes like this: a pure, decent person (usually a woman, but a Gender Flip has occurred in some movies) lets someone into their lives, as an acquaintance, a business associate, a lover, or sometimes a combination of all of that. However, the new person has ulterior motives, thoroughly shaking up the protagonist's life and putting them in danger, leading to a nerve-wracking final confrontation which the protagonist wins. At that point, the character played by Fox (a neighbor, friend or advisor of some sort) observes "Looks like you picked the wrong [X]!"

As you can surmise from that description, the series doesn't take itself all that seriously, and a typical Wrong movie features broadly-written characters, hammy acting, and a fair share of Fanservice, always from the guys, but the women often contribute as well.

Wikipedia has a full list of the movies (though their cast lists often don't jibe with who actually plays the main roles).

Wrong movies with their own pages:

• The Wrong Cheerleader

Tropes present in the series:

• Abusive Parents:
  • The villains of The Wrong Valentine and The Wrong Cheer Captain are both established as having mothers whose abuse drove them to villainy.
  • Phoebe's Motive Rant in The Wrong Mommy blames a series of abusive foster parents in her childhood for her behavior, with a few hints elsewhere in the movie that one foster father in particular sexually abused her.
  • In The Wrong Life Coach, Liz (the titular character) is revealed to have had parents who were emotionally abusive towards her when they weren't neglecting her.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: The heroines are usually pretty with a sweet demeanor and innocent personality.
• Beauty Is Bad: The villain is always either a hunky guy or a gorgeous woman.
• Betty and Veronica: In The Wrong Stepmother, Michael's nice, somewhat shy co-worker Cynthia is in love with him, only to watch him get in a relationship with the mysterious Maddie.
• Big Damn Heroes: Vivica A. Fox's character has served as this on more than one occasion throughout the series, and other characters have saved the day in other movies in this manner as well.
• Big Man on Campus: Danny from The Wrong High School Sweetheart is established as having been this in high school and college before an injury put an end to his baseball career. His present day villainy is fueled by his insane desire to relive his glory days.
• Bottle Episode: The movies typically just use a handful of sets. The mansion that often appears in David DeCoteau's works pops up frequently.
• Bound and Gagged: Both The Wrong Mr. Right and The Wrong Blind Date culminate in the mother-daughter duo who serve as protagonists being tied up in such a manner by the deranged villain once they're exposed.
• Casting Gag: The Wrong Life Coach features both Allison McAtee and Meredith Thomas, two Lifetime movie regulars who look quite a bit alike and sometimes get mistaken for one another, with the revelation that McAtee's character is a fraudulent life coach who's basically basing herself on Thomas's character, who happens to be her life coach.
• Catfishing: The Wrong Blind Date, in true Lifetime New Media Are Evil fashion, is about a middle-aged divorcée who falls for a Con Man she meets on a dating app.
• Chronically Killed Actor:
  • Characters played by Eric Roberts tend to get murdered by the villain at some point.
  • Gina Hiraizumi (in The Wrong Fiancé, The Wrong Stepmother, and The Wrong Wedding Planner) thrice plays a woman who gets killed because She Knows Too Much about the villain.
  • The same applies to Tracy Nelson, whose characters in The Wrong Child, The Wrong Stepmother, The Wrong House Sitter, and The Wrong High School Sweetheart all meet a similar fate.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: Alluded to in The Wrong Mommy when Phoebe's co-workers confront her while she wears a snakeskin-print shirt.
  Laura: I know what you are.
  Phoebe: And how do you know that?
  Laura: 'Cause I'm good at spotting snakes.
• Con Artist: In the movies where the villain isn't a Yandere obsessed with the protagonist, he/she is one of these, romancing the protagonist to get at their money.
• Conversational Troping: Characters in The Wrong Child discuss the similarity of the story's main plot points to Six Degrees of Separation and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
• Cute and Psycho: In the movies with a female villain, she tends to fit this type.
• Domestic Abuse: Being a Lifetime series, it's no surprise relationship abuse becomes a theme in several of the series' movies.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Discussed in The Wrong Teacher. After bearing witness to some inappropriate behavior between Chris (a student) and Charlotte (his English teacher), vice principal Clark confronts Charlotte and makes a point of ranting about how gross it is when people respond to cases of female teachers taking advantage of male students as if the boys are "lucky" and treat the serious crime like it's a joke. The movie itself averts this trope, as Charlotte only has sex with Chris before finding out he's a high school student and immediately begins rejecting his advances when she learns the truth (he also claims to be 18).
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Fox and DeCoteau essentially took over what had been one of Lifetime's examples of a loose Thematic Series based around a Mad Lib title prefix, so not all Lifetime movies with The Wrong... in their title are actually part of the series. There's also the strange gray area of The Wrong Neighbor, made after the official start of the series, with no Fox or DeCoteau involvement, but still written by two of the regular writers for the series (with a storyline that fits the Wrong formula almost point-for-point) and featuring performers who've been in the actual series movies.
  • Some of the early movies don't have a Title Drop, while others have someone besides Vivica A. Fox do the Title Drop.
• Evil Is Hammy: Across the board. The pattern is that the villain turns the charm way, way up when they're wooing their victim, but then we see scenes of them alone or with an accomplice where they do some cold-blooded scheming filled with uncut malice.
• False Rape Accusation: After Eric spurns Emily's advances in The Wrong Tutor (i.e. he kicks her out after she sneaks into his house and lays down next to him while he's asleep), she files a sexual harassment claim against him at school.
• Fully-Clothed Nudity: In The Wrong Life Coach, sexy pics that Liz takes of Jordan and of herself figure into the storyline (mainly as a blackmail technique), and are even called "nudes" in the movie, but the women are lingerie-clad in the ones that we see.
• Has a Type: Rob in The Wrong Cheerleader (dark-haired high school cheerleaders), Chris in The Wrong Teacher (blonde teachers) and Emily in The Wrong Tutor (high school soccer players) are established as being obsessed with specific types of victims, with the trope name itself used in the movie to describe Chris.
• Here We Go Again!: Many of the films end with the villain escaping capture and setting their sights on a new victim to terrorize. The Wrong High School Sweetheart takes a different (comedic) approach to this trope: while the villain is defeated and arrested, the film ends with protagonist Danielle getting an unexpected phone call from her summer camp sweetheart, with the implications being that Danielle now has another obsessed ex-boyfriend to deal with. The Wrong Cheerleader Coach ends with Devan not only finding a new single dad to obsess over, but he returns her affections.
• Identical Stranger: Charlotte in The Wrong Teacher learns that her Yandere Chris used to be obsessed with a now-deceased woman who looked exactly like her, only she wore her hair in a ponytail and had a Southern accent. She uses that information to do a Dead Person Impersonation at the climax.
• In Love with the Mark: The Wrong Roommate, The Wrong Fiancé and The Wrong Blind Date all center around a Con Man hired by the heroine's former lover to romance her and break her heart, which the ex thinks will drive her back to him. It backfires when the con man falls in love with her for real.
• In the Hood: Very frequent scenes of the villain sneaking around or breaking into some place, wearing a black hoodie to conceal their identity.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In the midst of her Motive Rant in The Wrong Mommy, Phoebe points out that the reason she succeeded in her scheme against Melanie is that, unlike Melanie, she actually bothered to put in some extra effort at work, spend time with Melanie's daughter, and give Melanie's husband some sexual attention.
  Phoebe: You see, I'm better at being you than you ever were.
• Karma Houdini: These movies are rarities in the Lifetime world because the villains often escape after their defeat and avoid punishment for their misdeeds.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Wrong Mommy draws this contrast between Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold working mom heroine Melanie and brunette Manipulative Bitch psycho villain Phoebe.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Basically the main ongoing theme here, as the naïve protagonist falls head over heels for someone they don't know is dangerous, and ignores or rationalizes away all the red flags. Krista Allen in particular turns The Ditz factor way up when she plays the heroine.
• Luke, You Are My Father: In The Wrong Child, a 19-year-old man named Andrew shows up at the doorstep of wealthy architect Charles and his shop owner wife Renee (a rare Vivica A. Fox lead role) claiming to be his illegitimate son from a past fling. Charles is skeptical and treats Andrew coolly, which upsets Renee, but a DNA test confirms it.Turns out the test was faked and Andrew is an imposter working in cahoots with Charles to help ruin the marriage, after Charles blew most of the couple's wealth.
• Mad Lib Thriller Title: The ultimate in this trope, as the movies generally use the convention of The Wrong + <High Concept description of the villain>.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: A common gambit by the villains after they kill someone, to throw off suspicion. In The Wrong Mommy the murder of a Dirty Old Man (played by Eric Roberts) is staged to look like a case of Erotic Asphyxiation.
• Market-Based Title: Outside North America, since presumably they're not playing on the same platform and thus wouldn't be recognized as a series, they have completely different titles that drop the Wrong moniker altogether. The Wrong Roommate is The Lodger: Evil Upstairs in the UK, Dangerous Company in Argentina, My Dangerous Roommate in France, The Mysterious Tenant in Brazil and A Bad Choice in Spain. Obviously, this means the Title Drop is nullified.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Several protagonists count. Charlotte in The Wrong Teacher is a romance novelist alongside being a high school English teacher. Dan in The Wrong House Sitter is a high-powered journalist.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: The Yandere-based installments in which the protagonist has a genuine love interest to compete with the villain will generally see the villain make an attempt at their life at some point (with occasional success).
• Never My Fault: This is a popular form of Gaslighting by the villains of this series, whenever they get called out for inappropriate behavior. It generally falls into either accusing someone else of trying to make them look bad, or playing the "I was just trying to help you" card.
• Never Trust a Title: The Wrong Stepmother and The Wrong Stepfather are inaccurately titled, as neither title character is married to their respective partners during the story proper. The Wrong Stepfather is closer to the truth, seeing as how Craig and Karen are engaged to be married, while in The Wrong Stepmother Maddie is Michael's girlfriend he met online, who infiltrates his family and passes herself off as the stepmother (and even the biological mother) of his daughters at several points.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: As the Endearingly Dorky single father who becomes the Yandere obsession of his daughter's assistant cheer coach in The Wrong Cheerleader Coach, Corin Nemec is essentially doing an extended Jeff Goldblum impression, complete with stammering, fast-talking, staccato word repetition and fidgeting.
• Non-Actor Vehicle: Vine and TikTok star Nate Wyatt plays stalking victim Eric in The Wrong Tutor.
• Not Good with Rejection: The protagonist finally wising up to the villain and spurning them once and for all, leading the villain to react in often violent anger and frustration, is generally the setup for the climax of these movies.
• One-Steve Limit: An odd aversion, with the villains of The Wrong Student and The Wrong Stepmother being entirely different characters who are both named Maddie Sawyer.
• Pass the Popcorn: Variation in The Wrong Life Coach, where Liz (the title character) enjoys a glass of wine as she watches Jordan on the hidden camera she planted in Jordan's house, freaking out after Liz anonymously sexts her boyfriend in a ploy to ruin their relationship.
• Police Are Useless: The general rule when the protagonist tries to get the cops involved, sometimes because of police incompetence, sometimes because the villain does a good job hiding or destroying evidence.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Devan, the villainess of The Wrong Cheerleader Coach, clearly has a bad case of stunted maturity, leading to daddy issues and an obsession with older men. She even has a phone case with pandas and teddy bears on it!
  • The same can be said for Maddie from The Wrong Stepmother, who behaves much like a spoiled teenage girl whenever things don't go her way.
  • Danny from The Wrong High School Sweetheart is a Psychopathic Manchild, being motivated by an obsession with reliving his high school/college glory days through his ex-girlfriends from that time and lashing out violently when they refuse. During the climax when he's ranting to Danielle about how unfair his life turned out, his demeanor and tone of voice is akin to a spoiled child pouting about not getting his way.
• Pun-Based Title: The Wrong Mr. Right.
• Re-Cut: Lifetime has aired a few new editions of some of the movies, complete with a new subtitle (The Wrong Teacher: Back to School, The Wrong Mommy: The Playdate, The Wrong Cheerleader: Back in Action), which usually just add a new Here We Go Again! ending with the villain.
• Recycled Premise:
  • With so many movies, it's inevitable that some Self-Plagiarism starts creeping in. As mentioned above, the first movie The Wrong Roommate and the later The Wrong Fiancé and The Wrong Blind Date all have the same basic premise.
  • A lot of the movies have premises that seem like they took the plot of a Hallmark Channel romance movie, but turned the dashing love interest into a villain. This seems to have literally been the case with The Wrong Prince Charming, where screenwriter Adam Rockoff took the premise of his earlier Ion movie A Royal Christmas Engagement (an attractive young businesswoman takes on a boyishly handsome client who turns out to be a European royal named Prince Edward) and subverted it. And the kicker: the same actor (James Nitti) plays both Prince Edwards!
  • In both The Wrong Friend and The Wrong Teacher, the villain is a handsome sociopathic teen boy named Chris.
• Rom Com Job: Because the movies have subverted Romantic Comedy premises, many of the leads have jobs like novelist, photographer, college professor, advertising executive, assistant to a CEO, etc.
• Sassy Black Woman: While her characters vary a bit in personality over the course of the series, Vivica A. Fox's delivery of the "Looks like you picked (Title Drop)" lines is always in this mode; sometimes she even adds "Girl..." to the front of it. Jackee Harry has also showed up in some movies for a double dose of the trope.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: A few movies go the route of having the villain be this rather than actually hooking up with their victim, using an innocent connection between them as an excuse to become a Stalker with a Crush. Kristin in The Wrong House Sitter and Emily in The Wrong Tutor take the jobs listed in the movies' titles to get closer to their object of obsession.
• Shirtless Scene: Almost a Once an Episode occurrence, as the male hunk (villain or hero) will doff his shirt for a shower or some weightlifting. This is a carryover from David DeCoteau's other movies, which almost always throw in gratuitous male Fanservice, even if they're Horror films.
• Spy Cam: To keep track of their obsession/mark, the villain frequently hides a bunch of web-based cameras in their house that they can monitor them from home (The Wrong Mommy opens with the villain placing the cameras in the family's house as they sleep). Sometimes the protagonist finds them, but not always.
• Stepford Smiler: Phoebe (The Wrong Mommy) and Maddie (The Wrong Stepmother) are both outwardly pleasant, friendly, attractive women who try to pitch themselves as an ideal wife and mother, but that hides a strong psychotic streak that sometimes leads to violence.
• Teacher/Student Romance: The Wrong Teacher, though the twist is that the teacher has a fling with her student before the school year starts without knowing who he is, then is horrified when he shows up to class on the first day.
• Teen Drama: A few of the movies have teen protagonists and fit this genre, including the cheerleader ones, The Wrong Boy Next Door, The Wrong Tutor and The Wrong Valentine.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: The Wrong House Sitter has a writer who hires a woman he met at a bookstore to watch his house while he's gone. He doesn't know that she's obsessed with him and she moves in permanently, even drawing up legal paperwork that allows her to stay against his will.
• Title Drop:
  • Another distinguishing mark of the series, with Vivica A. Fox's character usually getting the honors with her "Looks like you picked..." Catchphrase. Lifetime loves putting these moments in their promos. Sometimes there are variations, like "Looks like he messed with the wrong cheerleader!" or "Looks like I hired the wrong cheerleader coach."
  • The Wrong Mommy subverts this on two fronts—it's not delivered by Fox, and it's spoken as a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner to the villain.
    Phoebe: I'm making everything right! The right life, the right job, the right mommy...
    Carol: More like the wrong mommy! (she performs a Batter Up! maneuver on Phoebe)
• Vacation Episode: The Wrong Cruise (one of the few movies where Vivica A. Fox plays the lead) starts out on a cruise ship that docks in Cabo San Lucas (with the ship played by The Queen Mary and Cabo played mostly by Stock Footage), and spends the rest of the story in Mexico.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Has often been the way villains throughout the series depart from the main story, often in a way that makes the finale come across as anticlimactic.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In The Wrong Friend, Riley chews Principal Atkins out for having allowed Chris Andrews to enroll at her high school, despite knowing about his past as a rapist.
• Yandere: A frequent villain, who usually graduates from innocent love interest (with a relationship often kicked off by a Meet Cute) to Stalker with a Crush to this.
• Younger Than They Look: A big plot point in The Wrong Teacher, since high school teacher Charlotte sleeps with Chris after they meet at a bookstore, and, while there's an age gap between them, she has no reason to suspect he's not in his 20s. Instead, she's completely dumbfounded when he walks in to her classroom as a new student.