By Geno McGahee
What is it with Helen Hunt lately? In the past week, I’ve watched CAST AWAY, then TWISTER and now MURDER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: THE PAMELA WOJAS SMART STORY. This wasn’t because I’m on a Hunt kick. This is just coincidently the three films I’ve watched recently and she was the common denominator.
I’m a big fan of old school made for TV movies. They knew how to make them back then. A lot of them are free to stream on Prime and it gives me plenty of entertainment. They are often ripped from the headlines and Pamela Smart is a good topic. A heavy metal-loving rocker chick turned teacher takes a teen lover and sets up the murder of her husband is a storyline that is perfect for a made for TV film and it created a media storm when it happened.
We begin with Pamela Smart (Helen Hunt), as a young woman still living at home, in her room, listening to heavy metal. She gets a call from her fiancé, Greg (Hank Stratton), announcing a new great job in insurance, which is met with a Luke warm response. When Greg shows up with short hair, Smart is pissed off. He says “I might look like Donald Trump, but I’m still Bon Jovi on the inside.” He gives Bon Jovi a bad name in my opinion.
There is no question that this film did not consult Pamela Smart. They used the Smart family’s version along with some assumptions and brought an overall dislike for Pamela Smart. It made the film better I think. She’s an over the top villain.
Pamela and Greg get married and she doesn’t take long to make a bad impression on his parents. She starts noting how her family spent more and how she returned much of what they gave them for store credit to get better stuff. Greg tries to get her to shut up, but it is obvious that there is already trouble in paradise.
Billy Flynn (Chad Allen), a 15-year-old student of Pamela’s, becomes interested in his teacher and she starts to see what she wants in him. He’s a heavy metal-loving rocker guy and that’s way better than her stick in the mud husband and his cheap ass family. I kept thinking about that scene in THE WEDDING SINGER where the girlfriend dumps Adam Sandler because he’s no longer a rocker.
I have to say it. If Greg was ANYTHING like the Greg in this film, I can see why Pamela had him snuffed. The mother fucker is singing Christmas carols and is as dull as fuck. I can’t imagine hanging out with somebody so boring. When he cut his hair, she should have bailed. We see an earlier picture of him with a great head of Bon Jovi hair and he looked righteous, but you can’t fix personality.
Things get really fucked up. Pamela starts hooking up with Billy. When Billy brags to his friends, they note that “she’s a teacher and he’s just a kid” and that “she is such a fake.” I think the parents of Greg wrote this. At 15, none of my friends got it on with any teacher, but all of my teachers were really old or guys. It would have been odd if they blew one of the male teachers or banged one of the 80-year-old women. I’m sure they’d brag. “I plowed a golden girl.” I’m starting to get pissed off writing this. Where the fuck was the hot teachers when I was in school? I had one young one that worked at the high school for 6 months, but she was 400 pounds…not the object of fantasy.
The more that Billy and Pamela become an item, the more intense it gets. She starts manipulating him and begins telling him of the abusive marriage she was in. In the meantime, Greg has won some award at his job…something like “best man to ever live and should never be murdered” award.
Pamela starts really laying it on thick. She is hurting herself and saying that Greg did it. When he resists, she says “I thought you loved me.” What a bitch! Well, it was enough to get Billy to agree to snuff Greg. When he fails to do it the first time, she dumps him hard. She is truly ruthless and doesn’t have one good quality to her. The writers really had it out for her. I wonder what she thought watching this. Greg couldn’t have been totally good. I’m guessing he had to have some skeletons in his closet. I’m guessing he was into buggery.
The movie really lays it on thick. At one point, Billy says that he didn’t ask him to kill Greg, she “is making” him. I have to learn more about this case. Based on this movie, Pamela Smart is Satan mixed with Hitler mixed with Lita Ford. I have to believe that there was more to this story than what we see here.
Billy starts to panic at the thought of losing his older squeeze and threatens to kill himself if she leaves him. Pamela confides in another student about the entire plan. She is not a smart criminal. All this time, Greg is out there, working, and making a big name for himself in insurance. He has no idea that Billy and his buddies are prepping to take him out. It’s so sad that he’s making a huge deal on the night that he’s taken out. As I said, this film lays it on super thick! I wish they added scenes of Pamela maniacally laughing during the murder.
So Greg is snuffed and Pamela is very cold and detached. She is immediately irritating her in laws. The father looked like he wanted to strangle her. When the detectives ask her if she was ever abused by Greg, she gets offended and insists he never touched her. They encourage her not to go to the media and she immediately sets up an interview. She desperately wants the limelight.
Billy and the boys agree to testify against Pamela. Pamela stares at Billy with daggers in her eyes as she watches her young lover betray her. (Spoiler) Pamela Smart is found guilty of accomplice to murder in the first degree.
I keep thinking about how things would have been different had Greg never cut his hair. He did go from cool rocker to boring lame geek in quick fashion. I bet he’d still be alive today if he didn’t go into insurance and went the rocker way…living in a trailer, working as a clerk at a gas station and having 6 kids. Maybe death is better.
I highly recommend MURDER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: THE PAMELA WOJAS SMART STORY. It was very entertaining and over the top dramatic goodness.
