| Genre: | Thriller |
| Director: | Jorge Montesi |
| Executive Producer: | Diane Sokolow Joan Green |
| Producer: | Preston Fischer |
| Based On: | novel by Claire R. Jacobs |
| Starring: | Tori Spelling Ivan Sergei |
| Music: | Irwin Fisch |
| Cinematography: | Philip Linzey |
| Editor: | Pia Di Ciaula |
| Company: | Columbia TriStar Television Mandeville Productions The Sokolow Company |
| Network: | NBC |
| Runtime: | 90 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? is a 1996 American television film starring Tori Spelling, Ivan Sergei, and Lisa Banes. The film premiered on September 30, 1996 on NBC.
A young woman, Erin, breaks up with her boyfriend, Billy, after kissing their mutual friend Kevin and deciding to pursue a relationship with him. Enraged, Billy bludgeons Erin to death and conceals the crime. Some time later, college student Laurel starts a relationship with Billy, who has assumed Kevin's identity. He becomes overly attached, but she is drawn to his intense affection; when he behaves inappropriately, she accepts his apologetic romantic gestures. After meeting Laurel's mother Jessica, Billy becomes increasingly more aggressive and jealous. He convinces Laurel to cut and bleach her hair, both to incense Jessica and to make Laurel resemble Erin. Jessica suspects "Kevin" is not who he claims to be.
To protect his assumed identity, Billy murders Kevin, who had been out of town. He convinces Laurel to live with him in an isolated cabin with no telephone. After she discovers he is not arranging installation of a phone line as he had claimed, she confronts him and decides to move out. He drugs and abducts her, driving her car to her family's cabin. Meanwhile, Jessica uncovers Billy's lies and contacts the police; when she recognizes a missing persons photograph of Erin, having also seen it in Billy's home, the police deduce that Billy has assumed Kevin's identity. Billy calls AAA when Laurel's car breaks down, alerting Jessica to their location. Laurel wakes up and locks herself in the cabin, but Billy breaks in with an axe. Laurel flees onto a lake in a rowboat as Jessica arrives; the women fight Billy on and around the lake. Distracting Billy by pretending to side with him, Laurel knocks him into the water with an oar; Laurel and Jessica embrace and Billy vanishes.
Elsewhere, a young woman resembling Erin and Laurel excitedly makes plans with her new boyfriend, Preston, who is Billy with another new identity.
Although originally planned to be released in theaters, the film failed to find a distributor and finally made its United States debut on NBC 30 September 1996. It was later released in cinemas in both Sweden and Argentina in 1999 and 2000, and it was released direct to VHS in Japan in 1998.
In January 2004, Tori Spelling began a campaign to get Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? released on DVD worldwide. Seven years later, on June 6, 2011, Sony Pictures Entertainment finally issued a DVD release.
Mill Creek Entertainment released Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? along with this remake on DVD.
See main article: Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? (2016 film). Lifetime announced a remake of the film in December 2015 with James Franco serving as executive producer. The plot involved a young woman who falls for another woman who happens to have a vampire form. The remake starred Leila George as Leah, Emily Meade as Pearl, Nick Eversman as Bob, with James Franco, Ivan Sergei, Emma Rigby, and Tori Spelling as Leah's mother Julie.[1] In April 2016 Vulture revealed that Franco had reimagined the film as a "a same-sex vampire love story."[2] Franco had stated that he was partly inspired by Will Ferrell's Lifetime movie A Deadly Adoption to make "a very non-Lifetime movie on Lifetime."[2] It first aired on the Lifetime Network on Saturday, June 18, 2016.