Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story (2002)

A wife-mother learns that her too-friendly neighbor has more than barbecues on his mind in this fact-based TV movie. When Susan Wilson (Angie Harmon) and her family move back to her Louisiana hometown and into their dream house, they're a little overwhelmed by their eager-to-please neighbor, Steve Glover (Jamey Sheridan). Doing odd jobs, inviting them to use his hot tub, and initiating them into the social life of his Protestant church, Steve seems like the ideal friend. But when he starts offering unsolicited parenting advice, showing up in the Wilson's house when they're out of town, and exhibiting inexplicable knowledge of the family's secrets, Susan and her husband, Gary (Dale Midkiff), become concerned. Susan sneaks into the Wilson house and, to her horror, discovers videotapes of herself in the shower, on the toilet, and making love to her husband. Steve, it seems, is an electronic peeping Tom who installed cameras in the Wilson attic to provide himself with cheap visual thrills. After turning Steve in to the police, Susan is horrified to discover that what he did was not a crime and that he can be prosecuted only for unauthorized entry. Even worse, the elders of her church seem more interested in sweeping the issue under the rug than in providing comfort to Wilson, her husband, and her kids -- even after it's revealed that Steve took nude videotapes of various members of the congregation in the changing room next to his hot tub. Although she's so upset about the violation of privacy and the lack of support that she can't sleep anywhere but in her darkened closet, Susan eventually overcomes her depression and wages a campaign to make video voyeurism a crime. Based on a true story, Video Voyeur premiered on the Lifetime cable network in January 2002. The real-life Susan Wilson makes a cameo appearance in the film; her legislative activism resulted in the 1999 passage of a Louisiana state law that has been adopted in several other states. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi