If you’re looking for a TV movie that feels like it was shot on a budget smaller than a Costco rotisserie chicken, yet still manages to hold your attention through sheer ‘90s charisma and the hypnotic presence of Traci Lords’ cheekbones, As Good As Dead (1995) might be your jam. What makes it even stranger is that it’s directed by none other than Larry Cohen—the cult auteur behind It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent, and The Stuff. Yes, that Larry Cohen. A guy known for gonzo grindhouse, sharp social satire, and low-budget genius suddenly steering the wheel of a sleepy made-for-TV potboiler with the tone of a mid-season Murder, She Wrote episode. It’s like finding out David Lynch directed an episode of Touched by an Angel. Cohen’s trademark weirdness barely peeks through here—no killer yogurt, no flying reptiles—just some moody lighting and soapy tension. It’s a bizarre detour in an otherwise gloriously off-kilter career.
Starring Wings alum Crystal Bernard and the ever-enigmatic Traci Lords, this made-for-TV thriller/suspense/identity-swapping soap opera hybrid exists in that hazy twilight zone of VHS bargain bin relics—somewhere between Silk Stalkings and a forgotten Danielle Steel adaptation.
The plot is pure Lifetime fever dream: Crystal Bernard plays Susan, a lonely woman on the run from something or someone (honestly, it’s a blur—most of the story is told in lighting soft enough to make Barbara Walters proud). Enter Traci Lords, playing Darla—dangerous, sexy, and conveniently murdered early on. Susan then assumes Darla’s identity, because why not? Apparently, it was that kind of week. Things go sideways from there, including the usual mix of suspicious lovers, shady characters, and the occasional ominous stare into the mirror.
The movie’s tone waffles between psychological thriller and mid-afternoon soap opera. The soundtrack whispers like it’s afraid to wake the neighbors, and the dialogue feels like it was written on a lunch break between Melrose Place reruns. Yet somehow, it works—at least in the way that only ‘90s made-for-TV movies can. It’s drenched in Vaseline-lensed moodiness, all slow zooms and stormy motel windows.
Crystal Bernard gives a performance that’s better than this material deserves—equal parts frayed nerves and blank stares. She sells the melodrama like a woman who’s spent years pretending Tim Daly was a dreamboat.
Meanwhile, Traci Lords doesn’t get a ton of screen time, but when she is on camera, she lights it up with the kind of feral elegance that reminds you why she became a cult favorite. She’s magnetic, even when the script hands her little more than sultry glances and cryptic one-liners.
And that’s the frustrating thing about Lords—there was real potential there. In another timeline, maybe she’s not cast off as a curiosity or headline, but instead embraced as a serious dramatic actress. She had the presence, the edge, and the kind of screen charisma that didn’t need special effects or Oscar-bait monologues. But Hollywood never really forgave her origin story. Her name was already branded by controversy before she ever walked onto a legitimate set. That past made her famous, but it also made her radioactive. Even when she tried to shift gears, the industry couldn’t see past the myth. It’s a shame—Lords had the makings of a noir queen, a femme fatale for the postmodern age. Instead, she was typecast, marginalized, and left haunting B-movie frames like a ghost of what could’ve been.
Let’s be real: this movie isn’t good in the conventional sense. It’s middle-of-the-road, soap-drenched schlock that somehow manages to be entertaining. Like a gas station burrito—it’s not gourmet, but sometimes it hits the spot if you’re in the right mood and not asking for miracles.
For fans of Traci Lords, As Good As Dead offers just enough noir-lite sleaze to satisfy. For everyone else, it’s a disposable slice of ‘90s television oddity—perfect for background noise while folding laundry or spiraling into nostalgic regret. Just don’t expect Hitchcock. Or even The Net.
