User reviews

"Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery" is part of a series of movies starring Allison Sweeney and Cameron Mathison. If you're a soap fan you're very familiar with both of them.

People tend to look down on soap actors. They forget that as actors, they have to be able to cry on cue and express real emotion, memorize as many as 60 pages of dialogue in a day, and one other thing as well -- they have to make their unbelievable story lines believable. And they succeed.

In Eden Lake, Minnesota, it's a week before Christmas, and Hannah Swensen (Sweeney) who owns Hannah's Cookie Jar is very busy indeed filling orders. At this point she has two men after her, Mike (Mathison) a police officer, and Norman, a dentist. Her mother Delores (Barbara Niven) likes Norman. Her sister Andrea (Lisa Durupt) likes Mike.

That's one feature of Hannah's life; the other is that she keeps finding dead bodies. This time it's one of her own customers, Larry Jaeger, who co-owned the Crazy Elf Christmas tree lot with Courtney Miller (Farah Fath, another soap actress), his fiancée.

Mike hates that Hannah becomes involved in these cases; she gets in the way of his own investigation.

The major suspect is a friend of Hannah's mother, Nancy Schmidt (Ona Grauer), better known as "Dr. Love" on the radio. She is still married to Larry, but she hasn't seen him in years, since he stole all her money and disappeared. Larry was collecting money from the Christmas tree store but his fiancé was doing all the work.

It turns out that Larry has a few enemies, so Dr. Love is just one. And Hannah may be in danger as she gets too close to the truth.

I guessed I missed something during this - I mean, how big is this town that Dr. Love never ran into Larry? He's obviously in town because he was killed there.

Plot hole or no plot hole, this episode has a nice atmosphere, and the acting is fine. Kristoffer Tabori does a good job of directing as he keeps the action moving. The romance is nice, too, with Sweeney and Mathison having good chemistry.

As an aside, Cameron Mathison is one of the sweetest people in the world. If you tell him your friend so and so met him in Chicago, he'll say, right - she came with her mother, right? He's amazing that way. It's always nice to see him.

I love the Murder She Baked cosy mystery series on Hallmark. The cast is really tight, the dialogue is smart and funny, and the mysteries are pretty good. Alison Sweeney plays Hannah Swenson...small town baker and part time mystery sleuth. She is the owner of The Cookie Jar, which is providing cookies for the Crazy Elf Tree Lot. In this, the second entry the flames are fanned with her two romantic rivals the handsome and unpredictable detective, Mike and the dependable dentist, Norman. There is some comedy as both men show up at the tree lot buying Hannah a tree. Comedy is had, as one tree is donated to charity and the other the two men attach to Hannah's car. There is some great banter with both mother and sister, as each tries to put their romantic choice forward as the obvious candidate for Hannah. But this is a murder mystery, and post a date with our dentist, Hannah arrives at the tree lot to pick up her check for the cookies. Together Hannah and Norman find the owner's dead body. Mike tries but fails to keep Hannah out of this investigation.

Fun cosy mystery that has a bit of a Christmas theme with cookies and plum pudding. A must watch in the Murder She Baked series.

The small town of Eden Lake in rural northern Minnesota is rapidly becoming the murder capital of the stat per capita. Fortunately they have an able amateur sleuth in the person of Alison Sweeney bakery proprietor and creator of the region's best baked goods.

Other than the film is set at Christmas time and plum pudding has come down to us through Charles Dickens as a Yuletide delicacy and someone urges Sweeney to put it on the menu plum pudding really has nothing to do with the story.

But Christmas sure does. Kirby Morrow has opened a seasonal business the Elf's Christmas Yard where he sells Christmas trees. He winds up shot to death and of course it's Alison Sweeney along with town dentist Larry Hogan who finds him. After that no matter how much she's warned no keeping this woman away from a homicide she discovered.

As it turns out Morrow was one sleazy conman and a lot of people have reason not to mourn him. He's got a long estranged wife in town who hosts a radio show about romantic advice and a current fiancé who invested heavily in the business. And there are others.

I have to say in the end I felt a lot sympathy for the perpetrator. A good lawyer could get the person off.

Sweeney has been wavering between Hogan and police detective Cameron Mattison in the various Murder She Baked films. Whomever she marries I see a Lucy/Ricky like relationship with her being constantly warned you can't get into the homicide investigation.

And when she does she'll have a lot of 'splainin' to do.

One of the problems with most of these amateur detective series is that they always make it seem like the police are doing practically nothing. Actually this series is better than most in that regard. Mike is often ahead of Hannah. But sometimes not.

In this episode (if you will), Hannah discovers what appears to be a key clue which Mike acknowledges is helpful. If that's true, Mike is a poor detective. One of the first things modern detectives do is canvas for that particular clue.

Other than that, this is still a decent story. There is some romance too, in the form of a potential love triangle. The characters are appealing, especially Alison Sweeney as Hannah. While none of these actors will win an Oscar or Emmy, the acting is good enough to enjoy the story.

Love this series and was not surprised that it was nominated for an Emmy award at some point. Hannah is so real as is the whole cast. Hope to see a lot more new programs this year. I like that Hannah can't make up her mind if she should keep trying with Mike or give up. I loved the Valentines show where Hannah chooses to spend the holiday with her mother and sister rather then spend it with Mike or Norman.

I was so excited to watch the movie after reading the entire series of the Hannah Swensen series. Whoever directed this paid little to no attention to the actual characters, details, and vision of the books. Hannah's hair is supposed to be red and short, her mother is supposed to have short hair, in a few of the movies you never see her youngest sister Michelle, her cat Moishe is supposed to be a big furry red haired cat. There's many more details I could list, it's so disappointing to see the movie and it does the book 0 justice. Please pay attention to the actual books. Joanne Fluke is a great author, her books deserve a better movie that actually highlight her characters.

We watched this out of desperation during COVID-19 lockdown! What a dreary offering! All the characters were equally annoying in their roles! The actress playing the mother was particularly painful! Inane lines, silly situations, nothing really seemed worth caring about! Very disappointed we gave it our attention.

I think I'll stick to the Christmas romances thanks. This was just amateur hour at the crime club. Agatha Christie is rolling in her grave, even Agatha Raisin would be if she was dead.

Despite the gorgeous boys, Cameron Mathison and Gabriel Hogan I could barely maintain a focus watching this one. It had hardly any Christmas content and might as well have been set at any other time of the year. That way I wouldn't have been tricked into watching it as festive viewing.

I would also guess that you might need to have seen the ones that have come before to know the characters and the town a bit better, but that would probably have made it even easier to see who the killer was and what a ham they were!

No, no, just not good.

Low on Christmas, high on stupidity, this movie lacks nuance.

The characters are over the top and silly. The mother and sister are like Chatty Cathy dolls stuck on one psychotic speed. Hannah is either trying to balance them out or is clinically depressed. She gets excited about very little. She just seems confused in most situations.

The murderer is obvious from the very start. There is no rhyme or reason for the person to be inserted into the story and the behavior is so obviously strange.

Hannah's wannabe boyfriend/detective matches her note for note on the boring front. They find a lot of crime, but they couldn't find a spark between them with both hands and a flashlight.

Maybe they are the actual killers, because they will bore you to death.

I have to admit that I started to watch this crapfest during the first week of May this year. I couldn't STAND it. Who would say that a week before Christmas is a HOLIDAY? Yes, folks, a voice emanating from a radio said that it was a beautiful HOLIDAY morning. Moments later it is revealed that it's a week before Christmas. This writer by name of Alison Sweeney must be brain damaged.

OK, I'm going to put a season 9 DVD from MARRIED WITH CHILDREN to scrape the sugar off my brain.

If you think for a moment that this is Holiday Fare, fuggedabowddit. "IT'S A BUNDYFUL CHRISTMAS" is far better.

I have a penchant for bad Christmas movies. You know the type... so bad, they're good. This yawn-fest didn't even live up to that low standard.

Hallmark can almost always gloss over a bad script in a Christmas movie, and sometimes even bad acting, by decorating the whole thing up and making it look like Christmas exploded all over it. Bright, shiny decorations abound, right? No, not here. It was dreary, and you had to look hard for any sighting of Christmas. That was the real mystery here. Where's Christmas? Just because there's a glimpse of a tree and a lot of yammering about plum pudding doesn't cut it.

If anyone didn't guess the murderer right away, they must have had this on in the background while they cleaned their house and paid the bills. The murderer is obvious and blatantly eccentric.

As Christmas movies go, this felt like the day after Christmas - depressing. As mysteries go, it seemed almost stupid on purpose.

Alison Sweeney and Cameron Mathison totally no chemistry he steals all the scenes .awful co-host on home and family him and Debbie both camera hogs.too cheesy

Key things from the books were altered to the point of making this unenjoyable to watch. Andrea has 2 kids by this book. Dolores owns the antique shop with Carrie. Moishe the cat is big and orange. Hannah lives in apartment and her neighbors are key in some stories. Her relationships with Norman and Mike are far more developed. Character development in general is seriously lacking. This is probably a personal preference but the characters do not match the book descriptions. Would not have been too difficult to give Allison Sweeney red hair. Maybe make Dolores more prim and proper. Lisa also deserved more time. Oh and there are no bakers making all the treats in the book - Hannah and Lisa do all the baking - this little addition drove me crazy.

I learned something, plum pudding doesn't usually contain plums!

These "Murder, She Baked" series of movies will never be mistaken for great movies but they are entertaining, partly because they have to be complete by 85 minutes so there isn't any dragging.

Plus Alison Sweeney, who plays baker Hannah Swensen, is very attractive and very personable. As in the others there is a murder mystery to be solved but that never really takes the focus off the real meat of these movies. Whether Hannah will end up with Mike the Cop or with Norman the Dentist.

Her mother and sister are suitably annoying, it helps the story line move forward, they are OK in small doses.

We found a set of two DVDs at our public library that contains five of the "Murder, She Baked" movies. We are watching all of them at home.