Since it’s the 20th anniversary of the still-unsolved murder of JonBenét Ramsey, and networks both big and small can’t help but jump on a bandwagon, there have been countless specials, interviews and re-enactments of the horrible crime playing out on television screens over the past few months. Now, purveyor of fine biopics like Liz and Dick, starring Lindsay Lohan and the “Unauthorized” tales from the sets of Full House, Saved by the Bell and Beverly Hills 90210 has brought us their own, Lifetime-y take on the case.

The Lifetime original movie, Who Killed JonBenét?, aired on Saturday night, focusing on an investigation led by Detective Steve Thomas (played by Eion Bailey from Once Upon a Time). The source material for the movie seems to be Thomas’s book, JonBenét: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation. The best casting in this movie was Julia Campbell playing Patsy Ramsey. You may remember her as popular high school student-turned-humiliated adult Christy Masters from Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion (never forget!).

One unusual aspect to the film was that the actress playing JonBenét, Payton Lepinski (who bears a slight resemblance to the doomed child beauty queen), narrated the story. The film’s opening introduction features Payton saying, “Once upon a time there was a girl called JonBenét. She looked like a princess, but she wasn’t.” At the conclusion of the opening sequence, thing get oogy, as Payton whispers, “As I lay me down to sleep…That’s the last thing I remember.” It’s reminiscent of The Lovely Bones, if The Lovely Bones happened to star Tori Spelling, I guess. E! News spoke with the film’s director, Jason Lapeyre, about the unconventional choice and here’s what he had to say:

I was aware that there was a TV movie made about 15 years ago, so I definitely wanted to try and do something different and new with it, and one of the things that we talked about—the writer, the actors, and the producers and I—was humanizing JonBenét Ramsey as a person….

[Having JonBenét narrate the story] was one of the ideas. I mean that was something that originally came from the writer, but I immediately really liked the idea. I liked it because I felt it was haunting, literally, but I thought it was a very unsettling device. But yeah, it was this idea of this human being, JonBenét Ramsey. Lots of people have seen video of her dancing and heard her singing, but I’m not sure anyone’s ever stopped to think of her saying something or having a conversation, or having her own ideas about what may have happened that night, so we thought dramatically that was an interesting device with which to frame the story.

[From E! News]

In addition to the creepy narration, the director also mixed some of the real-life footage from the case with the scenes re-enacted by his actors, thinking “it would be jarring in an interesting way,” so that audiences wouldn’t forget that they were watching a true story, acted out by C- and D-list actors of varying talents, but a true story nonetheless. But, Lifetime being Lifetime, the movie featured some “Did that really happen?” moments.

I could only get through about 30 seconds of the movie. What I saw on my phone, narration and all, gave me the heebie-jeebies. There are theories out there, some possibly credible, some completely cracker-jack, about who may have killed her, but it seems we may never really know, especially since Patsy Ramsey passed away back in 2006. Now that we’ve revisited the gruesome details of the story a bunch of times, can we move on to something else…says the woman who can’t wait until Making A Murderer 2.

Photo credit: Lifetime, WENN.com