Hallmark movies aren't automatically bad if they're cheesy and on the cheaper side; there are ways to make these characteristics work, of course. But these qualities definitely don't help if the story they're telling is uninteresting and if the actors in front of the camera couldn't be compelled to deliver convincing emotions if their lives depended on it. Watching Gilded Newport Mysteries: Murder at the Breakers kind of feels like watching people rehearse a family-produced parody of an Agatha Christie novel, or like visiting Westworld and seeing the robots play-act a fictional scenario. Every line over-explains everything that happens on screen, and the mystery elements just aren't coherent enough for them to lead to a satisfying conclusion or interesting statement about the characters and their world.

For better or worse, Murder at the Breakers does make for some fun unintentional laughs if you watch it with the right people. It's baffling to watch certain scenes play out almost in a vacuum, then to have them conveniently explained in the following scene. It's even crazier to watch our protagonist—ostensibly a kind-hearted woman who goes out of her way to help solve a murder instead of waiting for the authorities to do so—react to death and violence in the most disinterested, borderline psychopathic way possible. When you begin to suspect every character because all of them are incapable of acting un-suspicious, that's probably a bad sign.