‘Killer’ charm

So what was all the fuss about?

When all is said and done, tonight’s Lifetime movie, “Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story,” isn’t much different from any of its by-the-numbers, crime-of-the-week Lifetime predecessors.

Then again, a convicted killer never won an injunction, however brief, stopping a TV network from airing a movie based on his story.

Porco did just that earlier this week, claiming “Romeo Killer” illegally invaded his privacy because he didn’t give his permission for the movie. His temporary injunction against Lifetime lasted exactly one day before it was dismissed.

But after watching “Romeo Killer,” in which Porco is portrayed as a pathological liar and narcissist, I’ve got to wonder if he went to all the trouble for the injunction just to shine the light back onto himself — however briefly.

Porco, who’s now 29, is serving 50 years in upstate Danemora prison. He was convicted, in 2006, of axing his father, Peter, to death — and severely maiming his mother, Joan, in the same attack. The case made headlines when Joan Porco maintained her son’s innocence throughout his trial.

That mother-son bond between Chris (Matt Barr) and Joan (Lolita Davidovich) is on display in “Romeo Killer” which, for all its cookie-cutter melodrama, never shows the killer’s face, while Joan has no memory of the actual attack — planting a tiny seed of doubt (the circumstantial evidence against Chris is substantial).

The Chris Porco in “Romeo Killer” is a charming, shallow, insecure liar, obsessed with flexing his abs, with his multiple romantic conquests and with impressing his frat brothers. He’s duped them into thinking he’s a wealthy trust-fund kid from Connecticut, sustaining the lie by running up massive debt on his parents’ credit cards and forging his dad’s signature on a bank loan.

When his parents are discovered slaughtered in their upstate (Delmar) home — Peter dead, Joan clinging to life — Chris is three hours away at school. It’s his alibi.

But local cop Joe Sullivan (Eric McCormack), who’s known the Porco family for years, doesn’t believe a word of Chris’ story — especially after he asks a barely conscious Joan at the horrific crime scene if Chris was responsible, and she nods her head. When she later denies this, it’s up to Sullivan to build his case — and to convince a jury of Chris’ guilt despite no traces of blood found in his car or on his clothes.

Barr is suitably creepy as Chris and McCormack — while slightly miscast — turns in a solid performance. For true-crime buffs only.